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Comment by aroc | Hacker News Reader

Hey everyone, I recently built this FB Messenger bot to help me exercise more regularly. I found that I was pretty off-and-on-again for exercise and wanted to be a lot more consistent. I feel so much better when I exercise every day. I originally built this for just myself, but I was asked by a few other people if they could use it - so I went ahead and launched it publicly.

I know, it's pretty basic. With the amazing exercise apps and services out there, what use is a silly little bot like this? I can't really give you a solid answer - but I will say it's absolutely helped me exercise significantly more than I had before. The daily reminder in the morning gets me in the mindset of wanting to do something active each day.

Let me know what you think. :)

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Looks very nice and a nice idea :) you could expand the idea to other fields (like going over bills, etc.) Makes me think of a backward Tamagotchi where the computer takes care of the human :)

"backwards Tamagotchi where the computer takes care of the human" has got me down a deep dark hole of thought about computers taking care of humans now haha. Simple statement, but lots to unpack there.

Having "robots", whether chat bots or something else, look at your data and make suggestions on how to improve is something I find super interesting. One for your finances certainly is a n interesting idea.

Interesting that the chat dynamic worked out so much better for this use case than an app with notifications. In theory, you don't really need an interactive chat agent for any of these use cases, but I guess what's being posited (by you and the rapidly growing 'chat bot industry' at large) is that personifying a UX is more engaging than the alternatives.

Do you think this working better for yourself (and your friends, I take it) is a result of motivational agents being inherently more effective as chat bots than traditional push-based systems (SMS/emails/app notifications)?

So this the crux of this whole project. You nailed what is "interesting" here. This should, by no means, be more effective for anyone who's currently using it. This bot is pretty damn simple. But the personification is seemingly the reason it "works". I did actually spend a reasonable amount of time writing (what I think) are kind of goofy/silly/funny/motivational responses to things which I think has made this project fare much better than simple "You worked out? K thanks." style responses.

Example: My girlfriend joked recently, after starting to exercise a lot more after a short hiatus, that she was "rekindling her relationship with Jumper." I found that statement pretty deep - that's not something she would have said about a standard exercise app (I think?).

Hah that's really great. Thanks for elaborating!

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