Smartphone-Based App to Motivate Healthy Style of Life: Walky Doggy as a Reference Example Oleg Medvedev 1 , Denis Laure 2 , Sergey Balandin 3 , Ksenia Lagutina 4 1 Faculty of Bio-Medical Engineering, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, 2 nd Bauman str. 5, Bldg.1, Moscow , Russia ; 2 Aalto University Espoo, Finland; 3 ITMO University, FRUCT Oy Helsinki, Finland; 4 P. G. Demidov Yaroslavl State University,Yaroslavl, Russia Abstract - Lack of physical activity is one of the main risk factors for developing noncommunicable diseases. Therefore, it is very important to stimulate physical activity. One of the simplest types of physical activity is walking on regular basis. It was shown that regular walking allows to reduce the risk of different diseases and disabilities, has positive effect on immune system, emotional status and quality of life. One of the possible approaches to motivate people to go walking is dog walking. The fact that the dog needs to be walked everyday at the same time periods makes dog walking a good and effective sort of physical activity. However, acquiring a dog brings some restrictions in the dog owner's life and requires the owner to take care and responsibility of the dog. These restrictions can be overcome with a mobile applications that emulate dog's need for a walk provoking user to go walking. Key Words: walking, elderly people, mobile apps, smartphone I. INTRODUCTION In the XXI century, noncommunicable diseases (NMDs) , also known as chronic or lifestyle-related diseases, comprise cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, chronic pulmonary diseases, cancer and diabetes, became the most dangerous enemy of the mankind. In 2008 63% or 36 million of global deaths were caused by the NMDs [1]. One of the four factors that significantly raise the risk of NMDs is prevalence of physical inactivity [2]. The lack of physical activity together with unhealthy diet leads to the overweight and obesity that, therefore, lead to such diseases as stroke, diabetes, cancer, osteoarthritis and liver disease. Thus, different approaches for motivation and stimulation of physical activity among people are needed now. The XXI century also became an age of the portable personal electronics. Nowadays, almost everyone has at least one cellphone, smartphone or tablet. Such massive distribution of these devices allows to use them in promotion and motivation of the healthy lifestyle for everyone. Nowadays, there is a lot of fitness and healthy lifestyle mobile applications presented on the market [3]. These applications range from simple exercise guides to complex activity trackers that allow to automatically measure and track different types of user’s activities [4]. In this paper we describe another approach for motivating people for regular walking with the use of mobile application. The main idea of this approach is to accompany user with the virtual dog that associate itself with the real dog for the user and requires dog walking, but devoid of any other need in care. We also present Walky Doggy application that uses this approach and aims to motivate user walking on a regular basis. II. MOTIVATION There is a need for stimulating physical activity, especially among old people. A lot of studies were performed to investigate an impact of the regular walking on aged people. Walking on a regular basis activates glucose metabolism, which can be very beneficial for people with diabetes [5]. The Look AHEAD (Action for Health in Diabetes) Trial showed that increasing level of physical activity reduces the risk of mobility-related disabilities and leads to weight loss for aged people [6]. However, one of the Look AHEAD Trial findings showed that aged people are very amenable to lifestyle intervention [7]. It means that if particular adult was not physically active before, then there is a significant possibility that he or she will not change it in future. This will lead to gaining weight and increasing risk of mobility-related disabilities and other diseases for the person. Therefore, a considerable motivation is needed for such people to increase their physical activity. One of the possible motivations is a dog. In [8] authors claim that acquiring a dog could be a good stimulation for non-dog owners to initiate regular walking in a form of dog walking. However, acquiring a dog can be a difficult burden for the aged people, as dogs require much care, such as feeding and veterinary medicine. Aged people would not take such a big responsibility that requires a lot of effort from them. Moreover, having a dog complicates the mobility possibilities for its owner, as the dog cannot be