The connected economy now has a mirror. A “smart” mirror of course, powered by artificial intelligence (AI).
After winning the “smart home” category for eight years running at the Consumer Electronics Show, including the 2024 edition in early January, Baracoda is on the cusp of bringing the connected home into the bathroom. It’s betting it can bring AI-driven mental health applications to the everyday habits of consumers.
“The bathroom is the interface with intimacy,” Baracoda CEO Thomas Serval told PYMNTS. “Our research showed that the No. 1 pain point for mental health issues is waking up in the morning. A lot of people go to work depressed, and this accelerated with COVID, where people were sitting at home during lockdown and in many cases facing loneliness.
“I know there are better ways than AI or an AI companion to solve the loneliness problem. But if you have no choice for whatever reason, whether it’s about having a condition or whether it because you’re locked in, then technology can help consumers progress toward the root cause of their issues.”
Baracoda bills itself as an “everyday healthtech” company. Serval said he is expecting to sign a manufacturing and distribution deal soon that will bring his latest creation to market, the BMind smart mirror.
The device, he says, is not just a mirror but a window into the future of personal care and daily mental wellness habits. BMind’s technology is not meant for acute mental health conditions and is not meant as a replacement for traditional mental health treatment. But Serval believes its technology can offer proactive support for managing stress, anxiety and feelings of loneliness.
The inception of BMind is rooted in Baracoda’s bigger business model, which is to help companies enhance health through technology. Since Serval left Google in 2012, Baracoda has built an integrated three-part ecosystem: BSolutions assists companies in product ideation and production; BTech, it’s software platform; and BLabs, its innovation hub.
For example, Colgate partnered with Baracoda in 2016 to create a connected toothbrush. By integrating a Bluetooth chip and AI algorithms into the company’s Hum toothbrush, Baracoda made it possible to track its position in the mouth with 95% accuracy. It then connected it to a smartphone app, and in doing so, analyzed unbrushed or under-brushed areas, creating an entirely new oral health index: surface coverage.
On the professional health and beauty side, it worked with Wella on a precursor to BMind. The smart mirror it created for Wella includes AI, augmented reality (AR) tutorials, 3D visualization, voice commands, and face and object recognition, creating an immersive and personalized experience. And in addition to developing the mirror itself, its system is integrated with Wella’s customer management system, enabling improved customer communication outside of the salon experience.
For over five years, the company has been at the forefront of developing connected mirrors like the one it built for Wella, each year unveiling a new iteration at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) that showcased incremental innovations.
This journey began with a simple yet ambitious idea: to bring connectivity into the bathroom without the drawbacks of conventional smart devices. Baracoda’s vision was to create a device that not only fits seamlessly into the user’s daily routine but also enhances their well-being without being intrusive.
The development of BMind was not without challenges. Early on, Baracoda identified two primary hurdles: interface complexity and the need for a compelling value proposition. Traditional touch-based interfaces were impractical for a bathroom setting, where cleanliness is paramount. This led to the realization that AI and gesture recognition technologies were essential for creating an intuitive, touchless interface.
Leveraging generative AI, natural language processing (NLP), and computer vision, BMind offers a personalized and interactive experience that adapts to the user’s mood and needs, suggesting activities like light therapy, guided meditation, and self-affirmations to enhance mental wellness.
Innovation is baked into the culture at Baracoda. Serval credits three approaches to creating and maintaining that culture. The first is a general curiosity. He first came up with the idea for a smart mirror after walking the aisles at CES.
The second is keeping pace with emerging trends in the market. Here he cites the move toward proactive mental health treatments that is built into BMind.
The third is investing in people. Baracoda has over 90 scientists and data analysts working on AI-driven projects.
And while he’s excited about the short-term consumer delivery of BMind, he’s also aware that the bar has been raised for AI and personal health data. BMind operates on the CareOS platform, embodying a privacy-by-design philosophy that ensures data is stored locally and shared only with explicit user consent. This commitment extends to partnerships with companies like ThrivePal and Inclusive Brains, which enrich BMind’s offerings with bespoke programs for self-improvement and real-time emotional adaptation.
“What drives me are the stories,” he said. “I want to get my early users to get to tell me all about their experiences with a product. When we launched a toothbrush, my favorite story was from a mother of autistic child who couldn’t brush his teeth until our invention [that gamified the experience].
“Because as an inventor you can’t predict what those stories will be. But the pride of being able to serve one person with one problem in their daily life is really what makes me tick every day.”
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