Company launches basically a wearable sock that tells you what type of running shoes are best for your individual gait

has had socks that measure pressure among other things for a half dozen years now. Basically the sock has a bunch of strain gauges. I am not sure how many. zones or how accurate they are. I have some golf shoes that do basically the same thing (they monitor weight transfer during the swing).

If the data is actually actionable is a different story.

A wearable sock? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

neat wrote:

A wearable sock? I’ve never heard of such a thing.

Strangely enough, all my socks are wearable.

Finally! I’ve had it with unwearable socks

A few attempts have been made at exploiting wearable foot sensor technology but nothing has really taken off. On of the earlier ones I saw was a German company that made a pressure sensing insole.

https://www.evalu.com

They paired it with an app and marketed the system as a sort of automated coach. I'm not sure what happened with them or if they are still at it.

There is a Canadian startup called Plantiga that does a similar thing but they chose the business market rather than dealing directly with consumers. They apparently have deals with some sports teams.

https://plantiga.com

Ukaton

https://www.f6s.com/ukaton

is another little startup with a smart insole, that is going for the DIY / hobbyist market.

I've never seen mymo before. Their hardware product appears to be sort of an ankle-brace looking thing with stretch sensors? And their angle is shoe recommendations? Kinda weird but whatever. I don't really see that going anywhere. I think something will come of these smart-shoe inserts but nobody has the killer app yet.

Two things come to mind:

1). It won’t work

2). See #1

Would there be any point to selling an UNwearable sock?

No.

I am not buying it.

The shoe determines the gait once the shoe is a proper fit.

When I got back into running in 2006, I was fit for stability shoes. Generally, the stability shoes worked but were about 13 ounces.

Before one race, I was poor and bought $10 shoes at Wal-Mart. I broke them in and it felt like running on clouds. I went from a 23 minute 5k to a 21:04 just on the shoe change.

I also used $11 Avias when I did my 1:41:10 half marathon.

These shoes made me a proper midfoot striker whereas stability shoes made me wonder how to strike.

Socks would not help this.

It is just accelerometers (not pressure/strain gauges) to measure how the foot moves during contact. Pronation, contact place and time, shock, etc have been done for many years. Looks almost exactly like the RunScribe system, just secure in a sock instead of mounted on the shoe.

Measuring is easy, getting anything useful is yet to be seen.

Hi, maybe I can help... I'm the owner of mymo.

mymo is a sensor which measures a runners' gait. The sensor is inserted into a sock (designed to hold the sensor in a particular position on the foot) while you undertake the test. You run barefoot so we can get the most natural measurement of your running gait. You can use mymo on a treadmill, on the track, at the park or in the street i.e. anywhere in the comfort of your own home. The sensor makes a connection to your mobile (iOS and Android) via Bluetooth and is app driven.

We use multiple deep learning models to extract key features of your gait such as foot strike, pronation, contact time etc. We use AI to compare those results against others to provide a shoe recommendation with a success rate of 94.6%. We have a database of the latest road running shoes available in the UK which you as the customer can then filter by price, brand, weight, colour, heel drop. We don't push any particular brands or products and we are not on any commission to do so.

The purpose of mymo is to guide to you buying the correct type of shoe not to fix an injury or correct biomechanics. I came up with the idea after I got injured wearing the wrong shoes (which were advised to me by the sales person). I wanted to develop a personal product that would help runners, like me, to find the right shoes rather than rely on inexperienced sales assistants driven by commission and the inconvenience of going into a store to have a gait assessment undertaken.

Here's a link to an academic paper we have published with Northumbria University around the science behind the product

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/9115589

Hope this helps, thank you

righteen profeshunil wrote:

Would there be any point to selling an UNwearable sock?

To make money maybe?

The sock is designed to hold the sensor in a particular position of the foot (talus joint). We needed a mechanism which would allow customers to ensure the sensor was worn correctly. If there was no sock, customers wouldn't be able to attach the sensor (correctly) to their feet (barefoot).

Why assess foot strike barefoot? How I run shod Vs unshod may be entirely different especially if I'm not accustomed to running barefoot.

I'm genuinely interested in your take on the following two points

1 How can you meaningfully extrapolate your results and apply them to which shoe is most suitable

2 There isn't much convincing evidence that providing stability or non stability shoes to runners based on their foot type prevents injury.