If you think you need to improve your neck and shoulder posture, there’s an iPhone app that uses AirPods to help you improve just that. Developed by Jordi Bruin, Posture Pal is an interesting idea that will help you during long work hours, while playing a video game, or even while watching a movie without destroying your back.
Bruin has developed some nice apps over these past months. One of the latest is Navi, which is a FaceTime client that adds subtitles and live translations through SharePlay. Now with Posture Pal, the developer wants to help people improve their neck and shoulder posture by using the motion sensor in the AirPods.
A few years back I bought a hardware tracker to improve my posture, which required me to stick it to the back of my neck. After a few days of feeling like a cyborg I stopped using it. When I came across the motion detection API I realized I would be able to create the same posture tracking experience but in a much less obtrusive format. A lot of people have their AirPods in their ears the entire day, so they won’t have to adjust their lifestyle as much.
With Posture Pal, you just have to start a session, and it will keep track of your neck tilt and will alert you when a bad posture is detected, even if the app is in the background. It also features:
- Visual, vibration and sound alerts when bad posture is detected
- Works in the background with low battery usage
- Works while other sound or music is playing
- Three different sensitivity levels
- Full support for Dynamic Text, Voice Over and Voice Control
Posture Pal requires AirPods 3, AirPods Pro, AirPods Max, or Beats Fit Pro. Bruin says that other headphones that can send motion data to your iPhone will also work.
While the app is simple to use, it’s also very colorful and features a giraffe. The developer explained why he made the application this way:
My little cousins always ask me if I can also make video games as a developer. I wanted to make something fun together with them, which is why I came up with the concept for Posture Pal where there are animated characters that inform the user about their posture. The first Posture Pal is Rafi the Giraffe! Users can interact with Rafi and they will hopefully make the experience a bit more playful for people.
Posture Pal uses an API introduced with iOS 14 to work, which is the same motion data used for the Spatial Audio feature on the iPhone. The app is available in 18 languages (English, Dutch, German, Danish, French, Italian, Spanish, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Bulgarian, Turkish, Croatian, Portuguese, Korean, Hungarian, Polish, Vietnamese, Norwegian, and Afrikaans), and it’s free to download.
Users can track their posture for up to ten minutes at a time and can adjust the colors in the app until they relaunch the app. With a $2 one-time payment, users can remove the time limit, customize sensitivity angles, colors, themes, plus choose up to 12 different app icons.
For the first week of sales, Bruin will send all proceeds to his intern’s family and friends that had to flee Ukraine in these past 20 days due to war.
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