Who needs a trainer when you have pants? Well, not just any kind of pants — Lumo Run running wear that comes in a capri style for women and shorts for men and “incorporates the personal attention of a running coach with the professional data of a lab — all within the lining of your shorts to help you achieve your best.” The latest high-tech item to break through in the clothing wearables market, Lumo has sewn a 9-axis inertia measurement unit (IMU) and a Bluetooth LE module into the waistband of its latest offerings, which collect data about your run, jog, or walk and sends it all to a connected app in real time. The impressive combination of device and clothing measures your biometrics, posture, and mileage, all to coach you toward your next cardio goal.
The difference between Lumo Run and other similar products that promise to track comparable metrics is the inherent pairing of the garment with the gadget. “Having it placed on our waistband helps the sensor to be placed correctly and also be more stable,” Lumo CEO Monisha Perkash told TechCrunch. “And so the readings that you get are far more accurate.” These readings are instantaneously translated by Lumo’s algorithm to provide in-the-moment advice or corrections that may help runners avoid injury.
“This is a very exciting piece and a completely different form factor using our motion technology to address challenges in running,” Perkash told the San Francisco Business Times. “The vision is to be the leader in real-time motion tracking and solving movement challenges related to sports, workplace safety and health and medicine.” And the company is certainly no stranger to this intersection of athletics and technology. In 2012, Lumo debuted a waistband that improves posture, followed by the Lumo Lift, a device worn on your collar that takes note of your posture, steps taken, distance traveled, and calories burned during the course of a day. So really, Lumo Run is just the latest phase in the company’s continuing evolution.
If you’re interested in buying what Lumo’s selling, you can preorder the capris or shorts at $119 or $99 for women’s and men’s versions, respectively. If you want until they’re actually on shelves, you’ll have to shell out a bit more — $149 for the men’s shorts and $169 for the women’s capris. Either way, though, you won’t be able to actually try out a pair for yourself until they ship in late spring of 2016, so until then, you’ll just have to wear your boring, non-posture-correcting, non-step-tracking pants on your run.
