PostureMinder acts as your personal posture coach, helping you to improve your working habits and how you sit to prevent (or recover from) back pain and other work-related ill-health

If you use PostureMinder together with a USB webcam, you'll be able to benefit from intelligent posture reminders to help you to continually improve your posture

Intelligent reminders work as follows:

Step 1: you sit in a good comfortable working posture that you want to be your usual way of sitting from now on

Step 2: PostureMinder captures a head-and-shoulders reference image of how you look when sitting in that good posture

Step 3: PostureMinder starts running in the background. Every few seconds it takes a new image and automatically compares it against your reference image to detect if you've changed position

Step 4: if you lean or slouch relative to your reference image for 1-10 minutes (depending on your settings), you'll get an on-screen reminder to stop sitting in a bad posture

That's all there is to it! Setting up and calibrating PostureMinder takes a couple of minutes the first time you use it, and only seconds after that. It will then work to help you all the time you're using your PC

Note that posture reminders don't appear the moment you start sitting badly. That would discourage you from moving around, and movement is good for your health! Only if you sit in a consistently poor posture for a while will you get a reminder

How quickly reminders appear is up to you - like all PostureMinder's features you can set this to suit you

No images are stored or sent anywhere, PostureMinder works entirely through advanced image processing techniques. Once your posture has been checked, the image is destroyed

If you don't have a webcam connected, PostureMinder will still provide valuable reminders to think about your posture from time-to-time, at intervals you set to suit you

Other built-in tools for healthy PC use:

Break and micro-break reminders* encourage you to switch tasks or take regular short breaks from your computer, instead of working continuously until fatigue builds up, your concentration fails and you start making mistakes.

Research shows that working like this will help you feel better and get much more done

In the Professional Edition, comprehensive ergonomic workstation training and self-assessment covers all topics set out in the UK display screen equipment regulations, and more. On completion it generates a record of the training completed and any issues raised in the course of the self-assessment

If you purchase the Home Edition for yourself or your family, the software includes detailed ergonomic advice on setting up your home computing environment for healthy use

Video-guided stretch exercises are included to help you relieve tension and fatigue. You will be offered these whenever the software reminds you you're due a break, or you can access them directly at any time you feel the need to relieve some tension

The hydration tool* helps you to keep track of your consumption of caffeinated drinks and water to help you improve your hydration habits for better health and concentration

Whether you suffer from existing back, neck or shoulder pain or RSI, want to avoid developing such conditions in future, or just want to feel better and use your PC more effectively, PostureMinder will help

*micro-break reminders and hydration tracker appear in the Professional Edition only