YogiFi To Make Smart Yoga Mats In India

Bengaluru-based Wellnesys on Sunday said it will start manufacturing its smart yoga mats in India as it looks to expand its presence in India and neighboring countries. The company, which has a similar facility in the US, already has customers of its 'YogiFi' smart yoga mats in 17 countries including the US, India, the UK, Singapore, and Germany. 'We have established manufacturing set up in Bengaluru and this will be scaled up depending on the demand. We are committed to the Make-in-India initiative and believe that this facility will also help us serve the needs of the region,' Wellnesys founder and CEO Muralidhar Somisetty told PTI.

So far, the product has been manufactured and assembled out of Wellnesys' own facility in Atlanta, US. Somisetty said the India facility will also help in the creation of local jobs. The company has about 25 people in the US and India across manufacturing, research and development, and sales, and is looking at a '10X increase' in its headcount in the coming months, he added.

'Yoga has been a special gift from our ancients to the modern world, with deep roots in India. While China continues to be the largest exporter of regular yoga mats with its strong manufacturing base, we have made a promise (Sankalpa) to ourselves to become self-reliant (Atmanirbhar) with YogiFi's Make-in-India initiative and notch up further with the world's first eco-friendly and sustainable smart mat manufacturing set-up in Bengaluru,” Somisetty said.

He added that the interactive yoga mat will open for pre-booking later this month and deliveries are expected to be made in the next two months. While the pricing is yet to be decided, it is expected to be available for about Rs 12,000. YogiFi is embedded with multi-patented sensors and non-intrusive posture tracking technologies to record one's daily practice while measuring their progress on flexibility, strength, and balance. The smart mat unifies the fusion of smart mat and computer vision-enabled via smartphone app delivering audiovisual instructions with real-time feedback in multiple regional languages.

YogiFi Mat can also be optionally paired with third-party wearables such as Apple Watch and Fitbit to acquire key vital signs and measure the effectiveness of sessions. Somisetty said the company has sold about a thousand mats and with the manufacturing plant in place in India now, Wellnesys is looking at at least 10,000 pre-bookings coming in from the home country. The smart mats will be sold through the company's own platform. Somisetty noted that the company is looking at partnering with e-commerce platforms for expanding sales channels. 

PTI