The wearable-tech scene is awash with gadgets claiming to improve and make sense of your life by measuring your activity, your sleep, your heart rate and even your stress level. Yet somewhere amidst all the noise, Lumo Lift focuses on an area of the market which wearables have yet to make a big impact. Posture.

Lumo Bodytech is known for their maiden product, the Lumo Back, which works on the same principle of posture coaching and tracking your activity. With the success of Lumo Back, the company has taken upon itself to raise funds for its next product, the Lumo Lift . Sensing the potential in this small device, I pre-ordered and just received mine recently. Here’s to a review with good posture.

LOOK AND FEEL

The Lumo Lift unit is stylishly made. The entire unit is to be worn under the clothes except for the square clasp.

The magnetic clasp holds firmly and I’ve worn the Lumo Lift with a T-shirt running on a treadmill at about 14km/hr without the slightest sign of drop. I can understand why there’s an advisory for people wearing heart pacers; both the square clasp and the Lumo Lift unit contains powerful magnets.

Unless you’ve colour matched your clothes to the square clasp shade for shade, it is unlikely this tiny square patch will blend in. I’ve had nearly each and every single one of my friends asking me what device I’m wearing. The minor bulge of the main Lumolift unit under the clothing is nothing compared to the tiny square clasp on the outside. Perhaps it’s for this reason that Lumo Bodytech is also selling different coloured square clasps for accessorising.

The Lumo Lift tracker is light at about 12.5 grams including the square claps. The internal memory stores up to 4 weeks of data without syncing. Battery life is about 5 days and a full charge supposedly takes up to 2 hours.

FUNCTIONS AND DATA PRESENTATION

The Lumo Lift is first and foremost a posture coach. According to Lumo Bodytech, it can be worn behind the collar, on your bra strap or as a piece of jewellery. For best results, it should be worn below the collar bone.

You can “align” the Lumo Lift so that it will notify you via vibrations (with coaching mode enabled) if you’ve deviated from the aligned position. The onus is on the user to remember to remember to align the Lumo Lift.

I found the Lumo Lift the most useful when I’m at my workstation for extended periods of time. Once I sit down, I’ll initiate aligning by double pressing the Lumo Lift tracker. The Lumo Lift will vibrate 2 times to indicate that alignment is completed. Thereafter a long press will start the coaching session. It’s really easy and I got the hang of it after a few runs. Less is truly more.

I can either long-press to exit a coaching session or double press to re-align. Unlike trackers like Jawbone UP24, Runtastic Orbit or even the Garmin Vivosmart where the tracker will buzz you after extended periods of inactivity, the Lumo Lift can go an entire day without vibrating reminders if the user does not start the coaching sessions.

The vibration kicks in once the body is off from the aligned position, with about a second delay, and I try to revert to my original aligned posture. Reinforcement theory at work here.

The user can also customise the buzz; vibrating once upon detection of bad posture or repeated vibrations until good posture is attained.

The coaching sessions are not indefinite though the duration can be adjusted from your compatible smartphone device. Just tap “Coach” and select the duration. Once synced, that will be the default coaching session duration the next time you initiate coaching. Presently, the longest duration for coaching is 4 hours.

Lumo Bodytech has indicated based on their research and experience that focused coaching sessions would bring about greater behavioural change. I’m for timed focused coaching sessions; the vibrations can hardly be felt when the body is in motion and it’d be a waste of battery.

[easyazon_link identifier=”B00N9P8GMW” locale=”US” tag=”gadfitgadnewr-20″]Lumo Lift[/easyazon_link] also doubles up as an activity tracker. Your activity level is quantified in terms of step count.

The tracked stats are presented in simple and easy to understand format. Since only 2 stats are tracked, the Lumo Lift app presents the amount of time the body has maintained good posture and also the activity level for the day.

If you like more details, you can expand the menu and see an hour by hour progression.

A new app update now allows the user to view trends over time. Information that is charted includes the number of hours of good posture and the number of steps. Nifty!

After about a week of tracking, I received a few automated emails from Lumo Bodytech congratulating me on my achievements and also a weekly summary which I found very useful, similar to that provided by Fitbit and Jawbone.

ANYTHING ELSE?

I wore the Lumo Lift to work for 4 straight days and a charge was only required at the end of the 4^th day. Lumo Bodytech stated that the battery lasts 5 days so that’s about right. I would assume the usage will varies by individual and also how many coaching sessions were initiated. The charging port is proprietary with a USB end.

Lumo Bodytech has indicated that fitting clothing is recommeded. I’m not sure how many ladies out there are wearing fitting clothing everyday but the provided clasp for bra straps ensure that the Lumo Lift stays close to the body and hidden. No such luck for guys.

The application for Windows has just been released but requires Windows 7 and higher. You’ll require a seperate dongle to be purchased from Lumo Bodytech.($19.99)  The dongle allows users to receive instant feedback while working on the desktop. In appreciation for supporting them  in the early days of Lumo Lift,  all pre-order customers will receive a free dongle. I did and boy was it a pleasant surprise!

IN A NUTSHELL

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Multiple reminders (vibrations) to keep good body posture
• Smartphone device is only required for syncing. Lumo Lift works independently
• Doubles up as activity tracker
• Weekly updates via email
• Trends on mobile app
• Customisable coaching vibrations
• Can accessorise with different coloured square clasps
• Lumo Lift can store about 4 weeks of data without syncing
• 5 days battery life
• Sweat resistant but not waterproof
• Desktop application for Windows 7 or higher

Cons:

• Require close fitting clothing

Prolonged sitting at the work desk can result in poor posture, inactivity and eventually more serious health problems over time. The Lumo Lift is an economical yet ingenious solution to a thousand dollars problem.

If you have a hundred bucks to spare, the Lumo Lift more than carries its weight in terms of functionality. Personally I see immense potential yet to be tapped. Movement reminders, sleep tracking when clasped on bed sheet or an armband, adding friends function since there’s tracking of movements. The list goes on and on. Hopefully the developers can work their magic.

While the Lumo Lift was able to detect significant body posture deviations from the set align, I found it less sensitive in detecting when the neck is craning towards the computer screen. But that’s just about the only gripe I have.

The crystal jewelry clasps were released on December and are priced at $29 each allowing users to adds variation and style to the standard square clasps. The jewelry clasps are silver plated and embedded with Swarovski crystals.

For a start, the Lumo Lift has delivered on its promise of reminding me to keep a good body posture and stay active. Anything more to come is a bonus. A huge bonus.

Lumo Lift presently only supports select iOS devices and is at the recommended retail price of $79.99 depending on configuration. Get your Lumo Lift  today.

You might be interested in:

• Misfit Beddit Sleep Monitoring system review
• Withings Aura sleep monitoring system
• Garmin Vivosmart activity tracker (HR reading-chest)
• Garmin Vivofit activity tracker (HR reading-chest)