While we’ve been building BBalance, a product that changes how we weigh ourselves, we sometimes have a sort of tunnel vision. We’ve spent days, months and years focused on making our mark in the world of health and wellness, so your encouragement on the other side is what really fuels the fire, bringing us to the light.
We know that sounds dramatic, but including the drama feels like the only appropriate way to express our excitement.
This is why we loved speaking to Chase Isaac, a medical news publisher for Physicians weekly, and someone who reached out to us simply because he believes in our product.
And while trying to keep our enthusiasm tamed, we still wanted to know why.
What does someone in the medical industry think of BBalance?
“It’s awesome to create a scale that doesn’t look like a scale that I have to hide underneath my vanity cabinet. And while I don’t know all the features yet, whatever I discovered seems super cool,” he explained.
“My wife and I have a scale but there’s always friction when we use it - most people don’t want to use it because we are generally taught to not be happy with what we see.” And there’s a lot of truth to that.
Stepping on a scale is an emotional experience for many people. We are taught to give great importance to the number on the scale, which made us at BBalance ask if we could take away that stress and anxiety around how we weigh ourselves. That’s just one of the many elements that went into the creation of our smart bath mat.
How is the BBalance experience different from a smart scale experience?
“I think removing that friction is key. It serves multiple purposes–step on it and don’t even think about it. You get the readings that are necessary, and it's not necessarily an emotional thing you have to think about doing anymore. Plus, it's a good-looking scale, it’ll look nice in the house and well, you just step on it and it happens - no one has to worry about thinking about stepping on it. That’s brilliant!”
Another BBalance feature also got his attention,“Honestly, I am especially interested in the multiple user recognition!”
Understanding that our daily habits change over time
Isaac has a working relationship with health and wellness. “I think my routine is probably along the lines of an average active adult. I am less active now, but I come from the competitive fitness industry so movement was very much present my entire life. Now I work from home all the time and adding 2 young kids with the post-life pandemic into the mix, it’s harder, but I’ve rejoined the gym and I do a bit of working out at home,” he revealed.
So what does Isaac’s relationship with the scale look like?
“For the longest time, I weighed myself regularly, twice a day, every single day. But I haven’t as much this past year and a half, predominantly because I wasn’t keen on seeing the number. My weight wasn’t tied to a goal. I wasn't doing anything to influence it, so I didn’t care to see it.”
Which is why BBalance caught his eye.
“If I would’ve had the mat under my sink, as I brush my teeth in the morning and evening, I’d have to step on it at least twice a day, and whether or not I want to see the numbers in the moment, I’d actually love to have this insight available later,” said Chase.
“I would have loved to go back over the last year and see how things looked, specifically the impact of the holidays and other changes in my diet.”
Additionally, Isaacs is particularly interested in BBalance’s design.
“Yes I have regular tracking with a smart scale, but it’s still a scale with the friction of getting a scale out and weighing yourself and putting the scale up . It feels crazy not just because of the physical effort, it is psychologically just like that, too. This is the relationship that the majority of people have with the scale,” he added.
How is BBalance changing our daily habits?
Creating a positive experience for an activity like weighing oneself, which isn’t typically associated with positive thinking, has the power to transform lives. Creating habits usually requires a cue to initiate the action, the routine of the action, and then a reward for completing the action. Since stepping on a scale does not always lead to the reward step, people often feel dread and avoid weighing themselves to avoid this negative experience. By creating a seamless experience that removes the extra steps of having to pull out the scale and step on it and then having to see the result right away, BBalance is creating a calm and positive experience. Having access to regular health data and trends that people can review when they’re ready will help them lead healthier lives.