Who we are

Ancient wisdom, modern measurement, one step at a time.

Our mission

HarmoniQ Tech is a health technology company. Our mission is to bring together long-standing traditions of movement, rest and self-awareness with modern measurement and with light-based and movement-based therapies. Our aim is to help people recover from injury and improve their strength, posture and overall health through step-by-step lifestyle change. We intend to do this by combining three therapies with the HarmoniQ guidance system (in development), which we are developing to turn sensor data into step-by-step lifestyle guidance. The therapies are biofeedback, in which sensors show a person a bodily signal so they can learn to influence it; photobiomodulation (PBM), the application of red or near-infrared light to tissue; and a proprioceptive vibration therapy.

Health as one system

Our view of health is holistic, meaning we consider movement, rest, nutrition, stress and environment together. The unit of progress is therefore a change in how a person lives, not a single session of any therapy. We intend that change to be made step by step, with each step measured. Our starting point is a simple picture: a still mind and a moving body, considered together. Traditions of movement, rest and self-awareness inform this picture, beginning with the concept in our name.

Our name, HarmoniQ Tech, joins harmony with Qi. Qi is a concept from Chinese philosophy and medicine, and it runs through Chinese movement and meditation practices such as qigong and tai chi [1][2]. In these practices, Qi is understood as a vital energy [3] associated with the body's workings, and posture, movement, breath and attention are the means of cultivating it [1][2]. The aim of these practices is to keep that energy in harmony within a person [1][2]. Our name is drawn from that idea. That idea is a way of thinking about the whole person, not a mechanism: we do not claim that any of our therapies moves, balances or directs energy, and none is offered on that basis. What each therapy is, and how we intend to use it, are set out below. Where we draw on another tradition, we will name it and say what it teaches.

Biofeedback

Biofeedback is intended to be the measurement layer of our approach. Heart-rate variability (HRV) biofeedback works with the fluctuation in the time intervals between adjacent heartbeats [4]. We intend biofeedback to give a person real-time awareness of their physiological state, for example HRV, muscle activity and breathing, and the skill of influencing it. Its signals, from sessions and daily life, are intended to be the primary sensor input for the guidance system. After five years of our own research, we have finalised the set of sensors we will use, and we will add new sensors as new findings and development allow. That research was spent evaluating sensors and how they integrate with one another, not on trials. The sensors used for each person will be chosen for that person's starting point and goals.

Photobiomodulation

PBM is intended to be a scheduled intervention during recovery phases after injury, with the aim of supporting tissue recovery and easing pain. We regard strength and posture as aims for the three therapies together, not for PBM alone. We would apply it according to a protocol we are developing, and each session is designed to produce a log of dose, site, duration and the person's own report.

A proprioceptive vibration therapy

The third therapy would apply low-amplitude mechanical vibration to the body, and is designed to support strength, posture and proprioception, the body's sense of its own position and movement. Which method and equipment we will use, and who will deliver it, are still being confirmed. Whether it supports strength, posture or proprioception is a question for our own trials, which have not yet begun. We intend to record posture and movement measurements before and after each session, so that change over time is seen rather than assumed.

The guidance system

The guidance system is in the final stages of development, and we are preparing to trial it. It has not yet been trialled. It is designed to draw on biofeedback signals, posture and movement measurements, therapy session logs and a person's own reports of their lifestyle. From these it will aim to suggest the next step in a person's plan and to adjust its suggestions as they progress. It is based on artificial intelligence, and it is designed to keep learning from the data gathered during trials and to adapt as it learns. That learning is designed to take two forms: adjusting its algorithms, and adjusting the guidance for each person from what that person's own measurements show. How the trials will run, and how it will store and protect a person's data, are still being decided; we will set these out on its own page. Whatever else is decided, during the trials a human reviewer will check its guidance before a participant sees it. It will not diagnose, prescribe or treat.

Who we serve

Our work is for two kinds of people. The first are people recovering from an injury who want a structured, measured path back to strength and normal movement. The second are people without an acute problem who want to improve their posture, strength, resilience and general health by changing how they live, gradually. We do not offer any therapy for a specific disease, and we are not a replacement for medical care.

How we work with people

Our approach is to measure first, so that a plan starts from where a person is. We intend to change one thing at a time and to let the measurements, and the person, set the pace. One reason HarmoniQ Tech was founded was to run its own trials. Most of the therapies and technologies we work with are young as subjects of scientific study, and the published work on them changes from year to year. Rather than point to studies that may already be out of date, we intend to test each therapy ourselves. We intend to record what we find, and to adjust our methods and the guidance system's algorithms to those findings. Those trials have not yet begun, and until they report we make no claim about what any of our therapies achieves. Each therapy page sets out what that therapy is, how it is proposed to work and how we intend to use it, together with its own list of who should take care, because the cautions differ from one therapy to the next.