Since the pandemic hit the U.S. in March of 2020, it has become an extremely easy and common place for me to sit at my computer almost all day. Most of my daily activities are tied solely to a computer, including work, school, school organizations, socializing remotely, gaming. As my lifestyle has become more sedentary and I could not go to the gym, I developed poor posture causing pain and discomfort in many places including my neck, shoulders, and back. I’ve tried certain solutions such as stretching in the morning and trying to sit up straight when I notice myself slouching. While the stretching helped, throughout the day my posture would progressively get worse without a reset and I would often not even realize that I am slouching.
The solution is an app or Chrome extension called Posture. Posture sends you smart notifications with specific tasks to improve your posture that take 15 seconds. Posture syncs with your calendar to not disturb you during meetings and works around your schedule. Posture is fully customizable allowing you to change the amount, frequency, and types of tasks, for example stretches that don’t require you to stand up. In the future, there will be breathing exercises and other smart breaks included. When a task appears the user must confirm that they completed it or quit it off and posture will use this information to tailor the tasks to you. Camera-enabled features include analyzing your sitting posture to improve the tasks, monitoring the head position throughout the data, and ergonomically aligning your desk setup. Posture will allow everyday undergrad students who are doing school and much more from home to improve their health, focus, and feel better throughout the day with no more than 15 seconds and without ever leaving your chair.
From my preliminary research, Posture may be a perfect fit for students. Posture does not require a physical device and is inexpensive (free or $.99) unlike many of the solutions which can be at least $100 and only have reminders to fix your posture. Many competitors are not device agnostic and phone-only. Two roadblocks that I anticipate in the future of Posture is that I am not a developer nor am I a health professional. Despite this, I could see myself and others using this product.
I think this might eventually become more of a vitamin than an aspirin but just like the Apple watch sends me reminders to stand up, there could be some integration with reminders/short exercises suggested? Don’t worry about apps/pricing. It is about finding a problem worth solving right now!
Bad posture is a common problem and with the pandemic, I’m positive more people have spent more time sitting down. I like the idea, I think you can incorporate exercises into the notifications. For example, if I set my Posture notifications to every 15 minutes, then every 15 minutes, the app should speak to me, not just a give notification bell and it can say things like “Fix your posture”, “Roll your shoulders back”, “Stretch your arms”, etc. I believe that would allow it to be more useful especially at home. I know in my case, my family is my notification anytime they manage to pass by my room and notice I have a bad posture.
I really like your idea, Leo, but I agree with the advice that Emmanuel gave you. I think that if you complemented all those ideas, your idea would be bigger because it has more values. It is not only that it warns you when you have a bad posture, but that it gives you recommendations that types of exercises would be good to solve or avoid that problem.