Monisha Perkash is co-founder and CEO of a successful wearables company, Lumo Bodytech.
She sat down with us at ReadWrite to to talk about her experience founding an IoT company today and to ponder what she sees as the future of IoT. She’ll be speaking on panel on bringing your wearable to market at the Wearable World Congress event, May 11 in Santa Clara.
Perkash describers her firm as a wearables company that specializes in movement intelligence.
“We use sensor technologies and algorithms to track human body movements to a very fine degree of resolution,” Perkash says. “We provide people with actionable feedback so they can move better. Think posture, yoga, running, golf, physical therapy. Any activity that requires proper form, movement, and biomechanics, Lumo is well-positioned to help people with.
Lumo’s wearable products are characteristically small with intelligent sensors. Perkash described the Lumo Lift, a small lapel pin that attaches to your shirt with magnets, and the Lumo Run, a tiny clip that could be attached to the waistband of your shorts. “When you slouch, the Lumo Lift reminds you to straighten up”, Perkash says. “The Lumo Run provides lab-quality feedback on running form. You know in real-time how your running form could change.
How Lumo came about
Perkash came up with the idea for Lumo seeing her co-founder and CTO, Andrew Chang, suffering from debilitating back pain. Perkash is married to a spine and sports physician, so she could understand how important posture really was. Perkash advised Andrew to attend a posture class and as a result Andrew learned how to manage his back pain. “Posture and back pain are truly scientifically linked,” Perkash says.
She adds that for most people who suffer from back pain, the hardest part of improving one’s posture is being aware of. “We get so engrossed into our gadgets and computers that we don’t have any awareness,” Perkash said. Lumo began with the mission of find a solution so that “people could become more aware of their posture and help hundreds of people with their back pain.”
Watch the whole interview:
