No more sloppy workouts: AI can correct your form.
What’s new: A home exercise system uses neural nets to analyze your motions and tell you when you perform a move properly, reports The Verge.
How it works: Tempo is a six-foot-tall easel with a giant screen on the front and storage for weights on the back. The system’s motion tracking capability is built around Microsoft’s Azure Kinect. A depth-sensing camera emits infrared light and indirectly measures the time it takes for photons to zip from the camera to your body and back again, creating a continuous 3D image.
- Azure Kinect’s development kit comes with AI software that tracks body motion. Tempo didn’t respond to a question about whether it uses this model in its product.
- The model is trained to judge good and bad form across a variety of exercises. If your knees are off center during a squat, for example, the machine will tell you.
- The system also delivers live training sessions. Instructors can see your machine’s data and call you out if your form isn’t up to snuff.
Behind the news: Tempo is the first at-home exercise machine that monitors form, but it has plenty of competition in the world of Internet-connected exercise equipment. Peloton makes treadmills and exercise bikes with screens that stream live classes, while FightCamp Gym offers a connected punching bag.
Why it matters: Exercising well is exercising efficiently. Proper form can help you avoid injuries and get better results from your routine.
We’re thinking: We’re weighing the benefits of a system like this against the fact that we’d have no excuse not to go to the gym if it were in the next room.