Autom Will Help You Lose Weight, Says Not Eating Works For Her
Writing by Evan Ackerman on Wednesday, 2 of December , 2009 at 1:37 am
We first met Autom two years ago, back when she was a resident of the MIT Media Lab. Since then, she’s been significantly redesigned and her parent company, Intuitive Automata, is almost ready to unleash her upon the overweight world. Autom is sort of like your own personal weight loss coach, except she doesn’t annoy you by being human and in better shape than you are. Instead, she simply tracks your eating and exercise habits and talks to you about your daily progress. She’s able to figure out what works best for you and what doesn’t, adapting to your needs as they change. And she does a good job, apparently: people using Autom to help with their weight loss will keep to a diet and exercise routine for twice as long as people using more traditional methods.
Autom will be made available in a limited trial in Q2 of next year, and wider sales should start around the end of 2010. There’s no word on how much she’ll cost, but honestly, my guess is that it’s not going to be horrific like most household robots with heads (not that many of those are anywhere close to availability). Autom doesn’t really have any complicated sensors or moving parts (as is the case with mobile robots), which minimizes both hardware and software development costs. Also, the fact that she is twice as effective as traditional weight loss methods is good, but it’s not enough to justify a high price tag. So, we’ll see.
There is one other thing, though… I’m kinda left wondering what happens when Autom works well enough that you don’t need her anymore? Like, as a commercial weight loss product, if Autom is successful she also renders herself potentially unnecessary. Maybe she’s got some other tricks up her non-sleeve? With speech synthesis and an internet connection, perhaps she could read you news and weather in the morning, or act as a personal organizer. Just a thought.
Update- As the creator for Autom quite rightly points out in a comment below, Autom will also help you keep the weight off over time. I just think that while Autom’s focus is on weight control, as a platform, she is (potentially) capable of many other useful things.
[ Autom ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]
Comments (17)
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Comment by Cory Kidd
Made Wednesday, 2 of December , 2009 at 3:00 am
Thanks for the article, Evan. As the creator of Autom and CEO of Intuitive Automata, I’d like to point out a couple of things about Autom that differ from your article.
She has 6 motors in her head and eyes, giving them a range of motion not too unlike a human head, although she can’t move as much as you or I can. There is a 7″ color LCD touch screen on the front as well where she shows information while speaking with you and allows for easy input of information.
One thing we know about people who lose weight successfully is that they don’t consider a diet to be something that’s done for a few weeks or months. For those who lose weight and keep it off for the long term, it’s about making changes in behavior that they can stick with. This is exactly what Autom supports — reinforcing those healthy eating and exercise behaviors that allow you to be fit and feel good. As you reach a target weight goal that you set for yourself, Autom then helps you to maintain that goal so that you’re not in the current 95% of dieters who regain the weight that they lose.
Comment by Melissa
Made Wednesday, 2 of December , 2009 at 7:01 am
I wonder if it could also be used to help someone gain weight.
Comment by joe
Made Wednesday, 2 of December , 2009 at 7:36 am
The synthesized speech is really unnatural and the head seems unnecessary. I’d prefer a simple software package on my laptop / smartphone.
Comment by Robotbling
Made Wednesday, 2 of December , 2009 at 12:04 pm
Joe, during Dr. Kidd’s study at MIT, people who used the software without Autom ended up quitting sooner than those who had the robot. It turns out that having a physical robot to interact with actually helps people to continue with the program.
Comment by Travis
Made Wednesday, 2 of December , 2009 at 4:36 pm
Not long ago there was an interesting writeup about the fabrication of Autom’s early prototype over on Hizook.com
Comment by force factor
Made Tuesday, 15 of December , 2009 at 1:13 am
Comment by Weightloser7
Made Wednesday, 10 of February , 2010 at 4:59 am
Amazing post, I thought that only way to lose weight is to do workout, eat healthy food, take diet pills etc…but there is Autom to help us- it’s crazy!
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