Chinese technology company Loctek Ergonomic showcased its newest products at the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this month, including its new V10 desk bike and prototypes of its smart technology accessories. Marketed in the U.S. at FlexiSpot, the company offers various versions of standing desk converters, full standing desks, desk bikes and workstation accessories.
Part standing desk, part exercise bike, the Desk Bike V10 is an improved version to the V9 debuted in 2018. Per user feedback, Loctek adjusted the desk surface to enable tilting. It has biometric scanners now, to track your heart rate, distance and calories. The technology is still in its prototype phase and should be available later this year.
Aaron Yang, sales and marketing administrator with Loctek/FlexiSpot said the feedback from users trying out the V10 at CES was mostly positive, though some found the bike tricky to use.
“It's sort of a learning curve to learn how to move and work at the same time,” Yang said. “Since you are sitting down, though, unlike a treadmill desk where your natural gate works against you, it is a lot easier to learn how to move and work at the same time with the bike.”
Yang stresses that it's easier to incorporate bike use into a daily routine if approached with ease.
“Current research at Cornell University indicates that standing all day is just as bad if not worse than sitting. They recommend 20 minutes sitting, eight minutes standing, and two minutes of moving every 30 minutes,” Yang said. “So, we wanted to make an easy way for people to get that movement in. Moving doesn't necessarily mean running around the office and doing pushups. It's little gentle movements, active stretching or walking to the water cooler. The bike is meant to encourage gentle activity, to get your circulation going, to get your energy up. You're not going to get a super intense workout in. But, the resistance is adjustable on the bike, so if you want to get a good workout in, you can. But, that's not necessary to meet the requirements of staying active in the workplace.”
The other issue people brought up with the bike, even more than how to use it, was if it could charge a phone.
“For now, no,” Yang said. “But our R+D team is looking into implementing a charging feature into the actual pedaling, so look for that within the next few years.”
Also in the prototype stage, is an ultrasonic sensor that attaches to the all of Loctek's desk models, sensing when the desk is in use and the amount of time the desk is in the standing or sitting positions. The sensor is could-based, so in an enterprise setting, companies can combine a group of sensors together in a network, “which is really great for desk hoteling,” Yang said.
Loctek partnered with 9AM Inc. and Microsoft to pilot the new software in China, where desk hoteling is increasing in popularity.
“A lot of big companies are moving toward it these days,” he said. “On any given floor or building, you can see which desks are in use, which desks are free. You can block out certain desks to be used by certain people at certain times. And that makes it easier to schedule around personal needs or the needs of the company.
Yang says the response has been positive because growing companies in China are similar to those in the U.S. — buying up a lot of real estate.
“They have a lot of empty desks,” Yang said. “The ability to track these desks and fill them up with people is really valuable for these companies. It's been pretty useful over there so far.”
Though the sensor software is useful for personal health tracking, in a home office, for instance, it doesn't track personal information about individuals using the sensor-enabled desks in corporate settings.
“We don't offer the ability for employers or the data to track exactly who you are or where you are at all times,” yang said. “It's less about tracking health behavior and more about tracking space use, at least for the enterprise side of it. The data collected is completely anonymous. Because it's an addon too, the desk functions exactly the same with or without it.”
The desk sensor—which doesn't have an official model name yet—is slated to be on the market in the next 18-24 months. Other new products introduced included a foot massager, pedestals, cabinets, a neck pillow and “a bunch of other stuff,” Yang said.