Mobile Technology

Osim's new USB-powered US$170 uPixie uses EMS to massage and tone while you work

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There are four pre-programmed massage routines plus you can make and record your own on uPixie's 2GB external memory card.
Careful what music you choose - the 1812 Overture might not give you the desired outcome
The uPixie is compatible with both Mac OS and Windows
Sadly, there are only two electrodes - four or eight would have been a much better choice
Osim's web site claims for the uPixie
There are four pre-programmed massage routines plus you can make and record your own on uPixie's 2GB external memory card.
Osim is the first to venture into this market - many more are sure to follow.
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OSIM, better known for its advanced massage chairs, has begun selling a US$170 thumb-sized USB massager which uses Electronic Muscle Stimulation (EMS - the same technology you first witnessed in biology when your teacher made a dead frog's leg twitch using electrical current), to deliver a suite of specialized massage programmes from your laptop. It's a pretty good fit of technologies because you can synch the massage to your computer's music player and massage away stress, and tone up using the tapping, squeezing and kneading of the uPixie on specific muscle groups ... while you are working.

There are four set programmes on the uPixie, but you can also write and develop your own routines, opening up a whole host of possibilities.

The Osim uPixie is actually fairly rudimentary as far as EMS machines go.

I picked up a full blown TENS machine while I was at a Chinese Consumer Electronics Fair last year, paying US$20 for a machine that quite amazed me - through different electrical signals to the same muscles via gel-pads, the machine could induce a range of different responses - tapping, squeezing and kneading ... even a feeling that felt like scraping. The slightest current could produce an extraordinary response from the body - pain could be induced at the slightest increase of intensity (electrical power).

The $20 machine had four gel-pad electrodes, ran on a single AA battery and had many more massage routines than the uPixie, plus the same ability to write your own programs. If you can produce a self-powered device that's more complex for $20, with its own brain, then it's fairly obvious that there's plenty of potential in this marketplace.

I played with the lightweight handheld device through a half dozen countries before I lost it, and I never replaced a battery during my ownership. It's energy requirements were minimal.

The uPixie is likely to be the first of many of this genre of product - it has connected the dots - the benefits of EMS, the minimal need for electrical power and additional hardware and the interface and brain of a computer have all been connected, and there must surely be a lot of activity in this area in the near future.

Indeed, an iPad/Android app must surely be in the works somewhere.

Humanity has known about the basics of EMS for more than two centuries. Italian physician and physicist Luigi Galvani discovered in 1791 that the muscles of dead frogs legs twitched when an electric charge is applied.

Since then, bioelectricity has been used in many ways to induce positive health effects.

The Communist Bloc used EMS to supplement the training of its elite athletes during the Cold War, documenting many cases of additional endurance and strength resulting from EMS.

It was found that electrical stimulation caused long-term changes in the muscles and that different types of EMS activated different outcomes in different muscle groups.

Neuromuscular electrical stimulation has also been used successfully in the treatment of sports injuries and in rehabilitation from surgery.

TENS (Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulator) has been used for decades in pain therapy, and the Medical Times and Register (Volume 16) of 1886, wrote that "Dr Hardaway has remarked the wide usefulness of electrolysis in cosmetic manipulations."

So theoretically, while you're working at your computer (which is at least half your life if you're anything like people around here), the uPixie could be used to massage away stress, exercise, strengthen specific muscle groups, produce more toned facial muscles (non-invasive cosmetic facelifts), and maybe even strengthen atrophied muscles following surgery and mishap.

It all depends on how it's programmed.

And I think an iPad massager would sell well, particularly if people could share massage routines.

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4 comments
Brad Needham
Father\'s Day will be coming eventually
Zaahir Ng
Wow, your information on \"The Communist Bloc used EMS to supplement the training of its elite athletes during the Cold War, documenting many cases of additional endurance and strength resulting from EMS.\" was something new to me. Thanks for that.
this uPixie really does magic on me. It\'s so small that I could carry it with me to the office everyday. effectively relieves and neck and shoulders ache. Hmmm, I\'m so looking forward to this \"Indeed, an iPad/Android app must surely be in the works somewhere\"
:)
WMLee
Nice! Something I can pack on business trips.
Bill Bennett
just bought one for $99.99 usd, it rocks, gawd, thought it was all set and ready and had it set to max as nothing was happening, pushed the pin plug in all the way and found it was not plugged in, gawd those little pads can make you move, neck pain gone in five minutes, take it anywhere, the software is onboard, sweet product