The Newest Health Tracker is a Mirror

Smart refrigerators, smart thermostats, smart toothbrushes – everyone is trying to create new digital health markets. While intriguing, it is sometimes hard to see how they will improve my health or quality of life. Until now: Sandra Rosenbluth, a student in Mobile Health Design, is revolutionizing the mirror.

Everyone has a mirror; they vary in size and quality, but none are smart until now. And smart in a way that might change how people think about diet and fitness, moving away from weight or BMI as a measure of success or failure.

Sandra describes how she conceived of the SmartWatch Mirror and how it works:

I was scrolling through my Facebook news feed one day, when I read a status that truly horrified me. A friend had written, “Since I started working out, I feel better and look better, but my weight on the scale hasn’t gone down, and I feel really sad.” This statement really stuck with me, even more so when she admitted she was addicted to her scale and couldn’t possibly throw it out. Therefore, when the time came to think of a smart device for my Mobile Health Design final paper, I designed the ShapeWatch Mirror.

The idea behind the ShapeWatch Mirror is straightforward: You can’t always rely on a scale to tell you whether a new diet or exercise plan is working, so rely on your mirror instead. The ShapeWatch Mirror has the ability to take a photo of the user, which it then sends to a phone or tablet. A contour outline is drawn around the outside of the user’s body, making a trace of his/her shape. That contour line can be merged onto previous outlines, showing the user exactly where his/her shape has changed. In other words, while the scale might show the same number, the contour lines can show loss of fat in the midsection and gain of muscle in the arms.

Using techniques I learned in Mobile Health Design, I was able to show how the ShapeWatch Mirror was truly aimed at its target audience by creating sample personas of potential users. By comparing the mirror to other smart devices, I was able to show how it utilized previous devices’ strengths, like tracking, while discarding weaknesses, like relying on weight as the sole measure of progress. Together, these techniques helped me design a strong product. To learn more about the ShapeWatch Mirror, read my full paper.