With COVID-19 pandemic, home fitness trend has increased as gyms are closed, and people are practising fitness routines indoors. Korean startup Strong Friends is making the home fitness routines exciting and entertaining with fitness and gaming in one platform. Strong Friends’ FAVE Smart Healthcare products integrate ICT technology with functional training exercise equipment.

Get Fit and play games

Founded by Sedon Hwang, a former world-class bodybuilder and fitness expert the new “Exergaming” service works through the combination of connected fitness equipment, mobile fitness content subscription services and motion detection sensors. FAVE’s core smart healthcare product is a disc-like structure made of flexible rubber-like plastic EVA material. It has a multi-sensor that connects with FAVE’s fitness app and devices like smartphones, PC, etc.

The FAVE disc is a smart balance trainer that helps increasing the amount of exercise and nerve-muscle tone in a short period, as well as strengthening muscles, tendons, ligaments, and growth plates around the hips, knees ankles. FAVE’s fitness app shows the effects of exercise right away with medical indicators such as muscle activity, as well as necessary information such as a person’s body fat and calorie consumption.

The smart healthcare product also has video lessons from professional training instructors available, and the sensor alerts the user to correct attitude. It also helps choose the set of exercises as per body needs. FAVE measures various information such as COP (Center Of Pressure), VO2MAX, and calorie consumption and programs can be customized as per fitness measurements. The FAVE product also comes with simulation, racing, obstacle style games that can be played on the connected devices, while you enjoy some exercising at home.

Plans to expand to ASEAN countries

Strong Friends’ CEO Sedan Hwang got the idea of introducing balance training product when he found the benefits of the exercise from as a bodybuilder. “I recovered from an injury through a balance training exercise and even won the competition. With this experience, I developed a balance training organization, FAVE, to promote the balance training movement,” said Hwang.

Since its launch, the company has successfully sold 1000 units for $100k. The startup has a contract with Samsung Electronics for selling FAVE products at its digital plaza in South Korea. Strong Friends is already in collaboration with Samsung SMAPP and Samsung Health for its version one of FAVE. The upgraded version is expected to be launched soon with more features and different types of exercise programs. Currently, the product is sold at $99 per unit cost with all contents included. However, in later stages, there will be a subscription fee for the content.

The company wants to expand to ASEAN countries, including Indonesia, in the near future. Strong Friends’ goal is to manage future user motion data through AI and deep learning to create an IoT healthcare platform and more smart products.

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