My friends from Wearable Technologies have scheduled an impressive conference in San Francisco for july, 24th. Have a look at the list of speakers from companies such as BodyMedia, Intel, Pebble and many more from the digital fitness, health and wearable tech space.
Your display’s color temperature is ordinarily designed to simulate the color temperature of bright daylight. This raises your serotonin levels and stimulates your physical activity. When using your computer during the daytime, this provides a healthy stimulus to keep you awake, but today many of us use our computers until late into the night. When we do so, the daytime-like light stimulus can interfere with our natural biorhythm and influence our sleeping habits in a negative way.
f.lux is a plugin for your mac that runs in the background and changes your screen‘s colors to warmer tones after sunset. This subtly helps your body calm down and prepare its bio-rhythm for a good night’s rest. The plugin itself is totally simple: Just select your preferred color temperature for day- and night-time, and allow using your current location so that the timer can automatically be adapted to the times of sunrise and sunset in your area. Once you’ve adjusted these settings, your screen‘s colors automatically dims after the sunset. If a situation arises in which you actually do want the full blast of brightness at night, you can easily pause or stop the dimming effect of f.lux.
I’ve been testing f.lux for several months now, and I really like its calming effect. When working in front of the computer until late at night, the warm screen colors really help to tire me down more naturally and allow me to get myself from work to sleepy mode in an instant. When considering the possibilites that for example f.lux or Philips’ goLite have to offer, I see a whole range of intelligent and interconnected light environment solutions coming up in the future. Since many of us spend such a great amount or our lifetime facing a computer screen, f.lux already does a great job at supporting our physical wellbeing today. Thanks to the developers, you can download the mac os plugin for free here.
The 2012 Wearable Technologies Conference gave a comprehensive overview over the trends in fitness and health technology currently available on the market and also covered applications that might be realized some years from now. The conference program started with a keynote from Professor Paul Lukowitz from the Embedded Intelligence Lab at the DFKI Kaiserlautern. In his quick runthrough over wearable computers of the past, he concluded that the smartphone with its market penetration of about 50 % of the adults in western countries is the starting point for wearable systems in fitness, health and personal data computing. He thereby made clear that with the smartphone as a personal information hub, we are now entering an age when our lives will be supercharged with sensors, additional interfaces in wearable gadgets and technologically enhanced textiles.
In order to successfully introduce these technologies into our everyday lifes, wearable technologies must follow the same princeples as the clothes we have been used to wearing for ages. Just as we can take our jackets off or change them for a different garment, wearable technologies must seamlessly integrate themselves into our personal information system, the basis of which has just been built with the new Bluetooth Smart standard. After this keynote, the conference speakers held presentations on lifestyle and wellbeing, trends in health and medical and future innovations in the Wearable Technologies field. Here are some of the findings that seemed most interesting to me.
As a topic of lifestyle, representatives from Philips Vitality Solutions and Mr. Papastefanou from the Mannheim-based institute Gesis – presented their approaches for emotion tracking and behaviour change. Focussing on consumer products, Philips presented a bracelet that measures the stress level in its users’ everyday lives. Mobile apps for easy event tagging and collection of data such as calendars and timelines make it easies to undersand emotional triggers and learn how to lead a healthier life in the lines of emotional wellbeing. Researcher Papastefanou in contrast presented a state-of-the-art emotion tracking solution designed for professional use that measures a variety of body metrics.
From the health section, the Munich-based company Moticon presented its pressure-sensitive shoe inlay that can give a precise analysis of the user‘s weight distribution when standing, walking or running. With this innovative technology, Moticon can help cure leg injuries or facilitate learning complex sports like skiing. In such a case, the pressure monitor helps the user find an optimal position while skiing, which in return leads to less exhaustion and a flatter learning curve. Once the technology is ready for mass marketing, a lot of applications might profit from these in-depth analysis capabilities.
