Meet Moov: Your Artificially Intelligent Personal Trainer
The fitness tracking wearable tech market is exploding right now, and on the forefront of latest innovations in the ever-growing industry is Moov Now: one part fitness tracker, one part artificially intelligent personal trainer. Launched as a Selfstarter campaign in February 2014, Moov generated over $1M in presale orders in just two weeks—meaning founders Nikola Hu, Meng Li, and Tony Yuan were really on to something. The personal trainer aspect takes this tracker beyond its myriad competitors.
Worn as a bracelet, Moov pairs with an app to train the wearer in 5 sports: running, cycling, swimming, boxing, and a 7-minute bodyweight workout for the time-crunched or the traveler. Unlike other popular trackers like Fitbit, which counts steps, Moov tracks movement within a 3-D space. An accelerometer, a gyroscope, and a magnetometer make up the hardware that allow this 3-D mapping to occur in real time—all without the use of a camera, and all within a surprisingly slim bracelet design.
Paired with the device’s data collection is an algorithm that makes sense of the data to deliver a Siri-voiced personal trainer, who coaches users with tips on achieving proper stride alignment and lifting technique. Creating a custom training plan, working out with Moov a few times earns you a certain level. Running, for example, has 69 different levels and 5 modes tailored to weight loss, speed training, and so on. Your personal trainer will encourage you to reach for higher levels and give you flack for slacking off, too. It’s all about accountability and feedback—the two keys to sticking with any workout regimen long enough to see results. At $59 apiece with pre-orders available and a scheduled fall release, the Moov Now bands seem streamlined, affordable, and well positioned to disrupt the wearable tech market and a whole bunch of (human) personal trainers out there.
Images via Moov