Posture-correcting suspenders make you sit up straight with stretchy fabric

Anyone with a desk job knows the constant temptation to slump in front of a computer. From yoga balls to sensors like the iPosture, an entire industry is ready to fix your posture, but one Carnegie Mellon student has devised a solution that may be easier to use and just as effective. Tobias Sonne has developed what he calls Posture Suspenders, a set of ordinary suspenders with a piece of stretchy, conductive fabric sewn into them. If the fabric is stretched taut, that indicates good posture; if it’s loose, a buzzer will sound, reminding you to sit up straight.

Most posture reminders, including the iPosture, work by detecting shifts with a built-in accelerometer. The downside to these, Sonne found when he tried to use them, is that they require frequent recalibration — every time you move, you need to indicate a “correct” position to the sensor. As the video below shows, it’s possible to sit and stand in these suspenders without difficulty or recalibration. The alligator clips in the pictuer above seem to be gone from the working prototype as well. We’re not sure any amount of good posture is worth wearing noisemaking suspenders, but at least you won’t look like an experiment while doing so.