After just having launched their platform, Quentiq introduced its health management solution centered around its core metrix Healthscore. Based on the analysis of millions of health data points from some of the biggest long-term studies available, Quentiq has built an index that represents the overall physical conditions of its users. In order to calculate this healthscore, the company offers mobile applications for tracking sports activities, integrating data from various available sensors and utilizing self-assessments for its users. All this information merged together cumulates in the Healthscore, a single number that describes your overall health likeliness. Just as discussed in the German media as a future scenario, Quentiq‘s business model intends to cooperate with health insurance companies, which might take the neutral healthscore as a basis to create an incentive for their customers to lead a healthier lifestyle. Quentiq‘s promise to foster fitness with game mechanics is an interesting approach to cope with the ever-rising health costs in our society.
As an outlook for the future of wearable technology, Vladimir Leonov from the Belgian nano electronics research center IMEC gave an introduction to their energy harvesting technology. With thermo-electric elements integrated into textiles, we might be able to produce all the energy neccessary for our sensors with our own body heat. Obviously, huge improvements in energy consumption of the distributed electronics will be necessary before this can be implemented into future sensors. The presentation by David Icke from the research company MC10 seemed even more futuristic: In his work on the future of electronic circuits, Mr. Icke presented flexible, printable electronic circuits that can be placed on any subtrate such as textiles or skin. This would allow the most seamless solution to physical monitoring and could make medical applications much more effective in performance, data quality, compliance and comfort.
Getting back to the prospects of 2012, the solutions presented at the Wearable Technologies Conference made clear that the megatrends in quantified self, mobile health and wearable technologies are just beginning and still have lots of great opportunities to come. Wearable Technologies will present a number of wearable products at the CeBIT 2012 from March 6th to 10th where I support their team. Meet us at our booth C20 in hall 8.
Philips goLITE BLU - based on the concept of light therapy – is a cool gadget. The small LED lamp shines blue light similar to a clear and sunny sky. In doing so, it increases your energy levels and helps alleviate symptoms of the winter blues.
The goLite is a light therapy product, which can be placed at an angle in front of you, in order to stimulate your body. Since it only emits light from the blue spectrum, you might want to use additional light sources to illuminate your work space. I’ve been using the goLITE for 4 weeks now and already I feel really good about it. Turning on the blue light feels like an energy boost, which is really helpful because according to my startup’s soon to be launched first product, my nights have been shorter than my sleep sensor suggests. But as soon as I switch the goLite lamp on, I immediately feel more alert and focussed. To be sure that I’m not just running into a placebo effect, I gave the goLite to my colleagues to try. They came to the same result as Phillips, who has clinically proven that their range of light therapy products really do work at a physiological level.
The goLITE has about the size of 2 stacked CD trays and comes with a built-in battery that makes it perfect for taking along wherever you go. One full charge lasts for at least three phases of 30 minutes light exposure, which Philips suggests as a daily minimum in order to generally improve your well-being. The tiny device also works as an alarm clock and will wake you up simply with its blue light or with an additional ringtone if needed. All of its functions can be controlled with a touch display, which gives the device quite a modern feel.
The goLite’s price of 200$ may seem a little high for a product that is actually just an additional lamp to stimulate your well-being and doesn’t even replace proper light sources. But either way, I find the effect of the blue LED light so positive, that I would recommend it to everyone who wants to boost their mood and energy level in the winter days. Now that I have been surprised by the power of light stimulation, I am really looking forward to future light therapy products that can be integrated into smart home control and health management systems. So far, I enjoy goLITE’s benefits in the busy days before lauching our software. If you want to know more about that and other innovation in health and personal development, come back soon and follow or like igrowdigital.
End of January 2012 there are some great events for Quantified Self and Wearable Technology enthusiasts. On February 1st, at 7 pm, we will have Munich’s first Quantified Self Meetup in the bar Niederlassung. If you happen to be around, come and join us.
From January 29th to February 1st, the International Sports Business Trade Show ISPO will be taking place in Munich. There, Wearable Technologies, a company I work for, is setting up a booth, displaying sensors and other wearable gadgets. Meet us in hall B6 545. On January 30th, Wearable Technologies will be hosting Mobile Monday at the ISPO. At this Mobile Monday you will see how technologies are merging together and sensor networks will drive the internet of things.
