Liz Gannes

Recent Posts by Liz Gannes

If Sitting Is the New Smoking, Soon There May Be a Crowdfunded Gadget to Help You Stop

“Sitting is the new smoking” is a good slogan. There’s all sorts of scientific evidence to back it up, from the basic — your metabolism slows down, your circulation is inhibited — to the hyperbolic — according to an Australian study, an hour of sitting while watching TV cuts 22 minutes from your life span, while smoking a cigarette cuts 11 minutes.

Does that get your blood going enough to stand up? Perhaps you should check out a new Indiegogo campaign for what’s probably the simplest wearable activity tracker yet: The Rise. All it does is detect its orientation and monitor motion to decide whether or not you’re sitting down.

Of course, there’s a companion Rise mobile app that will ping you to get up. It will also tell you about your sitting trends and help you compete with other people who have the device.

Each Rise will cost $39, and the campaign — created by a team from the recent Seattle Startup Weekend hackathon — is looking to raise $80,000.

But if you’re selling a wearable activity tracker, you’re by necessity competing with the Nike FuelBand, the Jawbone Up, the FitBit, the Misfit Shine … the list goes on and on. It’s going to be tough. Rise does less than any of them.

That’s the point, according to co-creator Christopher Fryer, who is a designer at Expedia by day. “Sitting is what’s the problem, it’s not inactivity,” he said.

“People doing step counting are actively trying to do something,” Fryer added. “This is for people who are toeing into the space.”

But you have to think that what would really help him out is for the American Heart Association or someone similar to do a big set of PSAs about how sitting is the new smoking.

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