Courtesy of LifeBEAM
St. Louis runners test Vi in Tower Grove Park.
A few dozen St. Louis joggers showed up at Tower Grove Park to test an artificial intelligence personal trainer that launched at the end of last week—and I, with my 12-minute mile and wonky knee, joined them.
The trainer reads your biometrics and gives you instructions, which sounds a bit like the villain of a summer sci-fi blockbuster. Right now, though, it’s just Vi, the headphones that have maintained their crown for highest-funded fitness wearable Kickstarter since mid-2016. The goal: to “democratize” personal training by making it accessible (to everyone who can afford $250 headphones). The hardware should stay pretty much the same as the tech develops; Vi creator LifeBEAM is attempting to model its release method after Tesla, with a single unchanging device and many software updates.
LifeBEAM sent me a copy of the product for testing purposes in exchange for my feedback on the system (not in exchange for this review, which I’m writing anyway, because “robot trainer headphones” is such a wild idea).
The tech works like so: A sleeker-than-average headphone neckband hosts biometric sensors (in the earbuds) and a voice recognition system that allows you to give limited feedback to Vi’s AI. Via Bluetooth, the headphones connect to your cell phone, which hosts a more traditional running app interface that includes a GPS, an in-app music player, maps, charts, and statistics for post-run perusal. Between the AI and phone, you have access to your heart rate, elevation (thanks to a barometer in the neck hardware), step rate, and speed throughout the run.
The most notable part? The sensors—first developed as similar tech for NASA—that let Vi learn more about how you’re running and counsel you to change speed or step faster to meet goals.
The Vi headphones can be worn running—or just has a headset for your daily activities, Bluetooth car calls, and music at work.
I pop the headphones on my neck, and Vi’s AI greets me in a cheery tone. I attempt to select music from Google Play, which turns out to be currently incompatible with the Vi app. (LifeBEAM says it has since patched many of the music player’s problems, but Spotify Premium remains the only natively supported music app for now.) Resigning myself to the five songs I keep on my phone, I take off running.
Vi warns me to warm up first. “Unlike most trainers, I’m tapped into your body,” she tells me next. I’m wondering which trainers are tapped into my body when I realize that my running partner is gesturing wildly and attempting to talk to me. The headphone’s noise cancellation is extremely potent. People who enjoy running with no road noise will probably like this; if you use mixed-use trails and don’t run in a straight line, like me, then there’s a chance you will almost get hit by three cyclists in one run (also like me). You can’t just run with one earbud, because that undermines the sensors.
Five minutes in, the voice is already becoming a problem for me. Vi is too nice to yell; she sounds like a yoga instructor, not a running coach. (Some testers requested a “Bar-room Vi” that cusses and swears when you slow down.)
Slowing down, I discover that she does have an auto-pause option. Mommy-and-running blogger Melissa LaRose says the feature keeps her going: “I don’t let myself stop because I don’t want to hear ‘your workout is paused’.” Others found it annoying at stop lights and disabled the function. Personally, I liked it, although the auto-unpause didn't always work, probably because I'm slow.
I decide it’s a good idea to start sprinting, and apparently my heart rate increases above 180 beats per minute. “Are you still OK?” Vi asks. “Yes,” I gasp. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. Could you repeat it?” I gasp again. She still doesn’t register me and tells me to try again later. It makes me wish that Vi had a 911 function—just in case.
Later, Vi cuts into the music to suggest that I protect my joints by stepping faster without increasing my speed. To get me on track, Vi plays an electronic beat—and my job is to step to it. This was by far Vi’s most exciting feature; it increased my step average from 120 to 165 between my first and second test runs and got me up to 175 a few times. More like this, and I could see myself using Vi often.
She’s all about adapting to the individual user—to a point. Vi’s advantage is the ability to give joggers more information during a run than any other option and largely hands-free. Right now, though, the appeal is niche. But if LifeBEAM can harness the features that make Step to the Beat a success, then I could see Vi developing into a phenomenal running tool. The company is already promising new modes (potentially for walking and intervals).
Right now, the headsets are sold via Amazon and Best Buys. It’s an ambitious tech launch, and the team’s constantly researching and releasing updates. (Good signs: Many testers' complaints were fixed in a new app version.)
At the end of the run, LifeBEAM asked the testers: What would Vi have to do for you to recommend it for everyone they know? “If she can help me break a 25–minute 5k,” says one tester, a brewer for Civil Life, “I’ll tell everyone.”
