OH GOD NO NOT ANOTHER WEARABLE REVIEW.

Oh god yes, another wearable review. I just can’t seem to stop buying and wearing stupid things. Also, this one hasn’t had much attention in the UK and I want to boost my profile by being one of the first to write about how dumb it is lol.

So today we’re (I’m) talking about the Lumo Lift – “the world’s best selling digital posture coach.” Yes, really. This is where we’re at. This is what civilisation has come to.

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It’s a small little device that you wear under your clothes using a little magnetic clasp. You hold it down to activate it, then tap it a few times when you’re in a ‘good’ posture. If you move out of that posture for too long, the lumo vibrates, gently reminding you to OI STOP SLOUCHING YA FRICKIN IDIOT.

It also syncs to an app via bluetooth because everything has to sync to an app via bluetooth these days. The app is good if you like your phone telling you how much of a slouching pig you are in unkind terms.

Oh yeah, and that second bit it’s tracking there is steps. Everything has to track steps now apparently. I didn’t really use that feature so much, because my watch does that too, and my phone does that too, and also I know when I’m walking and not walking by using my brain.

I should mention that Lumo have another very similar product called Lumo Run which is basically identical except it tells you about your running instead. And maybe posture and stuff too. Who knows? I have zero interest in it.

So, how did I get on?

Well, I’ve stopped wearing it. I lasted even less time than with my Pavlok, and I encountered many of the same issues. First up, there’s the social aspect…

To put on the Lumo Lift you have to sort of hold it under your clothes and then put a little square magnet on your clothes to hold it on. All well and good if you’re wearing more than one layer, but it’s obviously super visible if you’re only wearing a top/shirt. Cue the comments from literally everyone asking ‘what is that little metal square on your chest.’

It didn’t help that I was wearing it right next to my breastbone so it looked like I had some weird metallic nipple thing going on like some killer terminator robot from the future. But it’s gonna look weird no matter what, in my opinion.

Then comes actually answering the question of what it is. Nobody can take seriously the idea of anyone ever wearing a ‘digital posture coach.’ Just imagine, someone tells you they’re wearing a device concealed under their clothes that tracks and corrects their posture all day every day. Do you think this person is some sort of future tech genius? Or do you think they’re probably a bit weird? I won’t bother going into which of those reactions I mostly got from people.

Just LOL at these ‘lifestyle’ images from the media section of their website. Mr Business Man is never ever ever gonna wear one of these to any kind of serious business meeting. And who would wear a ‘digital posture coach’ on a sexy date out? I don’t understand this marketing.

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Does it work? Well, yeah. But I don’t have any idea how. Something to do with accelerometers or something? I’m sure the technology is very clever, but as with the Pavlok it has its downsides.

The first is that you have to calibrate the device yourself. This means getting into what you consider to be ‘good’ posture, and then tapping the device. So the device goes off when you leave this calibrated position. But if I don’t have good posture, how am I to know what good posture is? A couple of times I stretched myself up into some impossible-to-maintain position to calibrate it, and had it going off every 2 minutes; other times I’d kind of be slouching anyway when I tapped it and it wouldn’t go off all day. I mean, yeah, I could read up on what good posture is and make sure that I’m holding a sensible position. But if I’m gonna do that I might as well just commit to have good posture anyway.

Like with the Pavlok there’s an issue with it requiring your input and willpower to solve a problem that’s primarily caused by laziness. It feels like a life hack, but it’s still requiring work on your part. So yeah, not great.

Otherwise it works just fine. The battery life in the thing is a bit short, and I had to charge it up quite often. It has a dedicated charging dock (rather than just having a USB socket or something), which means having yet another charging dock in your life to deal with. It also runs off Bluetooth, which annoys me. I deliberately have bluetooth off on my phone because battery life on modern phones is about 10 minutes. So I had to sync it to my iPod. Not sure what I’d have done if that wasn’t an option.

Anyway, to summarise…

LUMO LIFT

Pros:

  • It works well. It didn’t break or anything.
  • It’s reasonably discreet.
  • Easy to use.

Cons:

  • It didn’t improve my posture. I ended up ignoring it mostly.
  • Nobody will ever take you seriously again.
  • $80
  • You have to calibrate it yourself like some kind of caveman.

My verdict:

Probably give it a miss unless you’re desperate for a weird wearable to review like I always am.