Oded Cohen was frustrated when trying to find a method to help his mother with her back pain. Strap supports, massage devices, and prescriptions were tested but nothing helped long term. He was searching for a method that would not interfere with a user’s daily lifestyle, and would cause the user to develop healthy habits that will strengthen the back over time. Eventually he came up with the idea for Upright Pro, a posture correction device that corrects ‘screen slouch’. A new smaller version of the device has been developed as a wearable and the team at Upright is running a crowdfunding campaign for the UPRIGHT GO.
UPRIGHT GO is a wearable that adheres to the user’s back and develops better habits and better posture in two to three weeks. Once attached and activated the unit will buzz when the user begins to slouch. An app compatible with iOS and Android allows the user to review stats, activity and progress.
Oded Cohen answered some questions for us about UPRIGHT GO and its development. He said that one of the most critical design decisions revolved around the docking station for the device. If a user wears the device for thirty minutes, where should it go for the rest of the day? After several decision making meetings the team reached out to early testers and Indiegogo campaign users to get user data and the Upright docking station was developed.
Major design challenges involved designing for rigidity – the device needed to be flexible enough to follow the body’s contours but solid enough to safely house the interior components. Eventually a silicone was found that matched the needs of the product. A big selling point of the UPRIGHT GO is the accuracy of the sensors, and that accuracy comes from direct contact with the skin. This was a big consideration where the team worried about skin care and irritation from the adhesive, but a 3M hypoallergenic solution already in production proved to be a good fit for the device.
UPRIGHT GO is a novel solution for the problem of posture as we spend more of our lives looking down at our phones or hunched over desk screens. The futuristic science fiction vision of people becoming cyborgs bit by bit instead has transformed into a future where we lean on devices for small amounts of time to train ourselves to be better.
An incredible amount of clinical research regarding posture and the original device has been published in partnership with Stanford, Ohio State, Newcastle University, University of Haifa, The Academic College at Wingate, and Tel Aviv University. The campaign launched this morning and has already met its funding target, the campaign ends on May 10, 2017 and first units are expected to ship in June.