Foot health
Footwear is a health decision. We treat it as one.
Most people in India buy shoes by eye, in a size system that varies between brands, without ever having measured their feet. When the fit is wrong the consequences are ordinary — blisters, heel pain, a pair that never gets worn. For people with diabetes and reduced sensation in the feet, the same wrong fit can end somewhere much worse, because the damage is not felt while it is happening.
Upanah.AI exists at that junction: measure the foot properly, be honest about the error bars, and know when to stop being a shopping site.
What the tool actually does
Measure, with the error stated
A photo against a reference object of known size, corrected for the angle the phone was held at, gives a foot length in millimetres. The result carries its confidence, and below a threshold we decline to name a size rather than guess. Anyone can override it with their own tape measurement.
Log what the feet are doing
Steps, distance, activity, and where it hurts — with three symptoms asked separately because they change the answer entirely: numbness, a wound that is not healing, and swelling. Nothing is stored without recorded consent.
Screen, and refer
Any red flag makes the summary urgent: the footwear guidance is withheld and referral guidance takes its place, with a specific prompt to ask for a foot examination if the person has diabetes. Answering a possible ulcer with a product recommendation is the most harmful thing a tool like this could do.
Suggest features, not treatments
Where there is no red flag, the summary names footwear features associated with comfort for that pattern — arch support, cushioning, a wider toe box — and, for each one, the point at which it stops being a footwear question and deserves a clinician's opinion.
And then we check whether it worked
28 days after giving someone guidance for logged pain, the app asks two questions: did you change your footwear, and is the pain better. That is the entire follow-up — every extra question costs replies, and a follow-up nobody answers measures nothing.
The comparison we care about is not how many people improved, but how many of those who acted on the guidance improved against those who did not. We report the response rate beside it, count people who decline to answer as their own category, and publish no percentage at all until the sample is large enough for one to be meaningful. It is self-reported, unblinded and uncontrolled evidence. It is also more than a shopping site can tell you.
The measurement gap this creates
Footwear sold in India is largely built on lasts derived from Western foot shapes, and there is very little published data describing how Indian feet actually differ — by region, by age, by how wide they run relative to length. We are not going to assert a figure we cannot cite. What we can do is measure, with consent, and let the dataset accumulate: foot dimensions with a state and an age band, no name, no email, no exact location, and only from people who separately opted in.
State-level figures stay hidden until at least five people have contributed, because an average over two people is not a statistic and could identify them. If that dataset becomes worth anything, the people who built it are the ones who agreed to it — which is the reason the consent is separate in the first place.
What this is not
Upanah.AI is not a medical device and does not diagnose or treat anything. The foot scan is an estimate accurate to a few millimetres at best, and the guidance here describes footwear features commonly associated with comfort — it is not medical advice. For any pain, numbness, wound or swelling, please see a qualified clinician.
- · Not registered as a medical device, and it makes no diagnostic claim.
- · Not clinically validated — no trial has been run, and no clinician reviews individual results.
- · Not a substitute for a foot examination, particularly in diabetes.
- · Not a replacement for trying shoes on; a millimetre-accurate size is a better starting point, not a guarantee.
Questions people ask
Is Upanah.AI a medical device?
No. It is a wellness and screening tool. It does not diagnose or treat any condition, and it is not registered as a medical device. Where the log suggests something that needs a clinician, it says so and withholds footwear suggestions instead of offering them alongside.
How accurate is the foot measurement?
A tapped, perspective-corrected measurement against a reference object is good to roughly ±3 mm. A single-photo AI estimate is ±5 to ±14 mm depending on the model's confidence, and below a confidence threshold the app refuses to name a size at all rather than guess. One UK shoe size is 8.5 mm, so those margins matter and we state them on the result.
What counts as a red flag?
Numbness or loss of feeling, a sore or wound that is not healing, and new swelling — particularly on one side. These are not footwear problems. When any is reported the app leads with referral guidance and suppresses its footwear advice entirely.
Why does footwear fit matter for people with diabetes?
Reduced sensation in the feet means pressure damage from a poorly fitting shoe can go unnoticed until it becomes a wound. That is why foot examination is a routine part of diabetes care, and why a tool that asks about numbness should send people to a clinician rather than sell them a shoe.
What do you do with health data?
Nothing is stored without explicit, recorded consent, and withdrawing consent deletes the foot profile, the activity log and the follow-up records rather than hiding them. Inclusion in anonymised research statistics is a separate, optional permission that is off by default. The current notice version is 2026-07-28.
How do you know the guidance helps?
We ask. 28 days after giving footwear guidance to someone logging pain, the app asks two questions: did you change your footwear, and is the pain better. The answers are aggregated and reported with their response rate, and rates are suppressed entirely until there are enough replies for a percentage to mean anything. It is self-reported and uncontrolled, and we say so wherever the numbers appear.
Start with your actual measurements
Two minutes, and you can enter your own numbers instead if you prefer.
Read the full data & privacy notice for what is collected, why, and how to delete it. Operated by TriMalv Pvt Ltd.