Consumer health & wellness · Wearable fitness
Enflux
A Y Combinator startup that put ten motion sensors into a washable shirt and pants to give exercisers a 3D avatar of their own form. It funded on Kickstarter in 2016, shipped late, and by the early 2020s had quietly become inactive.
A shirt that watches you lift
Ten sensors, each about the size of a dime, sit in a compression shirt and a pair of pants: on the arms, legs, and torso. They stream 3D movement data over Bluetooth to a phone, where an app builds a moving avatar of the wearer in real time. A “ghost” animation of correct form overlays the avatar so a lifter can see, angle by angle, where a squat or a deadlift drifts off line. The clothing was built to be machine washable, charged over USB like a phone, and rated for about two weeks of battery life.
Enflux launched the idea on Kickstarter on March 7, 2016, priced at $249.99 for an early backer set against a planned retail price of $400. By the time TechCrunch covered the launch that same day, the company was explicit that the product was still about a year from shipping.
The problem: coaching that scales
Fitness wearables in 2016 mostly counted steps and heart rate. Enflux’s bet was that the harder, more valuable signal was form: whether a rep was done correctly, not just that it was done. “It’s really analyzing the form, it’s what we specialize in,” founder Doug Hoang told Digital Trends at launch. The company framed the product as a stand-in for a personal trainer, letting a wearer or their coach review a workout’s 3D playback afterward.
The competitive set was not small. TechCrunch noted at launch that Athos, another smart-apparel company, had already raised $51 million, and that Atlas had run a $600,000-plus Indiegogo campaign for a wearable tracker. Enflux was entering a crowded, capital-intensive category with a Kickstarter-sized bankroll.
Two engineers, an economist, and a running injury
Doug Hoang came to fitness wearables from cars. A company profile submitted to the startup database Gust lists him as a former chief engineer expert in “design and manufacturing” and “durability and testing.” A LinkedIn listing independently places a Doug Hoang as a senior applications engineer at Power Solutions International, consistent with that background. Hoang and a co-founder had been building motion sensors to analyze race car dynamics, yaw, pitch, and roll, when he started training for triathlons and got hurt. “I had these motion sensors we developed, I could strap them to my legs that measure yaw, pitch and roll,” Hoang told TechCrunch in 2016. “I didn’t even have a car back then so it was a little misalignment of the problem, but when I started training for triathlons it was like, ‘this is the next big thing.’”
Mickey Ferri joined as what the Kickstarter page called a “sports-obsessed Ph.D. economist and data scientist.” Gust’s listing separately describes a Chief Growth Officer with a University of Chicago economics PhD and NCAA coaching history, and public professional profiles show Ferri now working as an economist at Analysis Group. The Kickstarter page also names Ian, who managed business strategy and operations, and Matt, who built the 3D animation and software, without giving surnames.
Funded, then a year of manufacturing
The Kickstarter campaign moved fast: over $45,000 within a couple of days, past $86,000 with 17 days left, according to two Digital Trends stories. It closed at $107,621 from 476 backers, above its $100,000 goal.
Then came hardware. Hoang told TechCrunch he planned to move to Taiwan to manage manufacturing directly, after an early shipment of sensors arrived out of spec. The Kickstarter page’s own activity log runs to 23 updates, with a last public update dated October 8, 2017, eighteen months past the March 2017 ship date named on the original campaign page. No source found in this research confirms that every backer eventually received clothing.
