"ALEX" wearable to help with bad posture

A new wearable called ALEX has been developed by NAMU which checks your posture and logs your progress. This personal posture coach sits on the nape of your neck and if you are in a poor position for more than a few minutes vibrates, nudging you to readjust yourself. Though Lumo BodyTech's Lumo Lift has a similar function, it clips on to your shirt instead, while NAMU says the back of your neck is more reliable. This is a "smart" move by NAMU as they tap into a rising global healthcare issue of aching backs and shoulders from people increasingly hunching over devices. 

If you own a smartphone or laptop, you know all too well about the pains that come with using one. Your neck, your back and your shoulders suffer from long hours hunched over your device. You’re not alone in this.

In a 2014 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey(opens in a new tab), 28.1% of adults in the U.S. reported having pain in their lower back while 14.6% reported pain in their neck. If we were to narrow in on the Internet-addicted or people working in cubicles, the percentages might be even higher.

That’s why countless products like posture braces are dedicated to correcting this problem. Korean startup NAMU doesn’t just want to correct our posture, though. It also wants to track it. The company launched a Kickstarter campaign(opens in a new tab) Tuesday for ALEX(opens in a new tab), a posture wearable that checks your posture and logs your progress.

SEE ALSO: 7 Simple Ways to Improve Your Posture at Work

The personal posture coach is a rectangular black device that sits on the nape of your neck right below your hairline and stays in place with flexible silicon legs that hook onto your ears.

If you’re in a poor position for more than a few minutes — what NAMU calls “forward head posture” or the infamous “text neck” — ALEX will vibrate, gently nudging you to readjust yourself. It's worth noting that you can have bad posture but not have the problem of holding your head too far forward or looking too far down. So while ALEX helps with those two issues, it won't help with, say, your extra-rounded shoulders or pigeon toes. If anything, it's a reminder to check yourself.

On the mobile side, the wearable’s companion app (iOS and Android) allows you to customize the time length and the vibration intensity.

Credit: NAMU

The app monitors your posture in real time, tracking the angle of your neck and the position of your head relative to your body, which you can see in “avatar” mode.

You can also view your weekly, daily and hourly progress with graphs that chart the percentage of time you had good posture.

NAMU isn’t the first device to use tech to combat bad postures. Lumo BodyTech's Lumo Lift, pictured below, is a similar device, but it clips onto your bra or shirt instead of awkwardly hanging around the back of your head. It’s also smaller and comes in multiple colors, making it a more subtle and versatile option. NAMU, however, says the back of your neck is a more reliable location to determine if someone is in a "text neck" position or "forward head posture."

The Lumo Lift Credit:

NAMU began designing ALEX around two years ago, according to the Kickstarter page. Now that they have market-ready prototypes and a completed app, the company hopes to start production and deliver the product to campaign backers in May 2016. As of this writing, the campaign raised $16,075 of its $50,000 goal.