Case Studies

In 2013 we began the development of a startup app TAO Personal Wellness that helped people exercise with their smartphone. Later on the training part of the app evolved into a separate palm-sized portable device that worked with the app and trained different muscles by prompting the user to squeeze it with different intensity.

Later on, in 2016, the company, having now relocated from Bulgaria to California, approached us again with an even more evolved concept of their app that is now called Activ5 Training app. Here is what mainly changed:

1. The previous app was supporting only hardcoded trajectories for the exercises: by squeezing the device the used needed to navigate the graph (squeezing harder to make the marker go up and squeezing milder to make the marker go down). In the new app, the graphs were randomly generated that allowed for a greater variability in training.
2. The new version had calibration to access the level of users’ physical abilities to offer complex but doable exercises for both ordinary users and athletes.

We developed the new version of the app along with several more features that the client came up with during the development process:

1. Data synchronization;
2. App customization: various colour palettes and complex themes;
3. Support for 7 languages.

Apart from its flagman Training App, Activbody company also has several more apps, two of which we helped bring to life:

Activ5 Sports Pro was developed solely for the professional football team Steelers to help train athletes. The main features of this app are:

1. 2 devices support – the app is now tracking two devices simultaneously which allows for more complex training. It is very important for the athletes recovering from trauma that each device is tracked separately.
2. More detailed exercise customization – athletes and coaches now have control of the difficulty of the exercise, duration, and the trajectory format.

The Steelers team uses the app for regular isometric training and praises the flexibility of the device: it allows constructing elaborate training sessions and creating various sets of exercises from scratch for athletes’ individual needs.

Team coaches also note that the gamification of the training process is a great advantage since athletes love to compete and it acts as both a motivating and a teambuilding tool. Since all data is stored in the cloud, the coaches have access to it at any time and can be sure that nothing will be lost or misplaced.

We also developed a demo app for shops selling Activ5 devices to give potential users an opportunity to interact with it prior to buying and see how it works. The functionality of the demo app is limited with a few special features:

1. There are no user profiles;
2. Statistics is hardcoded to show what it would look like in a developed profile in real life;
3. If the device is undisturbed for 3 minutes, the app brings up the start screen for a new customer to start the demo;
4. The main focus is on the tutorial.

The Activ5 devices can be found on the Apple website and in Apple retail shops where you can experience the demo app.

We are proud to be part of such an amazing startup project. We faced many challenges, most notably working together with other teams. Our focus was mainly the iOS app, whereas the backend and the Android app were developed by other teams. It posed some difficulties but nothing that could not be overcome. Activ5 is a bright example of a startup with an amazing idea that managed to persevere in the aggressive business environment and become as successful as it is now.

Disclaimer: BWT does not own any rights to the app, the imagery or the marketing materials of the described app. All rights belong to Activbody, Inc.