9zest "free trial"

A warning about the 9Zest app that is supposed to provide customized exercise routines for pwp (and also for people with MS and strokes).  Nice idea, poor implementation.

There is a free-trial period, but there’s no way to cancel at the end of the “free trial” unless you email customer service.

Why didn’t I want to keep using the app?

• Not a human voice – a machine voice (circa 1997, not Alexa).
• Poor English in almost every sentence – missing words, especially.
• Garbled directions.
• Do you think marching back and forth for 5 minutes is fun or interesting?  How about taking pinches from a piece of clay for 5 minutes, using only thumb and index finger?  Me neither.  Each exercise lasts between 2 and 5 minutes – with a machine voice that is either constant, interrupting itself, or disappears.  There is no music.
• If you have multiple goals, you’ll start seeing the same exercises showing up again.  Want to march back and forth for another 5 minutes?  In silence, except for occasional notices that you’ve completed 110 seconds… 130 seconds…
• Inaccurate lists of equipment needed – I assemble everything they say I need, only to find that, wait a minute, I need a ring to throw a ball through.  What?  And a bunch of balls to throw through the ring.  Didn’t you tell me that I need one ball? 
• Lie down.  Stand up. Sit down. Lie down.  – no thought has been given to people who might need extra time to get down or get up, never mind keeping all the similar exercises together.

If you want to exercise, even at home, there are many choices:  included in this blog post Finding Exercise, and in APDA's booklet Be Active and Beyond.

9Zest?  Nice idea, but the execution is lousy. 


Image: Pixabay