Working from home comes with its own risks. Your pet may be fussy, have a sore back from sitting at your desk for hours, or simply forget to move. There are a few apps that encourage you to move around or remind you that you’re not sitting in your ideal posture, but they can be easily ignored.
I’ve spent the better part of a decade at my home desk, going through different setups: gaming chair, lumbar support, work. None of these guarantee good posture.
Then I discovered Isa, a desk device from German startup Deep Care that takes a completely different approach. Tracks posture, hydration, light, sound, and movement. And it does all this without cameras or an internet connection, a significant differentiator in the age of always-on surveillance.
Here’s how it works and what’s inside: The Isa has a 5.5-inch IPS HD screen and looks like a desk clock. Powered by USB-C. The company provides a power unit, but it has a power consumption rating of around 2.45W, so you can use any existing charger.
The key sensor of the device is the Time-of-Flight (ToF) 3D depth sensor on the front. It tracks your posture and movement using the same technology used in facial recognition and some smartphone cameras. It also allows for beta functions such as counting the number of times you drink water or other liquids. The company said the sensor operates in a range of 0.15m to 1.8m. This means that if the device is placed on a desk, it can measure movement even when you stand up or move around. It also includes several other sensors, including ToF 1D sensor, gyroscope, barometer, light sensor, noise level sensor, CO2/VoC sensor, temperature and humidity sensor, etc.
Getting started is simple. Your device will ask you for some details about you and your work routine. I found it strange that there was no option to set the device to Indian time (or any other Asian time zone). The company said the Isa currently only supports EU and US time zones. That’s enough for now. But wider time zone support or even a simple world clock feels like basic expectations for a desk device.
On the screen, Isa displays your posture with a rounded-square ring that fills or empties depending on how you sit, while a water tank-style widget tracks how much you drink. If you are not sitting in the correct posture, the light will turn yellow. An Apple Watch-style ring is a surprisingly effective nudge. When we see yellow or red, we almost instinctively straighten up.
The device will vibrate to let you know if you’ve been hunched over for too long, and that mild humiliation is okay. This alert also lets you know if you are leaning too far forward or backward and helps you correct your posture.
A similar widget tracks your movement, and if you haven’t moved in a while, Isa suggests getting up and following a guided exercise on your device. The motion tracker resets when you return to your desk after a break.
Deep Care has decided not to include a camera to help protect your privacy, but there is a downside.
If a bottle or other object is between the user and the sensor, the sensor can recognize it as a person and record it as stationary. A passing pet or housemate can also trigger the sensor. Isa usually notices you’re away and jumps to the digital clock display, but I would have liked a manual button to let me know I wasn’t at my desk so it could stop tracking.
Due to the sensor-only approach, the device would sometimes tell me that I had been stationary for too long when I had been sitting for less than 30 minutes. This is a minor inconvenience. On balance, this device allowed me to check my posture more often than before and the exercise suggestions were really useful.
To handle all these features, the device uses a quad-core 2GHz processor. Your device can connect to Wi-Fi for software updates, but you can turn it off at any time.
Deep Care was founded by three former Bosch employees and initially sold Isas directly to businesses. This has recently expanded to consumers. This is a shift that signals confidence in the retail market for workplace wellness hardware and a test of whether a tiered subscription model for premium hardware can find mainstream customers.
The Isa costs €299 ($354) and has two subscription tiers. The Core plan (€4.99 per month) gives you access to posture tracking, tracking healthy sitting habits, detection of drinking habits, and an exercise library. The Pro plan (€7.99 per month) lets you track light, noise and CO2 levels for a healthy work environment.
The company plans to use Isa’s sensor suite to tackle mental health-related tracking. It is claimed that the device can measure breathing patterns using signals such as posture, head movement, and chest movement. We also want to introduce stress-related scores along with environmental data such as noise, light levels and CO2 levels.
Even if you skip the mental health features, the Isa is a solid device for anyone interested in posture and movement. It’s not cheap, and subscriptions add long-term costs. But if you or someone you know works from home and wants to do something to improve their desk habits, this is one of the most thoughtful options.
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