Lumo Back Bodytech assessment: a vibrating cummerbund to improve your posture

‘I wore it for 5 days and it really is created a distinction.’ Photograph: Karen Robinson for the Observer

THE Goal

My posture has been horrible for as extended as I can remember. As a little one, my dad and mom would consistently inform me to sit or stand up straight and as an grownup, a pilates instructor friend informed me that my bad posture is due to a weak “core”.

Her tip, which many years later on comes hurtling back every time I catch my slumped reflection in a store window, is to picture I am gripping a satsuma beneath every armpit. It works for a bit, but then I fail to remember. A desk-bound occupation does not help issues, so I have all my hopes pinned to the Lumo Back BodyTech. I want to find out to stand tall.

THE Strategy

An elasticised belt with a sensor connected communicates wirelessly with an iOS app. The Lumo Back BodyTech promisingly bills itself as the “world’s most innovative biochemical model of pelvic tilt and core physique movement”.

This essentially means that it picks up on your slightest movements. If you slouch, the sensor vibrates, alerting you to sit or stand straight. The belt goes beneath my clothes with the sensor on the modest of my back, and I get things started by calibrating the sensor.

The Lumo adapts to person users’ physique varieties so the calibration stage is vital. After it is ready to go, it zaps me every time it senses I’ve slumped a tiny. For the 1st two days, it vibrates well more than 100 times. The app keeps track of my movements, providing a “Total Straight Time” and “Complete Slouch Time” score each and every day, week or month so I can hold an eye on how I am undertaking.

There’s also a little pedometer, so you can see how much walking you do. I end the initial two days using much more “zap time” (my term) than “straight time”.

By the third day, the vibrations ease a small. Tracking my progress on the app keeps me going.

THE VERDICT

This is a excellent thought in theory, and the engineering employed is remarkable, if a tiny also delicate – the slightest move equals a zap and is quite a distraction. I wore it for 5 days. It has produced a difference.

A week later, I am far more conscious of my posture. Each time I seem at the belt – now in its box on my desk along with a satsuma – I de-slouch, so annoying had been the constant vibrations.

Lumo Back Bodytech assessment: a vibrating cummerbund to improve your posture