Working from home has its own risks. Your pet may be demanding, your back may hurt from sitting at your desk for hours on end, or you may simply forget to move. There are some apps that will remind you to move around or indicate that you’re not sitting in the ideal position, but they’re easy to ignore.
I spent the better part of a decade at home at a desk, going through setups like gaming chairs, lumbar supports, and work. None of these guarantee good posture.
That’s when I came across Isa, a desk device developed by German startup Deep Care that takes a completely different approach. Track posture, hydration, light, sound, and movement. And you can do all the work without a camera or internet connection. This is a meaningful differentiator in the age of constant surveillance.
Its mechanism and contents are as follows. Isa has a 5.5-inch IPS HD screen and looks like a table clock. Powered by USB-C. The company includes a power supply unit, but the power consumption rating is around 2.45W, so you can also use your existing charger.
The key sensor of this device is the Time of Flight (ToF) 3D depth sensor on the front. This is the same technology used in facial recognition and some smartphone cameras to track posture and movement. It also enables beta features such as counting the number of times you drink water or other liquids. The company says the sensor will work in a range of 0.15 meters to 1.8 meters. This means that if your device is on your desk, it can measure your movements even when you get up and move around. It also has several other sensors, including a ToF 1D sensor, gyroscope, barometer, light sensor, noise level sensor, CO₂/VoC sensor, and temperature and humidity sensor.
It’s easy to get started. The device will ask you some details about you and your work routine. I found it odd that there was no option to set the device to India time (or any other Asian time zone). The company says Isa currently only supports EU and US time zones. That’s good enough for now, but broader time zone support or even a simple world clock feels like a basic expectation for a desk device.
On-screen, Isa displays your posture with a squawkled ring that fills and empties water depending on how you’re sitting, while a water tank-style widget tracks how much you’re drinking. If you are not sitting in the correct posture, the indicator will turn yellow. The Apple Watch-inspired ring is a surprisingly effective boost. When we see yellow or red, we straighten up almost instinctively.
The device vibrates to warn me if I lean forward too long, but I’m fine with that mild humiliation. This alert will also tell you if you’re slouching too far and help you correct your posture.
A similar widget tracks your movements, and if you’ve been stationary for a while, Isa suggests standing up following a guided exercise on your device. When you return to your desk after a break, your movement tracker will reset.
Deep Care has chosen not to include cameras to help protect your privacy, but this comes with a trade-off.
If there is a bottle or other object between you and the sensor, the sensor may read it as a person and record that you are stationary. Sensors can also be triggered by pets or housemates walking by. Isa usually notices when you leave your seat and goes to the digital clock display, but I would have liked a manual button to notify me that I’m not at my desk and stop tracking.
Because of the sensor-only approach, if I sat for less than 30 minutes, the device occasionally warned me that I was stationary for too long. These are small inconveniences. Overall, this device has made me check my posture more often than before and the exercise suggestions have been really helpful.
To handle all these functions, the device uses a quad-core 2 GHz processor. Your device can connect to Wi-Fi for software updates, but you can turn it off at any time.
Deep Care was founded by three former Bosch employees and initially sold Isas directly to businesses. Recently, it has expanded to include consumers. This is a shift that shows confidence in the retail market for workplace wellness hardware, and a test of whether a subscription model layered on top of premium hardware can find a mainstream audience.
The Isa costs €299 ($354) and has two subscription tiers. The Core plan (€4.99 per month) gives you access to posture tracking, healthy sitting tracking, drinking habits detection, and its exercise library. With the Pro plan (€7.99 per month) you can track light, noise and CO2 levels to maintain a healthy working environment.
The company plans to use Isa’s suite of sensors to take on mental health-related tracking. By using signals such as posture, head movement, and chest movement, the device claims to be able to measure breathing patterns. Additionally, in combination with environmental data such as noise, light levels and CO2 levels, the company wants to introduce stress-related scores.
Even if you skip the mental health features, Isa is a powerful device for anyone serious about posture and movement. It’s not cheap, and subscriptions increase long-term costs. But if you or someone you know is working from home and wants to shake up their desk work habits, it’s one of the more prudent options.
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