Fitbit founders create Luffu, an app that uses AI to monitor families’ health

The founders of FitbitJames Park and Eric Friedman, have announced the release of Luffa new app that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to collect data and monitor the health of members of a familyeven pets.

Google’s restructuring in January 2024 ended the layoff of hundreds of employees of the engineering areas, Google Assistant, and the ‘hardware’ team of Pixel, Nest and Fitbit, and marked the departure of the co-founders of Fitbit.

Now, two years later, James Park and Eric Friedman have presented another health-focused company, Luffu, which goes beyond the personal care of their previous proposal to focus on family.

The new company works in a “intelligent family care system” which, with an application and linked devices, collects the data of each member and monitors it “silently in the background” with the help of AI, they have indicated in a statement. Thanks to this monitoring, changes can be detected or reminders scheduled.

“Luffu is attentive to changes (forgotten medications, imbalances in health and activity habits) and warns you before they become a concern, so you can rest assured,” they announce on their website.

To collect this data, Luffu supports the information record via voice, text or images, and is also compatible with applications such as Apple Health or his own Fitbit. Regarding data privacy, Park and Friedman have assured that users “always have control of exactly what is shared, with whom.”

Luffu is designed for those adults who exercise “caregivers” from other family members, from elderly parents to children, including pets. In this way, they seek to differentiate themselves from other health applications, focused on personal health.

“We manage the care of three generations: the children at home, the busy parents in between, and my father, in his 80s with diabetes who still wants to be completely independent,” Friedman explained. In addition, he has highlighted the importance of this type of application for “chaotic” moments such as a nighttime fever, a sudden visit to the emergency room or a doctor’s consultation that asks for information that the user does not have on hand.

Among the functions that Luffu includes are the ‘guardian moments’with which it observes changes and sends alerts; he record health and medication; questions and answers with simple language; and information sharing with family members.

Following the launch of the app, Park and Friedman aim to create more products focused on family health, creating a “ecosystem” of hardware products own to complement the service.

To access the application, users must register on a waiting list for their limited public beta through the official website.