BeatSync: Walking Pace Control Through Beat Synchronization between Music and Walking

Walking has been attracting attention as an important means for prevention and improvement of lifestyle diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. In contrast of its importance, not many people know the appropriate pace or amount of walking for themselves. In our previous research, we proposed a system to recommend a route with appropriate walking speed/pace for consuming target calories while keeping load within a moderate range by predicting heart rate variation if walking along the road. However, no system is available which enables a user to naturally adjust his/her walking speed to the specified one while walking. In this paper, focusing on the entertainment effect of the music, we propose a smartphone application called BeatSync which leads everyone to walk naturally and accurately toward the target walking speed.