Banana Design Lab's Blog

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Boing Boing, Hands-on Review

A link to the Boing Boing article

My Beating Heart -- pillow that buzzes a heart-calming pulse
My Beating Heart is a plush heart-shaped pillow that gently beats out a slow, steady heart-like rhythm. Creator Yury Gitman sent me one a couple weeks ago and I've been trying it out, turning it on and holding it to my chest after stepping into the office. I'm usually in quite a flurry when I get to my desk first thing -- I walk for an hour every morning but my phone goes bonkers while I'm out, and when I sit down and start my mail fetching and my backup running, I see how much crud has come in. It can really fluster me, so I figured if there was any time of my day when I could use some ambient relaxation, it was first thing at work.

It works -- it really works. The heart has two settings, slow and fast, and both of them calm me down in a way that's comparable to having a purring cat buzzing under your hand (but it's easier to put My Beating Heart on a shelf for the weekend than it is leaving a cat behind.)

At $120, I don't think I would have bought this for myself, but I do think I'll keep on using it once in a while now that I have one.
posted by Cory Doctorow

Cool Hunting

A link to this COOL HUNTING article

My Beating Heart, the pillow with a beat, made it's way around various web sites last week when it was first announced. We got our hands on one to take a closer look...

The heart shaped pillow, invented by artist Yury Gitman, has a small motor in it that is programmed to give a life-like pulse when turned on. The pillow itself is about a foot wide and my particular sample was covered in synthetic lambskin with ultra-suede details. It's soft and comfy. Despite my skepticism, I found the heart beat to be quite soothing. It was more pronounced than that of any pet or person, but the effect was still quite good and the beat was surprisingly life-like. Their site talks about using the pillow for meditating, daydreaming or napping, but I'm finding myself using it at my desk to counter the caffeinated frenzy of my recent days.