Sportsmate 5: A Consumer Fitness Exoskeleton That Actually Works
MUO
Enhanced Robotics Sportsmate 5 Exoskeleton Review Consumer Fitness Robot Legs That Actually Work
The Sportsmate 5 is a consumer fitness-based exoskeleton for fitness and general assistance. It's an early prototype, but it is quite impressive! 8.00 An AI-powered consumer fitness exoskeleton that helps you up the hills, and makes bodyweight exercises harder? The Sportsmate5 is an interesting prospect - but crucially, it's one that delivers, and at a reported $899 launch price, it's more affordable than most other smart fitness devices. Key Features AI-powered assistance and resistance via hip mounted servos that move based on how you move 2 main modes: Assistance, and Fitness provide both help and make some movements harder Specifications Brand: Enhanced Robotics Weight: 3.8KG (2.5KG promised for final release) Battery Life: 3 hours Pros Provides genuine assitance when walking/running up stairs and hills Fitness mode adds resistance hard to find any other way Easy to wear and use No app required, no social media tie ins, no extra faff Cons Feels heavy after some time Negative resistance mode didn't seem to do much on downhills Buy This Product Sportsmate5 When you think of exoskeletons, several things might come to mind. To me, those things are science fiction, crazy military research, and medical rehabilitation, in that order. Exoskeletons focused on the consumer market to enhance hobby-level sport and fitness seem to land firmly in the science fiction category, and yet for the past couple of week's I've been testing a late prototype set of… well... robot legs. The Sportsmate5 uses artificial intelligence to provide natural assistance and resistance through an exoskeleton attached to your hips and legs, and it's not some mad future mock-up that will never come to be. Instead, the late prototype version is more or less what you'll be getting when it comes to Kickstarter in November 2021. Is the era of personal robotic assistance finally here, or is the Sportsmate5 a niche device packaged as a consumer product? Well, in a way, it's both - and that's not a bad thing. Note: This review was for a prototype, so images may not reflect the final product, and each one is tested fully before shipping so there are some marks on this particular test version. My Exoskeleton Credentials
Before we start, why should you care what a tech blogger thinks of an exoskeleton? That's a fair question. I'm not a qualified roboticist, and my hands-on experience with exoskeleton technology starts and ends with the Sportsmate5. In my defense, you'd be hard pushed to find any tech blogger with that experience. I am someone who knows enough about embedded systems and how developers can use AI to enhance human/robot interactions to talk about what is going on under the hood here, but that's actually not all that important either. The Sportsmate5 is a consumer device aimed at people into fitness, both by adding resistance and assistance where necessary. I am a runner who uses bodyweight resistance work as part of my training, and my most recent training was for a 55km road Ultramarathon I completed the day before finalizing this review. I may not be a qualified roboticist, but as someone who needed help climbing the two flights of steps to get to my computer that day, I can confirm right off the bat that this isn't a scam. It genuinely assists, as the timing of this review placed me in the rare position of temporarily having a severe lack of movement ability! It's not without its quirks, though, and at a reported launch price of $899, it's not cheap either. The Sportsmate5 In Brief
The Sportsmate5 attaches to your waist via an inflatabale strap, with two high-performance servos attaching to thigh straps via linked metal connectors. These metal shafts are rigid in one plane but move quite freely in others, allowing the motors to provide forward and rear driving motions while allowing for some sideways leg movement. Encoders inside the servo housing read your own body's movement data, and the onboard microcontroller uses this information to drive the servos proportionally, helping to move your legs forward when in assistance mode. The straps are strong, and not dissimilar to the types used in various medical settings, and the general fit of the device is initially quite comfortable. After putting the Sportsmate5 on, which can be done alone, a button on the underside triggers the inflation pump, and you are ready to go. One side has a power button and mode switch - which puts you in either assistance or resistance mode. Once a mode is selected, a switch on the opposite side activates it, and a dial changes the amount of assistance or resistance. The battery pack clips into the back and provides around 3 hours of use, though this varies with the level of assistance. There's a charger in the box, which is a bit of an odd fit, but that's probably down to the prototype nature of this version. For something so futuristic, it was pretty simple to get up and running. The All-Important Question Does It Work
Yes. Yes, it does. Surprisingly well. It feels unusual at first for sure, but at this stage it's worth noting that the Sportsmate5 never moves unless prompted by you. There's no scope for Wallace and Gromit Wrong Trousers shenanigans here. It uses the encoders on the motors to sense your movement and assist it, rather than forcing you to move at its pace. If you've ridden an electric bike, you'll know this feeling already: it's an extension of your own body's power. In a similar vein, if you slow down and your legs start moving in smaller strides, the Sportsmate5 mimics this too. After the initial strangeness, It's a very natural feeling. One that can only get more natural as the AI model learns your gait. Most of the footage from this review is from that first day of use, and on that day I walked, ran, and did various forms of exercise on hills and on the flat. I've since tested it using the fitness guide provided by enhanced robotics, and as I previously mentioned, found it indispensable to do something as simple as get up the stairs on destroyed legs. Most of the testing for this review took place across one long day out, running around the local park, climbing hills, walking up stairs, and testing the movement limitations of the exoskeleton. Since that day, I've used the Enhanced Robotics fitness guide - a PDF of bodyweight exercises with complementary settings for the Sportsmate5 - frequently as a part of my general exercise. While I found it had limited use as a jogging aide, the fitness side of it is quite compelling, and as I previously mentioned, it also got me up the stairs today when walking to the door of the flat was quite a mission. The Sportsmate5 Operation Modes
