Opter Life: Meet The New Must-Have In Wearable Tech

A new wearable accessory company is about to stick its neck out for well, your neck. Meet Pose by Opter Life, a beautiful bamboo pendant that aims to improve your health in new ways that go far beyond trackers like Fitbit. It’s part of a Next Gen group of “empathy tech” products that address the elements of well-being like stress reduction, meditation and breathing. As the company puts it, “there simply wasn’t anything out there in the wearable tech market that was good enough, so we created Pose.” The necklace gently vibrates every time you start to hunch over your keyboard helping you to learn better posture. “Posture affects your mental health, self-esteem and how others perceive you,” says CEO and co-founder, Chalisa Prarasri. She’s an avid health advocate and it’s her holistic, whole body, in depth thinking about health from every angle that makes Pose so great. It’s also what separates it from every other wearable tech item on the market.

Another great feature of Pose, is its wearability. Made from dark bamboo, it feels natural, not tech, and its simple clean lines make it easy to wear as a statement piece or with other jewelry. You can also wear it as a clip on a tie, shirt or a bra for convenience.  A  quick trip to the website shows both men and women wearing it at work, during yoga and doing water sports (it's waterproof) adding versatility to its list of virtues.

I don’t know about you, but it’s the kind of wearable tech I’ve been waiting for a company to create. On a recent visit to my chiropractor, he showed me a picture of my neck which looked like a telephone pole and then he showed me a picture of what my neck is supposed to look like, a soft backwards curve.  “See how the weight of your head is squashing the padding between your vertebrae,” he said? There it was, the reason I could barely turn my neck left or right. “Do you hunch over your computer,” he asked? “Duh! What kind of question is that,” I thought, “of course I hunch over my computer, who doesn't?”

Pose does more than help you sit up straighter, it has 6 + features that help you develop a better work/life balance. Pose keeps you looking young by measuring sun exposure and lets you know when you need to find shade and apply more sunscreen. Pose helps you get up and move at work which might not seem important except that studies show that sitting still for longer than an hour is bad for your health. Bad news for those of us who were feeling proud of the great workout we got in this morning. Even when you work out, sitting for 8 hours can undo most of that hard work. Pose gives you a gentle reminder to take a short break to move around even if it’s just for a quick stretch or a jaunt to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. Yet another feature helps with sleep, which, as everyone knows by now, is one of the most important aspects of health. Few of us know good sleep habits or how foods we eat and activities we participate at different times of day can affect our sleep cycle. Opter Life has studied the science of sleep and built features into Pose that track your habits and provide suggestions for better sleep routines as well as assessing things in your environment like electronic product lights that can interfere with your REM time. As someone who has been suffering from insomnia for six years, I’ve had to learn a great deal about good sleep routines but I'd never heard that what I ate during the day was affecting my Circadian Rythms which in turn impact sleep. Like most of you, I can’t add one more thing to my day to think about, so I can’t wait to give Pose a test run.

Opter Life’s motto is “thrive in style,” and what makes it such a strong company is that it is supported by a team that reads like the “whose-who” of tech royalty. Mike Coryell and Mark Wiprud, founders of Coryell & Wiprud are the Chief Systems Engineers. Both are also Co-Founders. Coryell & Wiprud, is the company that created a digital signal processing core of one of the first WiFi chips and helped bring the internet to remote locations around the world. Both have over 30 years experience and have  developed technologies for aerospace giants like Boeing in addition to first stage start-ups. David Fowler, another part of the team, is a Senior Design and Operations Executive with 20 years experience in international strategic product development, engineering, supply and branding who brings experience in jewelry design. Cutter Coryell, has a B.S. in physics from Caltech and has worked at UCLA’s Center for Cognition as well as LIGO. Chalisa Prarasri rounds out the team with an impressive resume that includes a B.S. in Neuroscience from UCLA, and work as a researcher at the W.M. Keck Center for Neurophisics and the Broad Center for Regenerative Medicine. She was also editor in chief of UCLA’s health magazine. She and Cutter met and fell in love at Stanford and are now a husband and wife power duo.

It’s a great team that is deeply committed and work tightly together on all aspects of the company. The vision of the product, however, is that of Chalisa Prarasri who is passionately committed to helping people live healthier lives. I first met Chalisa, at a networking event at my friend’s clothing store, Stick and Ball and was intrigued by the product. We talked at length while she was in Thailand for her dad’s funeral this past August, me as the sun was setting over the Bay and she, as the sun was rising. As we talked, I realized the depth and breadth of her passion and commitment to this product and where it comes from. I also realized we had a great deal in common.

It’s a little talked about fact that abuse often leads people to the kind of compassion and empathy that changes the world and Chalisa is proof of that fact. She grew up separated from her father with a mentally ill mother. As she puts it, she grew up “not knowing what family was like,” but once she was married she became surrounded by her husband’s family. She watched these wonderful people killing themselves by working too hard, eating terribly, and not sleeping. When her husband’s father got prostate cancer, he fell into a deep depression. But as he began asking questions about what he wanted to do with the rest of his life, she helped him turn his lifestyle around and grow ten years younger. The transformation continued to deepen her resolve to help people and reinforced her belief in the necessity of good health. Add to that, her dad lived most of his life with a severe heart arrhythmia. But by being careful about his lifestyle, he lived 18 years beyond the date his doctors had given him. As a result, of these experiences, she’s dedicated her life to helping people live better. Sit with her for a few minutes and you’ll  discover she’s a wealth of information and her willingness to be frank about what she’s been through is courageous and inspiring. In minutes you'll find yourself wanting to be part of her world, one that while tech, is also deeply human.

Opter Life plans to launch Pose on October 3 and crowdfund it on Indiegogo. Click the Opterlife links to visit their website and find out more.