Jose Torres, CEO of Boogio, wants you to track your fitness with the most obvious part of your body: your feet.
“We’ve got 60,000 layers of sensitivity in the Boogio,” he told Cult of Mac at last week’s Electronic Entertainment Expo, “so we can track gravitational force, inner balance, and three different acceleration forces of your feet.”
Millions of people are getting into tracking their fitness with their smartphones and other wearable tech like the FitBit, connected scales and Bluetooth heart rate monitors. You can track your steps, your heart rate, and even your sleep with these devices; it’s no small wonder they’re selling like the proverbial hotcakes.
Torres (pictured below) didn’t want to create another gadget that you’d have to make sure fit. With shoes, everyone is unique. He told us that the secret to the Boogio system is a thin sensor ribbon that slips under your own shoes’ insole, and connects to a little widget that then sticks on the side of your shoe.
The Boogio system then connects to a mobile app that can let you see all the data pulled from the shoe. Torres showed us the center of gravity, motion, and height data streaming from his own connected shoes right there on site. The mobile app visualizes this data for you with a clever spring-style graphic.
Boogio didn’t stop there, however.
“We want to see developers of fitness apps and games use the Boogio system in their own products,” he said.
Imagine using a Boogio-enabled shoe in a virtual reality game, for example. The game could pull in the data from your feet and use it in the game to move your character around as you walk in place, for example.
Coaches and athletes can use the systems to provide real-time feedback on athletic performance in cycling, yoga, running and any other sport activity — our feet are the main driving force of many sports.
“We want to provide data for diagnostic, utility, and entertainment products,” said Torres.
The Boogio shoe sensor system already allows for connections to iOS, Android, PC and Oculus Rift (a virtual reality gaming headset), and the team will soon provide output to Pebble smart watches. The sensor itself should launch later this year.
