Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the smartest of them all?
It’s funny, once upon a time I used to sit there and marvel at the self-driving cars, holograms, and gadgets and gismos of my favourite sci-fi films wondering, ‘Will any of this become a reality in my lifetime?’
Just a few years on the emergence of AI is turning those toys of the future into tools for now. As a writer, I’ve experienced AI’s integration into practical use first-hand, and as much as I hate to admit it, the results have been incredible.
When two things as powerful as human ingenuity and the boundless possibilities of technology mix, it was only a matter of time before we started to see AI utilised in the fitness industry.
But for the innovators looking to harness this mesmerising force, the challenge was to discover how it fits.
So, what happens when machines that can think, learn, adapt, and mimic human intelligence with astonishing accuracy collide with a growing trend of home workouts? You get the ultimate experience in personal training.
In perhaps the most exciting edition of our founders series yet, we sat down with Varun Bhanot, co-founder of the MAGIC Mirror, to talk about artificial intelligence, world firsts, celebrity holograms, and changing the landscape of personal training for good.
The Dawn Of A New Era
For those of you who aren’t yet familiar with the MAGIC Mirror, it’s the first ever AI-driven personal training mirror in existence.
What does that mean exactly? I’ll let Varun explain: “As you follow a hologram personal trainer in the mirror, the AI camera will track your form, give you live feedback, correct you as you work out and even count your reps.
“Our latest feature is that it will track and remember your weights, and then recommend when to increase or decrease.
“All the content is created by world-class athletes, too, such as Team GB Olympians Desiree Henry, Asha Philip and legendary cricket captain Sir Alastair Cook.”
While all of this might sound like it has been extracted from one of Elon Musk’s dreams, Varun’s inspiration came from something much closer to home – his own reflection.
Explaining his eureka moment, he said: “It was after my own personal health spiralled out of control and I hired a personal trainer.
“I realised how expensive they were and thought we could automate the same 1-to-1 hyper-personalised experience using technology.
“The first thing I did was team up with my co-founder and start work on a very rough and broken prototype but it proved our vision of an AI-based Personal Trainer could potentially exist!”
Turning that initial concept into something that worked proved challenging, however. After all, it’s no mean feat to transform a run-of-the-mill household object such as a mirror into an artificial personal trainer that claims to be smarter than its human counterpart.
When asked what his biggest daily battle was, Varun said: “It’s marrying up custom hardware with custom AI, and then getting that to work with our own in-house fitness content.
“Everything has to be thought through from scratch such as the direction a trainer needs to face for shooting so the user copies them, and then so that the AI can track them effectively in the camera.
“We can’t reshoot the content so everything has to be thought about from the beginning. Beyond that, it’s the 200+ AI-tracked exercises we have managed to develop from scratch.
“We have to program and test every single one so it’s safe to say the team gets a lot of workouts whilst working!”
Varun and his team have already started to reap the rewards of their work, however. Not only are they in great shape, but the MAGIC Mirror is also starting to gain huge traction.
While demonstrating it at London Tech Week, Varun said the product was met with an “immense” response from customers, tech industry insiders, journalists, and politicians.
“People genuinely believe in our vision that our product could replace a personal trainer,” he added. “They often can’t believe it when they see it. It’s partly why we’re called MAGIC!”
Ever since the Covid-enforced lockdowns had people jumping around their living rooms under the instruction of Joe Wicks, home workouts, and remote working, have continued as popular trends.
For busy parents and professionals, it makes perfect sense. Why spend two hours making a round trip to the gym when you could squeeze in a quick half-hour session between calls in your living room?
But there’s one major problem with that: the weights.
As you get fitter and stronger you really need to start adding resistance to your workouts in order to avoid the dreaded plateau. Most of you will know this concept as progressive overload.
Unfortunately, however, not everyone has space in their home or garage for a full weights setup, nor do they want to spend the money kitting the place out with 20-odd different dumbbells.
But for those of you who have been longing to pump iron in the comfort of your own home, you’re in luck. The world’s smartest mirror has a companion. You guessed it, the world’s smartest dumbbell.
“We needed a system of weights that can work with the workouts on the mirror but they have to be compact enough to fit in the home and low footprint,” Varun said.
“Our dumbbells replace 16 weights as you can adjust from 2 to 32kg with just a quick twist of the handle. They are extremely popular and were sold out for a long time.”
So, with Varun’s vision having become a reality, we just had to ask how many times a week he uses it to work out.
“At least 4 sessions of 30-45mins,” he added. “I love it!”
Financing The Magic Mirror
It’s evident that a huge amount of resources has gone into developing the Magic Mirror. Innovation comes at a cost, and Varun revealed he has already raised $2.5m, with potential plans to seek more investment next year.
With big spending comes big plans, and Varun admitted he has a grand vision for where he wants the business to be in 3 years’ time.
He said: “We’d be in multiple countries with multiple workout modalities including yoga, boxing, dance and sports coaching. We would also be aligned with some of the world’s leading athletes.”
Asked whether he was working on any new products as part of that expansion, he teased: “Yes, there are, but I can’t say too much at this stage!”
So, now we’ve set the scene, I think it’s time you heard more from the man who’s breaking ground in the fitness space and bridging the gap between tech, and transformations.
Questions With Magic Mirror’s Founder
Being the founder what does a typical day at work look like for you?
Wearing every possible hat. I love talking to customers and prioritise it over chat and email as I want to learn what current customers are enjoying (or not!), and also what potential customers are thinking about our product.
Everything else spans Finance, Hiring, PR & Marketing as well as a lot of product testing which essentially means doing a lot of workouts!
What is the best piece of advice you have received so far since launching?
Back yourself and believe in what you are doing. You are ultimately the first customer and consumer and have to really believe you can create this thing even if others do not.
Tell us about the Mirror itself. What makes it so special?
MAGIC is the world’s first AI-driven personal training mirror. This means that as you follow a hologram personal trainer in the mirror, the AI camera will track your form, give you live feedback, correct you as you work out and even count your reps.
Our latest feature is that it will track and remember your weights, and then recommend when to increase or decrease.
All the content is created by world-class athletes too such as Team GB Olympians Desiree Henry, Asha Philip and legendary cricket captain Sir Alastair Cook.
What has been your best moment so far since the launch?
It was when we demonstrated our product at London Tech Week to customers, tech industry insiders, journalists and politicians – the response was so immense we knew we were onto something!
If you could give advice to someone reading this who has a business idea what would it be?
Lean into your curiosity. Often if you have a hunch about something, you are not often wrong. There are also a million ways to make a million in my opinion so there’s always another business idea coming!
Who is your current competition in this space? How do you differentiate?
We’re the leading AI-driven Fitness Mirror in the world that actually gives live real-time responsive feedback to how you are working out. We have developed the technology in-house. It is called ReflectAI®.
The floor is yours. Please tell our readers anything and everything else you’d like them to know!
We are available via our website and can also be demoed and purchased at Selfridges in the Tech section. Use GF150 for £150 off any of our packages till the end of October (It’s our exclusive Magic Mirror discount code).
