After falling in love with the Nintendo Wii’s physically demanding sports games, serial entrepreneur James Park, 32, started to ponder other ways to combine video games and fitness. The result: a $99 lipstick-size gadget that clips on to your clothes and uses a motion sensor to track everything from steps taken to sleep patterns and calories burned.
The Fitbit Tracker then uploads the information to a wireless base station, which relays it to a Web site for analysis.
Park reckons the Fitbit motivates people to get in shape by letting them track daily exercise – a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that using a pedometer increased exercise rates by 27% – and compare themselves with other users online.
Photo by FitBit.