Did the world's smartest desk just got smarter? The Stir Kinetic Desk, which was introduced in September last year, has stirred things up by adding Fitbit connectivity.
With Fitbit linked to the smart desk, the Kinetic Desk can now use Wi-Fi to send user data from the desk to his Fitbit account, which can then be displayed on the user's Fitbit One or Fitbit Zip devices. The data gathered from the Kinetic Desk can then combine with the information tracked by the user's Fitbit device to give a more accurate picture of the user's overall health. Stir is also working with Fitbit to make Fitbit data, such as calories burned, steps taken and distance travelled, available on the 4.3-inch Stir Kinetic Desk touchscreen display.
"Harvard Business Review called sitting 'the smoking of our generation.' It's also been shown that switching between sitting and standing can generate an extra fifty minutes of productivity each day," said [pdf] Stir founder JP Labrosse, when he announced the launch of the Kinetic Desk last year.
"Stir is able to track calories burned while standing throughout the day so integrating with Fitbit in order to quantify the entire day's movement was a natural next step," he added.
Fitbit is the first third-party application that has been made available for the Kinetic Desk, but Labrosse said Stir holds the future wide open for other developers to create versions of the apps for the smart desk.
Kinetic Desk is a minimalist work desk designed to encourage office workers to bring movement into their working lives. It is no secret that sitting eight hours a day or longer is harmful to human health. A study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine shows that even exercising regularly does not help older women working in the office.
But office workers shouldn't take the desk's simple design for granted. The $3,890 smart desk is equipped with motors that allow it to raise and lower itself at the speed of a human heartbeat, making standing up for the user as gentle as taking a breath. The user can program the desk to raise and lower itself during specific time periods simply by double-tapping the screen, but the desk can also learn the user's preferences over time and make recommendations based on them. It also has its own thermal sensor to detect if the user is sitting or standing.
The Kinetic Desk also features a Wi-Fi radio and a hidden compartment with eight AC and four USB ports where the user can charge his smartphone, tablet or laptop without dealing with a wiry bundle of mess.
So how much in terms of calories would all this standing amount to? A U.K. experiment conducted by researchers at the University of Chester shows that standing three to four hours every day amounts to an additional 50 calories burned each day or 750 calories per week. That may not sound much, but it totals up to 30,000 calories burned each year, the same number of calories burned by running 10 marathons.