Also on January 30th, the Wearable Technologies Conference will take place in line with ISPO in Munich. This conference gives visitors the opportunity to discover groundbreaking innovations from the fields of health, fitness and prevention. In addition to novel technologies in development, the 2012 WT Conference will present products ready for the market. The international public attending the event comes from the widest variety of technological and marketing arenas.
I am totally looking forward to these events and the interesting people to meet there.
Fitbit Ultra, the latest update of the original Fitbit, is a step counter, which allows monitoring your overall daily activity. The current version also comes with a new stairclimb detection and has additional features such as a clock and a stopwatch. The small wearable sensor can be clipped onto your clothing or placed in your handbag. It comes with a computer connected base station for charging the sensor and transmitting your data wirelessly from the Fitbit device to your online profile.
In its default settings, Fitbit suggests that you take an average of 10,000 steps each day in order to maintain a generally healthy condition. Obviously, this daily target, along with the number of stairs to climb, can be adjusted to your personal needs. Right on the website’s dashboard, you can see how well you’ve achieved your weekly score represented in the number of steps you’ve taken, stairs you’ve climbed, or calories you’ve burned. A number of other stats display ratings such as how long you are active each day, or how long and how well you slept at night. In order to better visualize your stepcount, Fitbit has implemented some game mechanics in the form of badges that are rewarded according to the number of steps you take. These badges can be linked to foursquare, where they are displayed on 4sq’s website in the partner badges section.
In the website’s log section, you can track other health information such as nutrition, non-stepcount related sport activities or physical parameters such as blood pressure or body weight. Your Fitbit online profile is compatible with Runkeeper’s health graph. When both services are connected, they will automatically share their data, even when obtained from third-party providers such as Withings Wifi Body Scale.
Now, with the product update, Fitbit also features an iPhone application, which helps you track your nourishment and overview your stats on the go.
The Fitbit can also be used as a sleep sensor. In order to do so, the device must be attached to an armband, which you wear while sleeping. By measuring your overnight movement, Fitbit detects whether you are asleep or awake, and gives you feedback on your sleep quality.
Does Fitbit help staying fit?
Fitbit does a great job at monitoring your step count. When I compared Fitbit’s count with that of the iPod nano’s pedometer, the results of both sensors were within a 5% tolerance range, which seems to be fairly accurate. Compared to the 2 days battery life of the nano, the Fitbit runs for at least a whole week, which is definitely a more user-friendly experience. The dashboard on Fitbit’s website displays a good overview of your activity stats and the log is a well-structured file for storing one’s health data. For those who want to collect their fitness data at services such as Runkeeper, Fitbit allows you to easily connect your Fitbit profile with them and import your step count to them.
Monitoring your step count and the number of floors that you’ve taken can definitely be a way to keep users engaged in improving their overall physical activity. A lot of people – including myself – feel motivated to walk instead of driving or take the stairs instead of using the elevator when rewarded with positive feedback. Especially allowing Fitbit to automatically post your stepcount on your Facebook or Twitter account can certainly spur your pride and step up your motivation.
If you want to use Fitbit for sleep tracking as well, it can get a bit fiddly to constantly have to attach it to your armband overnight and then clip it back on to your clothing during the day. Companies such as Jawbone or MyBasis will soon come out with sensors, which can be worn 24/7 as a bracelet or watch, giving them an advantage over Fitbit’s convenience in everyday use. So far however, the Fitbit Ultra definitely remains a well-designed, user-friendly and health-engaging product that has made a great contribution to my personal wellbeing. With their just announced Aria Wifi Scale, Fitbit has made clear that they are going to continue contributing to a healthier lifestyle even more in the future.