Assistance Mode
As the name might suggest, the standard mode assists you. It works in two directions. The first is positive assistance, which is the most intuitive. It gives four levels of 'forward' assistance, literally helping to pull the leg up and forward when you start to move. There's definitely a moment you feel the actuators take over from your initial movement, but it feels controlled. Both walking and running in this mode feel fairly - though not completely - natural. The biggest differences for me by a long stretch were the feeling of walking upstairs and running uphill. I do both every day, sometimes several times, and the difference was substantial. There is also a negative assistance mode accessible by turning assistance down until the white meter starts to fill up red instead. This mode is designed to either make walking and jogging harder as light resistance training or take some of the burden away from going downstairs and hills. This was the only mode I didn't really feel any benefit from. While the pushback may have had some positive effects, the overall feeling of having anything change your perception of balance while moving downward is a little unnerving, and when I tried using negative assistance to run down a hill, it was downright terrifying. Fitness Mode
The fitness mode, accessible via the mode button, adds resistance instead. It is designed to make certain movements harder and complement a bodyweight fitness regime in a way simply adding a weight belt or other accessory might not be able to. Here the white and red indicator lights denote pushing or pulling resistance, and Enhanced Robotics provides a fitness handbook to give ideas for what modes would fit with what exercises. Surprisingly, this was the most useful aspect of the Sportsmate5 for me. As someone who struggles with hip-related injuries, it was a very targeted way to add angular resistance to my training. As far as settings go, that's it. Four modes of operation, each of which will theoretically learn your movement over time and improve the way they interact with you. If it was learning my movements, I didn't notice it much throughout this review. Perhaps I didn't use it long enough, or perhaps I just didn't notice it subtly getting smoother as it got used to me as much as I was getting used to it? Movement in the Sportsmate5 is generally relatively comfortable, but that comfort definitely diminishes over time. Prototype Teething Problems
Despite the late prototype nature of the Sportsmate5, there are still a few issues Enhanced Robotics hopes to iron out before final production. Firstly, the weight. It feels surprisingly natural to use, but there's no escaping the 3.8 KGs hanging off you. It did get uncomfortable, heavy on the hips, and tight around the legs. I had them on for the best part of the whole morning, and over time that relatively light weight began to drag. It's a known issue, and after all, there isn't really anything you can do about gravity. This is also a known issue with this prototype and one that the team behind it is hoping to improve on before the Kickstarter. Plans apparently include reducing the weight to around 2.5kg, and increasing the range of motion. That range of motion isn't too limited on the prototype though. I found most exercises easy enough to do, and even jumping up onto smallish objects felt ok, though certainly a little cumbersome. Enhanced robotics also cite motor noise as an issue they want to fix, but to be honest, I never really noticed the motor sounds during the review, and unless you plan to use this in the same room someone is sleeping in, you won't have an issue. Attaching the metal leg clips is probably a louder sound than the motor noise. That said, there are some small but, in a way, significant issues. If you are using the Sportsmate5, you can't use your pockets. If you have stuff in them you can't get things out, and if you manage to slide your phone in, it might get crunched. As I said at the top of this review, I'm no expert, but I can guess that this is a limitation of this type of exoskeleton and not a failing of this particular exoskeleton. Is the Sportmate5 Worth It
So, is the Sportsmate5 a worthwhile consumer fitness device to consider? Well, actually, yes. We should judge cutting-edge consumer tech on what it can actually do, rather than the wow factor of its tech. For an AI-powered fitness device, the Sportsmate5 is reasonably understated. No monthly subscription or slick advertising campaign, no high fives, kudos, or social media-infused app. Just a solid set of "robot legs" that does what you expect of it and nothing more. The $899 reported price tag is high but not that high. If you consider that more or less every claim Enhanced Robotics has made about this is true, it becomes an expensive but viable thing. This is especially true when compared to the legions of sports aids that actually don't do anything but claim Magical Pseudo-Science makes them 'special' in some way. I'd argue that Sportsmate5 is the special one. It isn't perfect, and the comfort and battery life-while not deal-breakers-certainly leave room for improvement. But it is what it claims to be: the first consumer exoskeleton for hiking and fitness. The technology will take off in a big way soon, but as a product right on the forefront, Enhanced Robotics has made something extraordinary. Much like VR is going through an interactive consumer-driven slow-motion explosion, personal robotics is also improving in a way that will make it mainstream sooner than most people think. If you want to be on the crest of the wave, this is where you get on.