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Comment by padobson | Hacker News Reader

Personal training, like hair cuts, is a non-tradable service.

But, this is part of the value of personal training. You're not going to miss your work out if you lose a hundred bucks by not going.

Also, there's value in motivation as well. Having someone there to push you to get those extra one or two reps is another big part of the value add of a personal trainer.

This is really cool, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the product evolves going forward. Props to Mr. Eldeeb for his amazing journey and the beginnings of an interesting startup. Sounds like the pressures of running a company might be a cakewalk compared to the rest of his life!

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This is basically disrupting personal trainers. You wouldn't expect a distruptive technology to be a substitute for the real deal right away - it is just going to be a better alternative for those who couldn't afford a personal trainer, or who wouldn't admit how bad a shape they are in.

Using this technology you could have the computer motivate you for well you are doing, compete with other "players" or just yourself, etc.

As for the monetary aspect, there is always Beeminder. It has the advantages that you don't have to pay 100 usd if you actually show up.

Cofounder Josh Augustin here. Motivation is a huge part of what a personal trainer does, and that's why we're going to help trainers reach out to their clients with email and SMS.

For people who have never been able to afford a personal trainer, like Moawia and I, this is an awesome alternative, and we believe it can be just as motivating.

How are you able to assess that, given that you've never used a personal trainer? Do you have access to retention statistics, for example?

Josh, given that the Smartspot is using a Kinect, are there plans for this to become an Xbox app? The motivational "hump" for working out in your living room is much lower than going to the gym (and cheaper too).

We feel that our tech is most useful when it's helping people do high-weight exercises better, without injuring -themselves, so we're targeting gyms first, but home gyms are definitely a possibility for the future.

This product looks awesome but since gyms get a lot of their revenues from personal trainers I can imagine it might be a semi-difficult sale. How about putting it in home gyms though? If a home user already has a Kinect and a tv you can probably sell them your software as a really cool high tech logging/safety check pretty easily.

Uh, actually as I think about it the home use is super exciting. If you can build some cool visualization software you can sell it to home gym users as a data-driven workout experience. Good luck you two!

Actually, we're working with gyms and letting them and their personal trainers make more money by revenue sharing. There are a lot of talented trainers out there who are underused during off-peak hours, and we're providing a way they can continue to train people in that time.

We're targeting gyms because, frankly, that's where most Americans work out, but we've already had a lot of interest from home gyms, so we're definitely going to work on that as well!

What about athletes and clubs? Lots of sports; running, olympic lifting, archery, fencing etc have used video analysis for a long time. Serious, but not professional athletes who don't have constant access to a coach would probably find this useful as a feedback tool after a session with their coach.

Random idea that might have been mentioned elsewhere, but would a possible monetisation/motivation strategy for a consumer model be people pay only when they miss a session? Would make for a fun PR campaign at least.

Kudus for putting a product on the market!

Is this using custom skeleton tracking from the Kinect v2 depth map or are you using the MS SDK? Any validation of the accuracy and reliability?

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