On November 24th and 25th, about 260 people gathered for the first Quantified Self Europe Conference in Amsterdam. After a warm welcome by Gary Wolf and Yuri van Geest, Rain Ashford gave the audience an overview on how actors and sensors might be implemented in future electronic textiles. The organisers prepared the whole conference as a great framework for the European Quantified Self Scene. Therefore, the 2-day program was pretty much community-driven and set an emphasis on knowledge-sharing and networking among the attendees.
Within 24 Show and Tells, 36 Breakout Sessions and 15 Ignite Talks, pretty much everything from self-tracking, data visualization and Quantified Self business models was covered. Among the sources for gaining personal data, the 70 presenters discussed a wide range of topics from tracking sleep, emotions, brainwaves and location to relationships and browsing behaviour. Other talks focussed on connecting and visualizing different data streams and bringing wisdom into the measured data. Within the growing community of early adapters, one of the most important questions was how to bring self-tracking technologies to the mass market. Therefore, technological improvements were discussed with representatives from the sensor industry such as mybasis, and the gamification of future products was mentioned as one of the top potentials for improving user experience.
The atmosphere at the conference was remarkably open and uplifting as the whole community seemed to be amazed by the potential of the discussed methodologies and technologies. Even though the 2 days of the conference were over much too soon, it might be the beginning of some new relatioships among the European selftrackers and help to empower the develoment of the European Quantified Self scene. I am really looking forward to the German Quantified Self Meetups and to seeing many of the great people again at the American Quantified Self Conference in May 2012.
With web 2.0, the internet has become interactive. Beyond just consuming information, we now like, love, share, tweet, recommend and +1 any content we find worth it. In doing so, each one of us produces lots of new information. The more our lives are supported by apps, software tools and social networks, the more we might take the information we produce while using them as a representation of what we do and who we are. Memolane and Patchlife both came up with services that aim to make this data more valuable for us.
Memolane imports information from various web 2.0 services and gathers it into one horizontal timeline. This creates a good overview of your past activities and is particularly nice to look at on a large screen. All you have to do is connect your accounts from Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, Youtube or Instagram to your Memolane profile. You can then navigate through time and view all your past status updates, tweets, check-ins and so on in your personal memory lane.
For every web profile connected to your Memolane account, you can decide whether you want to keep the information private, share it with Memolane friends or make it open for public access. Another feature is the ability create stories from your digital past by selecting status updates, checkins or any other memory from your online life. This can also be done along with your Memolane friends. What I really like is that the web application is 100% iPad compatible.
In contrast, Patchlife shows information in a stream similar to what we’re you used to on Facebook and many other services. It’s designed so that you can jump directly from a monthly calendar view to daily information about your past activities.
This service, which is totally private, can be used as a journal by creating personal remarks or uploading pictures, which makes it a bit like the popular iPhone app Momento. Unlike Memolane, Patchlife comes with an iPhone app that allows accessing your data and entering text on the go, while the website is fully iPad compatible.
Memolane and Patchlife are currently running in beta modus and can each be used free of charge. Both of them offer a unique overview of your digital history and should be particularly interesting for those who want to remember what they deemed important to post, share, tweet or check-in in the past. While the types of profiles that can be added to each application differ slightly, both Memolane and Patchlife cover the most important ones, including Facebook pages and multiple Twitter accounts. Memolane comes with a visually beautiful approach and sharing features for your digital memories. Patchlife sets its focus on privacy and lets you use it as your personal journal.
If you wonder wether Memolane and Patchlife will offer benefits over Facebook’s soon to be rolled out Timeline, I can assure you that they are. I’ve been testing the developer release of Facebook’s update to the profile page for quite some time now. From what I’ve seen so far, the timeline will only show events from other services that you’ve been posting to your stream. In contrast, Memolane and Patchlife import everything, even you’ve decided not to share on Facebook. That makes the two services attractive for everyone who is using a lot of different social networks independently.
When it comes to web activities, there are more than social networks. Tracking and analyzing your web surfing history is another big field of your digital life that can be covered with two new dedicated services. Watch out for a review on egoArchive and Voyurl coming up soon.
