The sedentary lifestyle will be the death of us all. We tend to spend 10-15 hours on average bending over a desk at schools, at work, or at home. Consequently, 80% of people worldwide suffer from spine problems. A group of Ukrainian students from Odessa National Polytechnic University set out to solve this problem and help their peers fight back aches. This is how Mevics, a stylish wearable device preventing slouching and encouraging an active lifestyle, came to life.
“We are all programmers, and at some point, we started noticing that people who spend their day in front of the computer slouch and are unaware of hurting their overall health. Since we already had certain research done in the field, we knew what to do next”, said Viktor Laushtan, the CEO of Mevics. Together with his team, he identified the common problems of existing devices – lack of comfort, tacky design, the absence of a companion app – and created a brand new design that is multifunctional and easy to use.
The Mevics device is a minimalistic capsule, attachable to clothes via a magnetic hold. It is available in two colors, white and black, and is barely visible on clothing. The device vibrates each time you begin to slouch, reminding you about proper posture. It also records information about your activity at all times, counting your steps, calories, and distance walked. All data is available within the companion mobile app in the form of charts. It can also send push notifications to remind you that you haven’t been active in a while. If you are a programmer, you will also be interested in an SDK which allows you to create custom applications for this device.
One of the groups that Mevics targets are parents. As bad posture influences the spine especially during the early years of one’s life, Mevics takes extra care to monitor the slouching habits of children. The device sends reports to their parents, informing them about the progress their children have made.
As for a company that started out only in 2015, Mevics has got impressive momentum. The team validated their product idea during the IT Eureka competition, where they were awarded first place in the category “Best Innovative Solution” out of 700 participants. Since then, the company grows at an amazing pace, having already obtained over $500k of funding from UBTower and exhibited their solution at CES 2017 in Las Vegas.
At the moment, Mevics is running a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter, with the pre-sale price of their device of $55. The team plans to start shipping their products to Kickstarter backers in November 2017. The expected retail price of their device is $70.
