We made the Sporty Keen and Keen2 awareness bracelets out of a desire to solve co-founder Aneela's struggle with compulsive hair pulling (trichotillomania). After seeing first-hand how effective our first prototypes were for Aneela, and how profound her success was, we knew we could help others reduce their unwanted hair pulling (trichotillomania), skin picking (dermatillomania) and nail biting (onychophagia), if we refined the solution. After much research, many conversations with treatment professionals and people with Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors, along with iterations of prototype after prototype, we brought HabitAware Keen to the world. 

After creating Sporty Keen, we realized that for a lot of people, awareness was only half the battle. Keen2 answers the question: Okay, I’m aware, what do I do next? 

Keen2 offers an in-app journal so that you can ask yourself questions like “Where am I?” “What time is it?” “Who am I with?” and identify patterns in your triggers so that you can make sure you’re ready for hard situations. Keen2 encourages the user, prompting you to identify your motivations as well as sending supportive messages daily. 

Both Sporty Keen and Keen2 are designed to build your awareness of unwanted behaviors that are physical movements of the wrists, repetitive and focused on the body. These Body Focused Repetitive Behaviors include, but are not limited to: hair pulling (trichotillomania), skin picking (dermatillomania / excoriation disorder), and nail biting (onychophagia).

Sporty Keen and Keen2 generally work best with behaviors related to hand/wrist motions near the head and face. We have also had some customers successfully use it for picking of the hands and arms, though a user may find more false alarms with these areas of the body as they overlap with many typical benign hand movements.

Sporty Keen and Keen2 are designed for kids (ages 8+) and adults who are ready to change. If you bring the willingness, HabitAware’s smart bracelets provide the awareness. With these two key ingredients you have the power to take control of your subconscious Body Focused Repetitive Behavior (BFRB). Keen bracelets are not a magic wand that will stop your BFRB, but it is an instrumental tool in the process toward sustainable behavior change. Sporty Keen and Keen2 provide the awareness, allowing you the choice to stop.

If a Sporty Keen or Keen2 is for a child, we highly encourage parents to talk with their child before ordering to ensure they are ready to put in the effort for lasting behavior change. Also please review our webinar before ordering as well.

No, neither Sporty Keen nor Keen2 can physically stop you, nor do they prevent the unwanted behavior from happening. It brings you awareness of where your hands are so that you can choose healthier alternatives. Once you have committed to changing your behavior, Keen bracelets can be a powerful tool that helps you succeed over the long-term.

In addition to witnessing the success of thousands of customers worldwide, we have researched the power of awareness with top clinical experts. While Keen bracelets represent a new technology, the idea for this type of bracelet in academic research is not new. Awareness underpins the gold standard technique in behavior change, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and our bracelet enables and increases that awareness. HabitAware has been awarded several research grants from the NIH and NSF to further develop the technology, and as we identify improvements we will continue to incorporate them into the product.

After you take either Keen out of the box, you train it with the app by performing your specific scanning behavior for 15 seconds. For example, if you typically play with a patch of hair before pulling, you train Keen by playing with the hair repeatedly. Keen's sophisticated motion sensors record the repetitive way you do the behavior, and thereafter silently monitors your hand. Once recorded, Keen simply makes you aware with a gentle vibration when you do the behavior.

Keen2's app has a carefully presented set of courses to prepare you for the training process, but once you reach the training stage, it only takes 10 seconds to record your specific gesture. Once Keen2 is set up, you can enter journal entries and details about each episode when you perform your behavior. The app offers a variety of courses with education and mindset training for overcoming your BFRB, and also sends you motivational messages.

• No, both Keen bracelets bring you into awareness with a simple vibration every time you perform your specific behavior. Expert psychologists confirm that there's a reason scientists stopped advocating for electric shock decades ago. The best way to change behavior sustainably and in a healthy way is through awareness and making conscious positive choices.

• Some people do certain behaviors with a dominant hand, and if you are one of them a single band will work fine. If you use both your left and right hand to engage in the behavior you want to stop, we still recommend that you start with the one. You might find that by strengthening your awareness for one hand, you become aware of the other! This will help you retrain each hand away from the subconscious behavior. Though, if you feel that won’t work for you, we offer a $30 discount off a set of two (Use code SETOF2) and multiple styles to ensure Keen blends in.

Yes, both Keen bracelets can store up to 4 behaviors, and you can modify or delete and retrain these trained behaviors at any time. We highly recommend starting with training ONE behavior to get used to the Keen bracelet and yourself - this is a journey to awareness, after all!

