In a culture where you could stay in bed all day and still not miss a beat of pop culture/news/what your friends ate for lunch, it’s easy to put exercise (or general outdoor wandering) at the end of your to-do list. When what we really should do is shut down our computers and enjoy real life, we’re too busy sitting and clicking and clicking and sitting.

There is a new technology that’s about to change that. I love/hate it.

The Personal Energy ORB (PEO) is helping people limit their computer time and enforce activity time. The orb connects to a computer and as its virtual energy level decreases, so does the response time of a person’s mouse. The only way to get your mouse working again is to mount it onto a bike and take it for a ride. The longer the bike ride, the longer your mouse will work. Yes, this is a real thing.

Even for those who intend to be healthy in this internet-reliant world, one click onto a website could lead to a marathon of online browsing until you’ve finished a whole season of How I Met Your Mother.

Sure, you can disconnect the device and continue using the computer, but what’s the fun in that? Here’s a video of the orb in action.

-Juan Frausto

(Photo credit: Sketching with Hardware)