Lark Technologies, Inc. today announced expanded availability for Lark Chat, the company's interactive, health-coaching app designed to help people eat healthier and get more active in order to achieve their personal heath and weight-loss goals. Lark Chat is now available for free to download on all Android devices as well as iPhone 4 and 5, and pre-installed on all new Samsung phones. First launched on the iPhone 5s and above, with unique Apple Watch functionality added this spring, the expanded rollout to Android users follows the company's recent success with new nutrition, activity and personal weight-loss coaching services. Lark Chat was named Apple's "Best New App" in the health category, and is available for download in the Google Play Store for Android, or the App Store for iPhone 4 or above and Apple Watch.
Now available to more than 97 million Android users, as reported by comScore Reports in January 2015, Lark Chat on Android uses Samsung S-Health, and phone sensors to track sleep, and active and stationary time as accurately as a wearable device. This is similar to the iOS app, which uses Apple's motion sensors and Apple HealthKit. In addition to expanded availability on Android and Apple, Lark Chat is now pre-installed on all new Samsung phones inside S-Health's Partner Apps. Leveraging sensors across all platforms and devices, Lark Chat sends users instant notifications and reminders in addition to providing access to a coach that responds within two seconds, 24/7.
"Our mission at Lark is to help every person live a healthier lifestyle, and this is a huge milestone for us in that journey," said Julia Hu, CEO and cofounder, Lark Technologies, Inc. "By expanding to new platforms and devices, we can help even more people reach their health goals – whether it be for weight loss, fitness or overall well-being. We want to make Lark Chat fun and smart, so we're pushing our proprietary Health Artificial Intelligence engine to new levels. We're automating some of the top health and behavioral experts from Harvard and Stanford, known as the Lark Health Committee, so everyone can have them as their personal health coaches."
Lark Chat's recently-launched meal logging provides an accessible way to approach nutrition, and makes it ten times quicker to log meals as compared to traditional calorie tracking. Lark Chat tracks meals via text or voice dictation, and interprets casual and conversational language with Natural Language Processing. It's as easy as texting or chatting with a friend. Lark Chat provides instant feedback, congratulating healthy choices ("Nice work on getting in some healthy grains!") and pointing out less healthy decisions ("It looks like you've had a lot of added sugars twice this week."), while providing alternatives and stick-with-it motivation ("How about switching to a leaner protein to boost your energy?"). The advanced artificial intelligence technology actually gets smarter the more the app is used, providing increasingly customized feedback to each individual in each interaction. Since launch, Lark Chat has exchanged 300 million text messages with users. Lark proactively checks in with users several times a day, as opposed to personal trainers that check in with each client on average once a week.
To help both new and existing users dial in on their health goals, Lark Chat has added key features across platforms, including:
- Targeted Weight-Loss Coaching: Lark will coach users about how healthy their meals are, getting into the specifics like portion size. Lark will also check in on personal goals and settings, for example if users are on a paleo or vegan diet, in order to provide even more helpful feedback.
- Meal Logging Chart: An added meal logging chart gives an at-a-glance picture of users' eating patterns, allowing to easily track progress.
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