There are numerous fitness apps and accessories that aim to help a person keep healthy, or motivate them to live a healthier life.  Some require a separate device like a bracelet to track your movement or progress, or even your heart rate to see how many calories you’ve burned, while some apps work in conjunction with other apps like diet-monitoring services, and others are as simpler, counting the number of steps you take.

All these self-quantified apps collect huge amounts of data: the question now is, how do these apps and data actually help you achieve the better version of yourself?  Can we really understand what all these data points, collected and presented, mean to us?  Or are we just happy to see high numbers flashing on our mobile screen?  Do these apps present accurate readings or are they just guessing?

Human

A new fitness app, dubbed as Human, aims to revolutionize self quantified apps by making data collected more comprehensible to lay people, and not a service limited to athletes, health buffs and data geeks.

Human is a startup founded by Renato Valdes Olmos of Cardcloud and Paul Veugen of Usabilla.  It looks to keep people moving for at least 30 consecutive minutes a day, everyday.

Why 30 minutes?  It is said that 30 minutes of constant movement is what will get your heart racing and will keep you healthy.  The app monitors how many minutes you have consumed moving and how many minutes left for you to reach your goal.

Some of you may say that 30 minutes of movement is easy-peasy, but most of us have a problem with walking just for five minutes.  Some people have issues with walking for 10 minutes straight but they can spend up to eight hours in front of a computer or TV, minimally active.

Human is a simple app.  It doesn’t count calories burned, it doesn’t track the number of steps you’ve taken, not even the intensity of the workout you’re performing.  The app just wants you to move for 30 minutes or more a day.  Some of its aspects have been improved though as looking at what you’ve achieved on a daily basis can get boring.  It can track how far you’ve gone when running or walking, your top speed, your average speed and how long you ran.

Human is not yet available for everyone but you can request for an invite so you can try the app.

Moves

If you like the concept of Human, you might like Moves, an app that has the same principle – to get people to move around.  Moves is already available for iPhone but will soon be available for Android.  It’s a free app that automatically records any walking, cycling, and running the uses does and it view the distance, duration, steps, and calories burned for each activity.

This app is always running, so there’s no need to configure things before you get moving.  If you’re worried about the battery life of your device, you might have a bit of a problem with this app since it’s always on.  If you have a lot of apps running or you’re constantly on your iPhone, better have your wall charger, USB/Lightning cable, or a powerbank ready so your iPhone will last for the day.

What’s next in the Self Quantified spectrum?

Implants, patches and ingestible trackers – these may be the next devices to be used for your quantified self.  What better way to understand how your body functions than looking at how things work on the inside? It can help monitor your core temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate, and even keep track of hormones or medication being taken by the person.  It can help people track their health and get immediate care when needed.

The scary part is, if these smart devices go mainstream, there’s a huge chance they could be used against people.  Those who offer insurance can use these devices to offer better rates, like “Get a Smart Tattoo and pay 50 percent off on premium package.”  Sounds great right?  Maybe, maybe not.  As these insurers can use the data acquired by the smart tattoo to not pay you when you really need it.  It can unearth evidence that would say you deliberately put yourself in harm’s way to get sick and claim insurance.  Who knows how others will use this  kind of technology?

Joining Winston Endmondson on this morning’s Live NewsDesk Show is SiliconANGLE Senior Managing Editor Kristen Nicole to give her Breaking Analysis on why people need apps to keep track of mundane things, and what ingestible devices could mean for the future.

“We’ve reached a point in our human evolution where we’re extremely reliable on technology and it’s much bigger than the self-quantified movement,” Kristen starts.  “I think much of our economic and global structure is already so intertwined with technology that the self-quantified movement is… really an extension of what we’ve seen with technology and the industrial revolution at large.  I think it’s a good thing and be very, very beneficial to individuals on several different levels,” Kristen stated.

As for ingestible trackers, Kristen states that these may be the least intrusive way of getting information, as well as the most productive method of getting pertinent information needed.  Though there are many concerns regarding personal Big Data being accessed by the government, Kristen believes that the benefits of ingestible or implantable technology outweighs the concerns.

For more of Kristen’s Breaking Analysis, check out the NewsDesk video below:

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