BBalance: a smart bathroom mat that tracks your weight & posture

BBalance is a smart bathroom mat designed to keep tabs on weight, body composition, posture and balance. It can even identify you by analyzing your own unique footprint.

This is a step further than the plethora of smart scales that can be found on the market these days. I have one sitting in my bathroom and it is always an annoyance finding a good place to put it. In the end, it gets shuffled around quite a bit. With BBalance you won’t have that problem. It fits perfectly in any bathroom and doesn’t take up any extra space.

The gizmo comes from French startup called Baracoda. They’ve been around for a while and are credited with developing one of the first smart toothbrushes back in 2014.

Now the Paris-based outfit is on to something entirely different. Baracoda have conjured up a working prototype of a smart bathroom mat that comes embedded with pressure mapping patented technology.

In essence this is an extremely thin scale that fits neatly and entirely into a bath mat. The cotton protects the electrodes and dries your feet at the same time! You can check-out the 3D product walkthrough of the tech in the video above.

You don’t see the scale, all the measurements are automatically captured when you step on the comfy, premium, cotton fabric. It is certainly a a much less daunting way of tracking your weight. The scale itself is water-resistant while the mat is machine-washable.

Essential reading: Wearables that monitor your posture

There is no display so you won’t even notice that something below your feet is tracking your health every time you step on it. For data, trends and insights you’ll need to open a smartphone app. Some might like this while others might be annoyed that they can’t see the weight without reaching for the phone. It is all a matter of preference.

The excellent thing about the tech is that you get more than just info on weight and body composition (muscle%, fat%, bone%, water%). You’ll also receive info on balance and posture (both expressed on a scale from zero to 100). This is accompanied with a heat-map for each foot showing exactly how you stand.

All the info comes courtesy of around 4000 pressure sensors that are built into the scale. You’ll even get tips and suggested exercises to help you improve your balance and posture score.

BBalance can be used by the whole family. The mat knows who has stepped on it thanks to their unique footprint ID. Therefore, everyone can use it without fiddling around with the settings. The auto-recognition is said to work with 99% accuracy.

With everyday use, the 5000 mAh battery lasts about 8 months. After that you’ll need to plug it into a power outlet to recharge. The mat dimensions are 31.8 x 22 x 0.07 inches (810 x 560 x 2mm). The scale taps into cloud storage and WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity.

In our crowdfunding series we cover from time to time health projects which are interesting or have gained traction amongst the masses. This one has certainly garnered attention. So far the campaign has raised more than its target of $25,000, and that’s just a few days into the launch. With 29 days to go the amount raised is likely to go much higher.

We have actually heard of this idea before. At CES 2020 a couple of years ago we learned of Mateo. A smart bath mat, it functions in a very similar way. The device was supposed to hit Kickstarter a few months after but nothing came of it. At least, not yet – and it’s been nearly 2 years. Baracoda wants to beat them in the race to come up with the world’s first smart bath mat.

If you want a BBalance, it will cost you $229 – which is at the high-end of what a smart scale will cost you these days. The French outfit says the Indiegogo price is 42% off the $399 the bathroom mat will sell for when it hits retail. Assuming everything goes to plan with manufacturing, delivery to backers is scheduled for April 2022.

The best health tech is something that fits neatly into your everyday life. BBalance certainly meets this criteria.

Price:$229 and up

Funding open:
$29,901 out of $25,000 goal
29 days left

Estimated delivery: April 2022

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