A few years ago, a developer who suffered from cervical spondylosis like many young people bought a hardware attitude tracker and tried to stick it to the back of his neck to monitor himself. But within a few days he gave up—he felt like a robot when he put it on.
Later, when he discovered that AirPods had built-in motion sensors, a bold idea emerged: Since many people wear AirPods all day, why make an application that does not monitor posture through AirPods?
Thus, the Posture Pal app was born.
▲ Posture Pal and his developers. Image credit: Jordi Bruin
Visual feedback
This is an app made specifically for adjusting the posture of the shoulder and neck. Unlike some health apps that like rigorous data or cold tips, Posture Pal has a built-in "gesture partner" - giraffe Rafi. As for why it is a giraffe, who better represents the "cervical spine" than it?
▲ Posture Pal's built-in gesture partner: Giraffe Rafi . Image credit: Jordi Bruin
The overall operation is very simple. Open the app, give the relevant permissions, and bring AirPods to get started. Shake your head back and forth and you'll notice that the giraffe moves in line with yours.
By default, blue indicates a good posture and Rafi will smile as the corners of its mouth rise. If you lower your head or lean back beyond the set range for a certain amount of time, the screen will turn pink, and Rafi will also hang down the corner of your mouth to show sadness.
▲ In order to make the little giraffe not sad, it is also necessary to keep sitting upright!
Multiple usage scenarios
For very positive feedback, you can open Pose Pal while you're working or studying and put it next to your computer to see the status of Rafi at a glance.
▲ Monitor posture with Posture Pal while working. Image credit: Jordi Bruin
You can also poke Rafi when you touch the fish, and it will interact with you.
▲ Poke to interact with Rafi
If you think it's too childish to have a cartoon giraffe on your screen at work, or if you're easy to get distracted, you can also go to the settings to open "Super Serious Mode": as the name suggests, the little giraffes in the home page will disappear after turning on this setting, using only the background color block changes to remind you of your current state.
▲ Super serious!
Apps support background operation. Usually when walking and brushing the mobile phone, whether it is watching a video or listening to music, even if you can't see the screen prompt, you can get a reminder through the prompt tone or mobile phone vibration.
Fast start-up and automation
What's the hardest thing about developing a good habit? persist.
Even the best app doesn't make much sense if you just try it and forget about it. Posture Pal supports the "Start Tracking On Launch" mode, which can get the ultimate and simple monitoring experience after opening: after wearing AirPods and then clicking on the app, the app will immediately start detecting and hiding in the background, the whole process is only 1, 2 seconds, very comfortable.
If you don't even think you can remember the operation of "clicking on the app"... You can continue to operate at an advanced level, automating:
Create automation in shortcuts to automatically start monitoring when you bring AirPods.
Go to shortcuts > Automation >upport right corner + > Create a personal automation Bluetooth > device > choose the headset you use most often > Add action next > Search For The Pose Pal > select Start monitoring > Next
It is possible to automatically start monitoring after wearing AirPods.
Monitor sensitivity and progression
Through the dashboard in the lower left corner of the home page, the sensitivity of posture monitoring can be adjusted, and the basic version supports three gears: high (10°), medium (20°), and low (35°).
In addition, the basic version only supports one cycle, that is, 10 minutes of monitoring time, after which you need to quit the app and start over.
Pay $12 to upgrade to the Pro version, which includes unlimited monitoring cycles, custom sensitivity, custom hint color matching, and more app icons.
▲ After the cycle is completed, you will get a summary
The app currently supports AirPods (3rd generation), AirPods Pro, AirPods Max and Beats Fit Pro, as well as other headphones capable of transferring motion data to the iPhone.
If you happen to be using these supported headphones, try the Pose Pal and stay upright with the cute little giraffe Rafi.