Say Hello to Fitkat, A smart band that tracks your daily fitness progress and also doubles as an SOS device that could save your life. In an exclusive interview with Chirag Jagtiani, founder of FitKat, Krishna Bahirwani explores the details of the device.
Say Hello to Fitkat, A smart band that tracks your daily fitness progress and also doubles as an SOS device that could save your life. In an exclusive interview with Chirag Jagtiani, founder of FitKat, Krishna Bahirwani explores the details of the device.
What inspired you to create Fitkat?
I have always maintained a fit lifestyle in terms of keeping my weight in check and the food I eat amongst other things, but in terms of activities I have always been a very lazy person. It is not that I am bad at it, I just don't like to walk or indulge in sports very often. All this changed in October, when a couple of friends and I decided to go for a run in the morning and within the first five minutes, I was gasping for breath because I have poor stamina. That's when I decided I needed something to help stay fit on a day to day basis to help reach my goals. I bought a lot of devices on the market. They all look good and at first it was a motivation. I enjoyed showing them to people as a " Look I'm into fitness" thing. The problem was that they all seemed to fail in the long run and so I decided to create something of my own, I decided to make Fitkat. After talking to people, speaking to random fitness enthusiasts regarding the changes they would want to change in the device they are using, I took notes and applied them to come up with Fitkat.
Why do you believe Fitkat will succeed with so many other fitness trackers in the market?
We have all the features a user would want in a smartwatch or an activity tracker. No device has a water reminder, pill reminder, SOS and Anti-lost. A lot of other devices just throw a lot of numbers that you don't understand. A lot of devices say they can calculate your sleep cycle, but its never accurate. We have made sure we don't make the same mistakes.
We have given a lot of emphasis on the App + Device eco-system. We have made the app interactive between users and their friends and family. We have the Guardian feature – who can be your friend or family, then we have the Smart Coach feature – who can help you stay fit and help you achieve goals. We are also very competitively priced in comparison to the other major activity trackers. We calculate your sleep pattern using the sensors on your phone. We are providing you accurate data and allowing users to interact with people who they know.
How does Anti-lost work?
The Anti – lost function is basically a phone safety function. So if you leave your phone behind the band will vibrate displaying a Disconnection icon on the screen of the band notifying the user about leaving their phone behind. A lot of people tend to forget their phone and being notified on your wrist is the best thing.
Tell me about the guardian and smart coach features.
Guardians
We allow the user to select up to five guardians. They could be your friends or family or anybody else that you choose that will be able to view your activity in real time including how many steps you take and how much water you drink amongst other things. When you are in a disadvantageous situation your guardians don't know what kind of an emergency you are in. So what we did was that as soon as an SOS is initiated the guardians will not only get a notification but will also be able to see if the user is walking and how fast the step count is increasing. This way the guardian will know if they user is injured or running away from someone. This could really appeal to parents whose kids are overseas studying or vice versa for keeping track of your parents fitness amd medication.
Smart Coach
The Smart Coach feature lets the coach see the user's fitness in real time allowing the user to stay motivated. A band user is more inclined to learning how a regular user lost weight or how a regular user gave up old habits as opposed to going to a professional where it's just trial and error. Smart coach is a portal on Fitkat where fitness freaks will register on our portal sharing their story with us. Their fitness goals, what they eat, their fitness program. We then review this and put it up on our database. The Fitkat user can then look at profiles. If they like or think the smart coach program is something they want to follow, they can download their program and sync it to the app and follow their program. Once that happens the coach will know that the user is using their program. Then both the coach and user can interact with one another along with the smart coach viewing the users activity in real time. They smart coach can even ping the user if he is not doing a good job at achieving his / her goals.
Will the SOS function of Fitkat work without location services enabled on the smartphone?
The SOS will be initiated but the location won't be accurate. But the real time activity will be activated.
Will there be a separate launch in India to allow people to buy the product without the need to go through customs?
Yes we are in talks with some of the big ecommerce giants and we should be in the market starting May 2015.
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