Bad Habits? Shock Therapy at Home is Here

A company called Pavlok has invented a bracelet that you can shock yourself with to end bad habits.  The creators say that you can set up all your bad habits via smart phone on their ap and this device will deliver a mild shock to train your brain by negative reinforcement to drop all your bad habits.

The company provides a list of bad habit suggestions to be linked with the Pavlok, with examples including wasting time online, sitting still for too long, going into fast food restaurants or hitting the snooze button when your morning alarm goes off.

Pavlok is an activity tracker, packing an accelerometer that keeps tabs on the user’s steps, activity and sleeping patterns. Its ability to administer a jolt to the wearer (which is apparently roughly equivalent to a static shock in intensity), is its wackiest feature, but its day to day use is designed more towards vibrations, audio alerts and LED indicators to act as behavioral indicators, steering the user away from their bad habits. Though it can also post about your bad behavior on social networks like Facebook.

The device connects to iOS and Android smartphones via Bluetooth 4.0, and the company has produced an API for the product that it hopes will get developers on board to significantly expand and refine its functionality.

Pledges for a Pavlok on Indiegogo start at US$129, with the final retail price expected to rise to $149. If all goes to plan, shipping should start in April 2015.