The 40-day Kickstarter campaign for a Chicago company's under-desk elliptical trainer wrapped up today raising just over $293,000, making it the highest funded Kickstarter in the design category for Chicago this year.
On July 23 the Cubii, a fitness device designed to help you exercise while at work, surpassed its original goal of $80,000 and in the next 18 hours doubled its total to $168,000. Monday it finished at $293,712 with more than 1,000 backers.
The Cubii is small enough that you won't hit your knees on your desk, quiet enough that it won't disturb your coworkers, and it has an adjustable resistance so you can change the difficulty level. And it has an app that syncs to your smartphone to keep track of your exercise. With the late surge of fundraising Fitness Cubed, the designers of Cubii, added two stretch goals to bring more features to the device. Now a small generator will be added inside the Cubii that will use bluetooth so the Cubii can talk to your phone without using any batteries. And the company will add a feature that will power your plugged in cell phone through your own exercise.
Fitness Cubed will begin manufacturing the Cubii next month. Software design of the accompanying app will take place in November, devices will ship in December, and those who ordered a Cubii during the Kickstarter will receive them in January. The Cubii was sold at $299 during the campaign but will be $349 at retail, according to CEO Arnav Dalmia. Fitness Cubed is in talks with several large retail stores, Amazon, and specific fitness websites to begin selling the device.
