Crowdfunding platforms can be the last refuge of a desperate entrepreneur or the go-to market strategy for an appealing consumer product. When a product does well, it does really well, smashing records and even outstripping its own ability to deliver on the goods. When it does badly, well, it often fades away, or at least the company realizes that D2C might not be their best channel.
It's no surprise that this high-risk high-reward platform is attractive to mobile health innovators, and with Kickstarter strictly barring health-related products, most seem to end up on Indiegogo -- besides the Misfit Shine activity tracker, we've written about Lumoback, Sqord, the uBox, and a host of other crowdfunded projects on that platform. Here's five new mobile health products on Indiegogo right now, from the nearly funded to the barely off the ground:
The crowded nature of the fitness tracker field hasn't held back this up-and-coming tracker, which, with about 13 hours left to go, is already more than 600 percent funded, raising more than $500,000 from an original $90,000 goal. Amiigo's system is composed of a bracelet, a shoe clip, and an app. The company claims the combination of the shoe clip and the bracelet allows the tracker to determine exactly what a user is doing -- distinguishing between such different activities as running, swimming, doing different exercises and using different weight machines. The vitals Amiigo tracks -- heart rate, blood oxygen levels, skin temperature, overall activity level, and calories burned -- may be similar to other trackers, but combining that data with exactly what the user is doing, automatically, is a powerful draw for self-trackers and fitness enthusiasts.
The app is designed for iPhone 4S and select Android devices, connects via Bluetooth, and has social features to compete with friends and earn points, and the system will have an open source SDK. The bracelet and shoe clip are completely waterproof, although it's unclear
