Can This Body-Scanning Mirror Replace Scales?

For a while, body weight was the best factor for determining physical health. Somewhere along the way, body mass index took over the preferred spot. But now that BMI has been discredited, too, perhaps a more holistic way of looking at oneself might work?

That’s the mission behind Naked Labs, which announced on Thursday (April 14) that it’s releasing what it calls “the world’s first 3D fitness tracker for consumers.” Essentially a full-length mirror and rotating platform, the Naked 3D Fitness Tracker seeks to replace old methods of weight loss monitoring and body composition recording by offering users a new way to view their bodies and progress through any kind of exercise regimen. Naked Labs Cofounder and CEO Farhad Farahbakhshian said that his company’s body-scanning technology is a much more intuitive way to approach everything from losing weight to packing on muscle.

“We believe the only fitness metric worth tracking is progress,” Farahbakhshian said in a statement. “With the Naked 3D Fitness Tracker, people can immediately see how and where their bodies are changing. The Naked 3D Fitness Tracker is transformative in its ability to motivate people to achieve their health and fitness goals through visualizations of their progress on their 3D body model.”

The Naked 3D Fitness Tracker makes liberal use of Intel components and RealSense technology to deliver full-body scans and render the results in digital avatar form — a process that takes about 20 seconds from start to finish. The accompanying platform automatically rotates users for a 360-degree picture.

Customers can put down $499 to reserve one today, but the first products won’t ship until March 2017 at the earliest, the company said.

If that’s too much lead time for many consumers, it’s still enough time for them to get in moderately better shape for the benefit of their eventual 3D-modeled selves.