A few months back, we covered the BodyTrace e-Scale, a bathroom scale with a wireless Internet connection that can forward one’s weight directly to the company’s fitness website. Sounds pretty embarrassing, doesn’t it?
Of course, the fitness site was fine-tuned to help the user get motivated, establish practical fitness goals and use the unsightly weight figure to get in better shape. It was also presumably a small, private website of other out-of-shape aspiring fitness junkies. You know what doesn’t have any of those saving graces? Twitter.
Yes, a new scale proposes that you jump on and send your weight directly to the greater world via a tweet. Sounds like a great way to get motivated…motivated never to step on a scale again.
The WiFi Body Scale by Withings started out much like the e-Trace with a private fitness website designed to motivate, educate and assist in fitness. The scale also has an iPhone app. Then out of the blue the French company decided that just wasn’t embarrassing enough. After all, how many people are really browsing through the Withings fitness site? Not enough to humiliate you back into circa ’87 stonewashed jeans shape, that’s for sure.
So Withings has taken the Body Scale to the next logical (or not very logical at all) level–automatic Twitter updates on each fold and lard flap. So now you can automatically blurt out your weight to all of your followers. Score!
This should be oh-so-awesome for tweeters and followers alike, because if there’s one thing as awkward as sharing your weight with the world, it’s reading a random tweet about someone else’s weight and trying to summon a few rousing words of encouragement. I can almost hear the uncomfortable likes of " 8 months? No, that’s not long at all. It’s natural to gain a few extra pounds over the first 8; it’s the next 8 that really count." Apparently Withings doesn’t really want to sell any Body Scales–especially not when you consider that said humiliation will cost you $159.
So what do you think? Would a product like this motivate you or just provide a source of TMI? Would you like to see other similar products? Perhaps a toilet that automatically tweets when you flush? A condom that’s sensitive to your premature ejaculation and drops a line to all your Facebook friends about it?
This scale could be the tip of the iceberg. Let’s just hope (and maybe pray) it’s not.
LA Times via Dvice
