Lark Technologies got its start as a hardware sleep tracker, but it’s taking a software-only approach with the launch of its new iOS 8 app that turns health experts into AI personalities to motivate you to improve your life.
The free Lark app relies on data from the co-processors found in the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6 models, as well as wearable devices that use the HealthKit SDK, which went live with iOS 8.0.2. The app hooks into Apple’s new Health app in iOS 8 in order to analyze your physical activity, sleep and nutrition.
Lark then acts as a virtual trainer by sending you conversational notifications to encourage you. The startup used a committee of 12 health, behavioral science and wellness experts to inform its recommendations. Lark claims that studies have shown it has “some of the highest health improvement rates and long-term engagement in the digital health industry, without pharmacological intervention.”
“What we do is take data, from every which-where as long as it’s secure, we take that and we create the ‘So what?’ We tell a story behind it,” Lark founder Julia Hu said.
The new Lark app builds on Lark’s activity tracker app for the Samsung Galaxy S5. The company decided to switch to a software-only solution because phones from the likes of Apple and Samsung have become reliable activity and health sensors in the latest generation.
“We believe that the phone is now, with the M7/M8 sensor, the ultimate wearable because you’ve already trained yourself to carry it 99% of the time. It’s just on you and you don’t have to remember to put it on,” Hu said.
Featured image credit: Cindy Creighton / Shutterstock
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