LumoBack Posture Sensor - Review
Ever since I was a child I have been conscious of having a good posture - it's definitely something that my mum has instilled in me. As well as helping my body to look its best, maintaining good posture is especially important to me as I have a breathing condition. However, I'm very aware that spending the past few weeks sat at a desk, glued to my laptop, while I've been slaving over degree assignments and a full-time internship, has definitely not been conducive to good posture. So, here's where the LumoBack* comes in.
Like lots of health and fitness trackers, sensors and apps on the market at the moment, Lumo can sync with your mobile devices to record your daily activities such as time sitting, standing, moving and sleeping, and estimating the number of calories you've burnt. However, what really intrigued me about the LumoBack was its ability to monitor both your sitting and standing posture. After setting up and calibrating it, Lumo will provide posture feedback by gently vibrating when your spine falls out of alignment so that you are made aware, and can quickly correct yourself.
Lumo is super-slim and fastens around you with a comfortable, and adjustable, elasticated strap so it's pretty easy to forget that you're wearing it. That is until it starts buzzing at you because you've slowly slumped into Quasimodo-mode without realising it.
During my first day using Lumo, I experienced back ache, and pretty quickly too. I imagine this is because I'm not used to using my back muscles to maintain correct posture as I should. That's a little bit worrying, right? But in terms of what that says about Lumo's ability to do the job, it's very effective.
Aside from the odd occasion (usually late in the day) when the buzzing can get a tad frustrating (although it's only doing what you've asked it to do, poor little Lumo...), the only downside to the LumoBack is that it fails to monitor your upper back posture. Although the fact that I was being alerted to lower back slouching meant that I was overall more conscious of my posture as a whole, I will admit that there was a little bit of deceptive upper-back cheating going on during those frustrating late-in-the-day moments. Especially as Lumo is a fairly expensive device (currently £129.95 on Amazon) it would be great to have some kind of upper-back sensor that could integrate with the lower-back Lumo to provide more comprehensive feedback.
Overall, I found the LumoBack really helpful and effective. Although it doesn't come cheap, I think sometimes it is important to invest a little in your wellbeing and your posture definitely has a lot to do with that. From how you look, to how you feel, and even how healthy you are internally, posture is really important.
If you have any tricks for training posture, I'd love to hear them!