For a complete guide to setting up Sporty Keen or Keen2, please visit our Setup Keen page.

For Keen2, you will need to download our free Keen2 app which you can find by searching “Keen2 HabitAware” in your app store. You can then set up and sync Keen2 with select mobile devices that support Bluetooth 4.2 or higher technology. Here are the compatibility requirements:

* Apple / iOS devices require running a minimum of iOS version 13.0.

* Android devices require models running a minimum of Android version 6.0 (Marshmallow).

For Sporty Keen, please download our Original Keen app from either the Apple App Store for iOS or the Google Play Store for Android. For the Sporty Keen bracelet, you will need to download our free Original Keen app and access it on one of the following smart devices:

• iPhone 5 or later running iOS 9.3 or later
• iPod Touch 5th gen or later running iOS 9.3 or later
• iPad 4 or later running iOS 9.3 or later
• Android models (2014 or later) supporting Bluetooth 4.0 and running KitKat (4.4) or later.

After training Sporty Keen or Keen2, the bracelet will work without being near a phone. For example, a parent can help a child calibrate their Keen bracelet with the parent's smartphone, but the child does not need to keep the smartphone nearby. When the Keen bracelet and the smartphone come back in range of each other, you will be able to sync data from the bracelet to the Sporty Keen or Keen2 app to access the insights from the app.

While false positives are impossible to eliminate completely, we have been working to reduce them! We have a sophisticated motion capture algorithm and will continue to refine it based on our user's feedback. In general, you may get some errant vibrations, but with most behaviors, the bracelet should not be disruptive. 

There are settings to adjust for the preference of the user. For instance, you can select fewer reminders if you do the behavior in a specific way, or more if you want to be notified whenever the hand is in the danger area. Psychologists tell us that even unnecessary reminders for benign behavior help increase awareness of hand position, which is helpful for long-term behavior change.

For the original Sporty Keen bracelet, one feature to reduce false alarms is snooze. You can use this feature to pause detection for up to 30 minutes. To set the amount of time to snooze, use the Sporty Keen app. To initiate snooze, simply hold Sporty Keen's button for 2 vibrations (~3 seconds). You will feel a long vibration that confirms Sporty Keen's gesture detection is snoozed. To bring Sporty Keen out of snooze, simply hold the button for another 2 vibrations (~ 3 seconds). You will again feel a long vibration. More information is available here.

For Keen2, instead of snoozing the bracelet, in the app you have the option to disable a certain danger zone. It can be reactivated at any time.

The acceleration in a vehicle might throw the gesture detection off slightly. For most, it should work fine, and you can adjust the band settings to help fine-tune the detections.

We have not tested Sporty Keen or Keen2 during sleep, and do not believe it will be helpful for most people in their sleep. If you lie in the same position and do the behavior the same way, Keen will reliably give you vibration reminders. If you change your sleeping position quite a bit, as many people do, the bracelet will not be able to reliably give you accurate vibration reminders.

We offer Keen2 in two colors: charcoal and lilac, when in stock. Sporty Keen only comes in black. Extra Sporty Keen straps are available in teal and white.

The Keen2 bracelet is made of TESIV (rubber) with a polycarbonate lens and ABS bottom case (both plastic). The ring accent around the screen, the watch buckle, and the screws that hold Keen2 together are metallic and do not contain any nickel. Keen2 comes with a unique USB charging dock that connects to the bracelet. It is mostly made of ABS plastic and a silicone rubber pad. Keen2 connects to the charger using small, gold spring-pin contacts. These gold contacts contain a small amount of nickel, so please take care if you have a nickel allergy.

The Sporty Keen bracelet is made of silicone and its pegs are made of aluminum. The screws that hold the main gray plastic Keen unit together are coated in nickel. The screws are sunk in and the silicone strap covers up the screw holes, so there would not be any skin contact.

Both Keen bracelets are available in two sizes: S/M and M/L. Please visit habitaware.com/sizing for detailed measurements.

Keen2 is shipped with one charging base, and fully charges in two to three hours. Keen2 chargers are not currently available unless shown on the site.

The Sporty Keen bracelet comes with a standard micro-USB charging cable and it takes 2 hours to charge. If you need another charging cable for the Sporty Keen bracelet, you may purchase one from our website.

The battery on both Sporty Keen and Keen2 lasts a full day, so make charging Keen a daily habit!

Both Keen2 and the Sporty Keen bracelet are water resistant. They are not waterproof. This means hand washing is OK, but you shouldn't shower, swim with it or submerge it in water in any way.