Lumosity Review

Lumosity Review- Facts, Company Profile, Product Description, Customer Comments & Personal Review

Facts & Company Profile

Lumosity ® is a brain fitness software program that offers brain training games as cognitive training applications. The program is made by Lumos Labs, Inc. ® who is a San Francisco based company that began in 2005 and promotes lumosity through the website, www.lumosity.com. They made the game after consulting top scientists in several fields including neuroscience, bioinformatics, and cognitive psychology.    Three of the main founders of Lumos Labs include Kunal Sarkar, Michael Scanlon, and David Drescher.

***For more information about this company or to purchase its product, click on the following link:  Lumosity.*** 

Product Description

The Lumosity Brain Fitness Program is designed to build on recent cognitive research that suggests the brain is malleable. The research shows the brain’s placity allows for new neurons to be made even late in life. For this reason, Lumosity is made for all audiences and ages although it is currently being tested for its effectiveness for children.  

The actual program consists of a number of different brain training games that are designed to target and improve certain cognitive thinking applications, such as spatial working memory and visual attention. In addition, a number of the games are designed to increase in difficulty as your abilities improve in the games.  

Customer Comments
“A great website. I haven't seen any others that come close to it.” Steven Munbro

“I love this site - it's fun and it's effective…I didn’t think I could do it… Lumosity is helping me improve my memory.” Dr. Sue Ferranti

“My memory and attention are better after doing the Lumosity training sections.” Alexandre Iervolino

“Of all the brain training products I've seen, Lumosity is the best.” Mary Kuta

“Lumosity is an excellent resource… Very enjoyable as well.”  Loretta Michaels

***For more information about this company or to purchase its product, click on the following link:  Lumosity.*** 

Personal Review 

One of my first observations while setting up to play the Lumosity brain games was the unique way their website and game system are setup. The system and website have afun and entertaining feel to them that is different than most of the other brain training companies.  The other’s tend to have a setup that is too clinical and bogged down in too much science whereas Lumosity seems to have added fun and entertainment into their mix while adding just the right amount of science in their explanations to remind you what these games are designed to do.

Lumosity also has an appealing offer of giving you a free trial basis for 7 days and then, a yearly membership cost of under $80.  I opted for the yearly membership after doing the trial basis.  This interesting balance of affordable prices with games geared for mixing brain training and entertainment made me want to jump right in and find out what the fuss was all about.  Here, is what I found:

Ease of Use 

The overall format of the program is easy to use and navigate.  Anyone with a basic knowledge of surfing the web should have no difficulty using the website or playing the games.  Each game has a visual instruction area that illustrates how the games are played.  In addition, the graphics and buttons to select are all large and easy to find in all but one game.

Quality/Variety of Games 

I was very impressed with the quality of the games.  The games provided do a good job of addressing the following skills: memory, speed, cognitive control, and attention.  One minor criticism is I would like to see more of a variety of games, particularly regarding word games, speed and memory combination games.  In addition, I believe that a number of the games could be tweaked to be even more challenging.  However, Lumosity is also a very new company that has already shown its willingness to make changes based on customer’s requests.  For this reason, I would wholly expect this area to continue to be improved upon.

Challenge 

Initially, most of the games are challenging and was pleasantly surprised to see a number of the games getter more difficult as I improved (ex. Birdwatching, Monster Memory, etc.)  This area could be improved upon to provide a second tier of learning.  This would be especially of benefit to people who are trying to build neurons.

Medicine Test (Is their brain improvement?) 

With some games, it is very easy to see improvement such as in the memory and the birdwatching games.  As for cognitive control and speed games, I am still unsure on whether these skills are being truly improved.  My scores do go up; however, I believe the bulk of this is due to familiarity of the game and taking advantage of quirks of the game such as the same pattern showing up 3 to 4 times in a row in some of the speed games.

Sticker Shock 

At under $80, Lumosity provides a huge value compared to some of its major competitors, Cognifit ($145) and Posit Science ($395).  In addition, its free trial basis allows you to test it out to see if this is something that will work for you and your schedule.

Updated Frequently 

Another large benefit is that Lumosity appears to update their website with additional games and features.  While playing for one month, I saw a game added to the system and additional feature showing your scores.  It also has an area where it allows its customers to test future games over the internet.  I believe this allows for them to keep costs down and increase the speed with which new games can be added to the system.

Limitations 

A few games lack additional complexity.  If you are a word smith, currently only one game focuses on this area.  Also, no opportunity to view how your individual performance compares to other customers.  This type of feature would add to the challenge of the games and increase further attention.  However, to ensure beginners are not alienated by initially doing poorly, this should be a feature that can be turned on or off or is one that is not immediately seen but can be viewed from an adjacent tab.

If Lumosity is truly interested in recruiting more customers to participate in beta testing new games, it should have a list of improvements that have been made b/c of customers’ help.

Additional Features 

Lumosity has a My History section which shows your various scores made and gives a comparison across all the games.  This is a nice addition as it gives you something else to shoot for and lets you see at a glance where your deficiencies are.  Its view has a look similar to a dashboard of a car.  Simple design that quickly tells you where you are at a glance.

Pros 

• Easy to use and navigate through their system. 
• Graphic, instructions and buttons are setup in larger font so easier to ready and view for everyone, especially seniors. 
• Inexpensive at under $80 a year compared to other major companies in the field. 
• Quality of games is very high as they focus on various skills of memory, concentration, cognition, etc. 
• Games are challenging and once they start to get easy the games adjust to become harder giving you more brain training benefits. 
• Update their games and system results frequently keeping you more involved in how you are doing. 
• They Listen to their customers and allow them to beta test games adjusting the game play based on their suggestions.  This means better games for you and me. 

Cons 

• Would like to see even more games, especially speed and word games. 
• It does not show scores of how you compare with other players on a certain game. 

Final Analysis 

As you can see, I am thoroughly impressed with Lumosity’s brain training games.  Their system is simple and sophisticated at the same time.  For a reasonable fee, you can get your brain a nice workout and enjoy the experience as well.  I look forward to see the additional games this companies makes and wholeheartedly recommend your purchase of this program.  Here, is a link to where you can get the game and read more about it:

***For more information about this company or to purchase its product, click on the following link:  Lumosity.***