By the time the product reached market, its framing had shifted. Archived captures of getenflux.com from 2019 and 2024 show a $499, later $799, “mocap at home” kit pitched at Blender and Unity developers, with free plug-ins for exporting animation to Maya, 3ds Max, and MotionBuilder: a pivot from fitness gear to an indie animation and VR tool. An independent developer published a GitHub project, EnfluxUnitySDK, built to work with the hardware, evidence the product reached at least some working developers.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| Kickstarter campaign | $107,621 raised from 476 backers against a $100,000 goal, closing March 2016. The campaign page’s update log runs to 23 updates and 88 comments, with a last public update dated October 8, 2017, well past the originally promised March 2017 ship date. | Public record |
| FCC equipment authorization | FCC ID 2AL7O44X101, listed for “Enflux Motion Capture Clothing,” tested by Bay Area Compliance Laboratories Corporation, with an FCC user manual and confidentiality letter on file. | Public record |
| SEC filings | SEC EDGAR lists CIK 0001791299 for Enflux, Inc., mailing address 514 E. Oceanfront, Newport Beach, CA. No Form D or any other filing type appears under that CIK as of this research. | Not found |
| Reported funding total | Aggregator Tracxn records $120,000 in a single “Seed” round dated February 2016, with Y Combinator as the only named investor, consistent with a standard accelerator check rather than an outside financing. A startup post-mortem site, startups.rip, separately estimates confirmed external funding at roughly $370,000, a figure not corroborated by any SEC filing or press report and not fully reconciled with the $120,000 plus $107,621 in Kickstarter pledges. | Differs across sources |
| FDA, clinical trial, or federal grant records | None found. Enflux was marketed as consumer fitness gear, not a medical device, and no 510(k), PMA, registered trial, NIH award, NSF award, or PubMed record turned up for the company. | Not found |
| Named platform customers | Enflux’s Y Combinator profile states, “Our customers include Hasbro, The Jim Henson Company, and many more.” No independent press release, case study, or statement from either named company was found to confirm the relationship. | Company-stated |
| Current status | Y Combinator’s company page lists Enflux as inactive. A public Crunchbase person profile for Doug Hoang lists his current role as supply chain and R&D at FightCamp, a connected-fitness company unrelated to Enflux. | Public record |
Read plainly: Enflux built and FCC-certified a real piece of hardware, and it took in real money from Kickstarter backers and from Y Combinator. What is missing is everything that would show the business side held together: no SEC financing filing beyond an unused CIK, no confirmation that the promised 2017 shipment went out in full, and no outside verification of the platform customers the company later named. The clearest hard fact is the one Y Combinator itself now states: the company is inactive.
What to watch
- Whether backers who pledged in the March 2016 Kickstarter ever confirm receiving finished clothing; the campaign’s public update trail ends in October 2017 with no fulfillment announcement found in this research.
- Independent confirmation, one way or the other, of the Hasbro and Jim Henson Company customer claim.
- Whether getenflux.com, last archived in 2024 selling an $799 motion capture kit, is still an active storefront; that snapshot also carried unrelated promotional text unconnected to Enflux’s product, consistent with a lapsed or unmaintained domain.
- Any SEC filing that would clarify how much capital the company raised beyond Y Combinator’s standard investment.
In their words
“I had these motion sensors we developed, I could strap them to my legs that measure yaw, pitch and roll. I didn’t even have a car back then so it was a little misalignment of the problem, but when I started training for triathlons it was like, ‘this is the next big thing.’”
Doug Hoang, co-founder and CEO, TechCrunch, March 7, 2016 · Independent
“That’s why we’re putting this a year out is a year out of making small tests of every process we go through before we do the full order.”
Doug Hoang, TechCrunch, March 7, 2016 · Independent
“It’s really analyzing the form, it’s what we specialize in.”
Doug Hoang, Digital Trends, March 8, 2016 · Independent
“[We] created the technology because [we] wanted to make high-quality coaching and workout tracking accessible to everyone.”
Mickey Ferri, co-founder, Digital Trends, March 19, 2016 · Independent
“With real-time feedback from our app, it’s like having a personal trainer in your pocket. Simply by putting on a shirt.”
Mickey Ferri, co-founder, Digital Trends, March 19, 2016 · Independent
“We are remaining focused on fitness applications as we get started, but we eventually see the Enflux Smart Clothing you are purchasing today becoming a hardware platform for physical therapy, video games, dance, virtual and augmented reality (especially mobile), and more.”
Enflux, Kickstarter campaign page, quoted by Digital Trends, March 8, 2016 · Company-stated
Related companies
Sources
- IndependentEnflux, a smart body-tracking workout outfit, launches on Kickstarter
- IndependentGet real-time feedback on your form with Enflux’s smart suit
- IndependentEnflux smart clothing is the full-body wearable for the fitness fanatic
- IndependentEnflux raises $50K in first two days on Kickstarter
- Public recordEnflux Exercise Clothing: 3D Workout Tracking and Form Feedback, campaign page
- Public recordFCC ID 2AL7O44X101, Enflux Motion Capture Clothing
- Public recordEnflux, Inc., CIK 0001791299
- CompanyEnflux: Motion capture clothing for injury prevention
- CompanyEnflux Smart Clothing company profile
- IndependentEnflux funding and investor summary
- IndependentDoug Hoang, Supply Chain and R&D @ FightCamp
- IndependentDoug Hoang, Sr. Applications Engineer at Power Solutions International
- IndependentEnfluxUnitySDK: Enflux motion capture clothing SDK supporting VR, animation recording, and playback
- Public recordgetenflux.com, archived homepage
- Independent, uncorroborated detailEnflux (Winter 2016) company teardown
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
