Lighter tracks your smoking habits to shame you to quit
Ask any smoker: quitting is hard. Cigarettes become a part of your daily life, a habit that's not only hard to break, but hard to keep track of. "Tracking is one of the most important factors in one's health," Ata Ghofrani told us at a recent Haxlr8r event. "Being cognizant of our smoking behavior." Ghofrani and his partner, Kuji Nakano were looking for a way to track and reduce their smoking behavior, but found most health apps were dedicated to promoting positive behavior, not reducing negative ones. They soon teamed up to create Quitbit: a cigarette lighter that keeps track of how much you smoke.
At a glance, the Quitbit looks an awful lot like a regular Zippo-style lighter, albeit a Zippo with a screen. This small LED display (pictured above on an early prototype) runs a tally of how many cigarettes you smoke each day and how long it's been since you last lit up. This data alone is enough to give smokers some accountability, but it can do more. A companion smartphone app can be used to track the data over longer periods of time, set goals, share successes with an online community and even track how much money smokers have saved from cutting back. The lighter can also be programmed not to work for extended periods -- forcing smokers to cut back to a set amount of cigarettes each day.
It's a neat device for smokers looking to quantify their habit, but it won't completely replace your traditional lighter: the gizmo is all-electric, meaning it uses a coiled heating element instead of the usual flame. Still, if you're looking to put a number on your oral fixation, check out the product's Kickstarter page: it just launched.
