Vigx blog

It Walks How You Walk: How Intelligent Gait Adaptation Changed My Hike

It was a beautiful day. Cold, but beautiful. It had been a bitterly cold winter morning, the kind that warned you away from a walk. Forebodingly, a storm the previous day had dumped eight inches of snow onto the ground.  Walking through heavy snow can suck the strength out of you. Every step is a small battle. I was serious about not going on my walk, when I remembered that I had an AI-powered exoskeleton sitting in a fabric suitcase on my kitchen table.  The Decision to Strap In  The VIGX π Plus is a lightweight exoskeleton that straps around your waist and thighs and gives you a boost as you walk, hike, and run. My experience was somewhat limited; I had been testing it for a couple of weeks, mostly on fair days and relatively easy terrain. But heavy, uneven, energy-draining snow? That, I thought, may be a different story, but there was only one way to find out. I quickly strapped it to my legs and turned it on. Then, I headed outside.  The first thing that became obvious was that I didn’t feel like I was working hard. I was just walking. The thick snow was there, but it felt more like…just going on a walk. What "AI-Powered" Actually Means  I know that “AI-powered exoskeleton” sounds like marketing lingo, but I found that it was accurate, in the case of the VIGX π Plus.  It learns your particular gait using sensors and onboard processing. It’s looking at how you move: your stride length, your cadence, how fast you’re going. Based on that, it’s always calibrating how much assistance to give. The result is something very impressive. But it feels nothing like a robot, and you wear it just like a belt over your clothes. You feel a difference immediately. It finely tunes itself to your natural motion. You’re walking the way you normally do, just with less effort. The device can provide 15 newton-meters of max torque, which means offloading about 30 percent of your overall effort. To be honest, when I first read that spec, it meant nothing to me. Torque? Newton meters? Cool, I guess? But once you’ve hiked halfway up a snowy trail and realized you’re not exhausted, the number finally makes intuitive sense. It doesn’t do the lifting for you, just helps you share the load.  You're Still Getting a Workout  I can imagine that when some people hear “exoskeleton,” they probably think it’s going to carry them around like a lazy emperor on a throne. This, alas, is not that.  You’re still using those muscles, burning calories, and, over time, building endurance. Your work is supplemented, rather than replaced, by the device. Picture a mountain bike with different gears. You shift down when you go up big hills to avoid getting gassed. You shift up on level ground to keep resistance on your legs. But we’ve never had gears for our legs. Until now.  Thinking through every reason you may turn around on a hike can also lead you to decide not to go on the hike at all. Whether it’s the pack that bites into your shoulders or the hill that conquers you every time. Those reasons start to disappear when you are wearing something like this.  I recently saw an episode of The Outdoor Boys where Luke, the main guy, is doing a 22-mile hike across the Alaskan tundra. About halfway through, he realizes he’s just too exhausted to make it. He gives up and goes home. I found myself yelling at my computer, “Dude, you need this exoskeleton!” It Feels Lighter Over Time I did experience something strange while using the π Plus that I wasn’t really expecting. After about 45 minutes of using it on my snowy walk, I realized it was feeling lighter, not heavier. It weighs around 4 pounds for the whole kit. That’s pretty light for what it can do. But even then, you might expect it to start feeling it. That wasn’t happening.  I had the image in my head of the thing connected to a big helium balloon above me, making me feel lighter. Felt great! Now, I do recognize that physics doesn’t work like this. What I suspect is happening is that it reduces load on your lower body, giving you less fatigue overall. Your brain registers the entire experience as lower effort, even though you’ve got a robot strapped to your body. Just a theory.  Quick Specs For those who want the numbers at a glance: Weight: ~4.6 lbs (2.1 kg Including batteries) Torque: 15 Nm (offloads roughly 30% of effort) Battery life: Up to 24,000 steps with both batteries Hot-swappable batteries: Swap without powering down Materials: Lightweight, high-strength composites Activities: Walking, hiking, running, and more The Moment It Clicked  In winter, I have to avoid the hill near my house. With snow on the ground, it becomes a full-on cardiovascular nightmare. I have learned the hard way that when the weather is bad, I should just skip it.  Except on this walk. Looking up at the hill, I shrugged and said, “What the heck. Let's see what happens.”  I adjusted the level of assistance using the belt controls and went for it. I won’t tell you it was that easy. I was a little out of breath. But I wasn’t remotely bonking. And I didn’t once have to stop, gasping for air and wondering what I was doing with my life. I just hiked up the hill. And when I got to the top, I was delighted to notice that I felt great.  Removing the Reasons Not To  Here’s what stuck with me after that day in the snow wearing my VIGX π Plus exoskeleton.  I nearly skipped my walk. The increasingly terrible weather was a perfectly good excuse to stay in, break my exercise streak, and drink hot chocolate. Instead, I went anyway and had a great walk. I saw the neighborhood covered in snow, and I got a great workout. Afterward, I came home feeling, not drained, but energized.  The π Plus gave me a reason to be more active.  This is the key thing. It’s about removing the barriers between you and the activities you love saying “yes” to the hike, the walk, the trail, even when conditions aren’t perfect; even when your body is telling you to stay on the couch.  The snow is still out there. And so am I.  Explore the VIGX π series at vigx.ai.