Get Off the Couch and Walk, Or Magic Island Will Hate You

Are you trying to lose weight? And also in your late 40s, somewhat technophobic, and an avid FarmVille player? Why, Dave Wang may have just the social-networked, gameified color touchscreen superpedometer for you. Wang is co-founder and chief executive of Striiv, a five-month-old startup based in Redwood City, Calif. The key-fob-sized Striiv device, which sort of resembles an iPod Nano with rounded edges, has an accelerometer and altimeter inside so—along with measuring the number of steps you take—it also counts the stairs you climb.

Striiv ($99 on Amazon.com) is the latest entrant in a growing set of wearable computers that help you track exercise. For example, FitBit, a similarly priced clip-on device that looks like a small clothespin, does basically the same things and has been around for a few years. The Fitbit synchs with a Mac or PC and has an elegant mobile app. If you’ve ever used a financial-dashboard service such as Mint.com, imagine those charts and graphs, but with exercise instead of money.