How does the (app)arel work?

We're incredibly excited by the technology contained in your (app)arel, though you'd never know it was there.

Both your shirt and pants contain 5 sensors, which allow us to track 10 different points on your body. Combined, we are able to recover a picture of your skeleton, hundreds of times a second, from 360 degrees. This is sufficient for us to teach asensei to understand your posture and movement, assess the quality and consistency of your practice, and use an underlying teaching syllabus to make decisions on how best to coach and correct you through your practice.

Each sensor is a design known as an "inertial measurement unit" that is able to report it's orientation in 3d space. It's the same sensors that Space X might use to adjust a rocket as it guides it's way back to land on it's end on a launch pad, or an aircraft might use to know it's pitch, yaw and roll as it flies through the sky. Inertial Measurement Units take the data from gyroscopes, magnetometers and accelerometers, and combine those measurements mathematically into a numerical representation of which way they are pointing in space.

We place these sensors in your (app)arel on each of your limbs - the upper and lower arm, and upper and lower leg. And we place a sensor in 2 places along your spine so that we can observe your lumbar and thoracic position and rotation.

The sensors are connected together using a stretchable textile cable that feeds to a small USB-C connector in the hem of the shirt and pants.

Everything we just described looks like a regular baselayer or yoga pants, and can be washed (cold wash only please) and dried (hang dry, no dryers) like regular sports clothing.

Additionally, we provide you with 2 modules to plug into those USB-C connectors. There's no need to wash them (though we admit we've done so by accident, and they've survived) and we'd prefer you remove them after every practice to charge them.

Each of those modules transmits the data from your shirt and pants to your phone using Bluetooth. The modules also contain the rechargeable battery that powers your shirt and pants.

So let's go over this one last time.

How does the (app)arel work?

It just works. Put on a shirt the way you always have. Put on your pants the way you always have. Plug in the USB modules and asensei will have everything she needs to guide, watch and correct your practice, steering you through teaching syllabus in the sport of your choosing, giving you real-time coaching cues for the things you should know, and drills and lessons for the things you're ready to learn.

"Any technology sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic".

We think you're going to think it's magic.