During the pandemic, I lived in a studio apartment in Sandy Hill, Ottawa. I had no family in Canada and was required to work from home. This meant that my interaction with other people was completely virtual. In order to break my reliance on my phone and the internet, I took up walking.

I would walk to Strathcona Park, sit on my favourite seat, and read books. Then I would take a longer walk home. After a few days, I began to look forward to this time when I could be off my phone, enjoy a good book, and improve my walking pace. One day, I took a different, longer route home and when I got back my legs hurt. I learnt that when learning a new habit, I could not go from 0 to 100 in a short time. I had to pace myself.

I began to schedule this new activity: starting with 15 minutes of walking and then 15 minutes of reading. Over time, I got much better at this new habit. I went from 15 minutes of walking to 45 and from 15 minutes of reading to an hour, taking breaks every now and then to gaze at other people at the park and watch the pigeons.

I learnt that was I was doing is called interval timing and is training method that has been used successfully by fitness trainers in particular. This habit made me interested in developing a timer that tracked time in intervals and that's how Asiko was born.

Ideation

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Design and Features

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Prototyping and Testing

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Launch

Asiko was launched on Kickstarter on April 30, 2024.  Unfortunately, the campaign was not successful, however, Designlines Magazine wrote a feature about the product.

Currently, an alpha unit can be purchased on Etsy. You can also read more about the inspiration behind the product.