If only Nike+ could connect the dots...

Having finally suffered from the dreaded Fitbit Sweat Rash, I've bought three new straps for my Flex.

Looking at the new straps, I really hadn't realised just how hammered the original two pink straps had become.

Coincidentally, yesterday I got an email from Nike reminding me to replace my running shoes every 300 km. Interestingly, according to Nike+, my current pair have done almost 600 km.

If software was connected to sales, it could offer me a discount.

But, as with so many aspects of the health/fitness wearable industry, there's plenty of data in the system, but few smarts on how to use it effectively.

For the busy doctor, email would save more lives than Fitbit

Two great quotes:

1
For the most part, health wearables are worn by the "wealthy and well."

2
"Doctors would love to be excited about wearables — they're gadget guys at heart — but their day-to-day is spent battling 30 year old fax machines to get your last lab report." says Jeff Tangney, CEO of Doximity, which makes a social communication platform for clinicians.

"For a busy doctor, the ability to use email would save more lives than a Fitbit."

Read the article over on VentureBeat.

After some calculations, I still don't like NikeFuel

I'm probably starting to obsess, but I've been thinking more about NikeFuel.

Obviously, it has to based on something:  it's not totally made up. My point is that trying to come up with a wide measure of physical activity is a thankless, nigh-on impossible task. Which is why I think NikeFuel will fail to replace the calorie as a better measure.

Still, I wanted to dig down into it, so did some quick calculations.

I've simply analysed my own generation of NikeFuel over the past three years, measuring it against calories burned. Both of these metrics have been generated by my Nike+ TomTom GPS running watch so should be consistent across the period.

Interesting, the activity associated with burning 1 calorie has changed from 2.58 NikeFuel units in 2012, to 3.18 NikeFuel units in 2014; an increase of 19 percent.

However, my average running pace per km has also changed, so I also did a quick calculation to see if this was the reason. But even if we assume the watch isn't increasing the number of calories burned due to a faster pace at all (an extreme assumption), the improvement in my average running pace would only account for around 50 percent of the change in the conversion been a calorie and a NikeFuel unit.

My skepticism about NikeFuel continues...

The wearable technology dilemma: Where's My Data?

Despite now being broken, I'm found my five months with the Jawbone Up bracelet an interesting period.

It's given me my first decent set of personal data, which is surely the point of wearable tech.

When it comes to five months of sleep data, it's not always so reliable as sometimes I forget to toggle into sleep mode, but at least I can see some broad data. September was a good month of sleep (holiday!). July and October weren't - too much travelling.

It is good to see that I've been getting more active.

Still, with my Up band now out of action, the sad thing is this data is now pretty much useless.

It's been said that the most important thing about wearable technology is that is has to be in a form that people will wear. Yet equally important is that you can get the data out of the system in a form that you can combine it with data from sensors from other companies (and even manually-inputed data). After all, over the years, we're going to be using equipment from various providers.

I think the latter will be a harder problem to solve than the former.

Jawbone Up strip down (and tape up)

I do not recommend you do this.

But considering my Jawbone Up band was broken in that I couldn't toggle between active and sleep any more (the lighting unit seemed broken), I decided to see what lies beneath.

I'd been interested in this every since the blue plastic covering had started to stretch, making the bracelet more uncomfortable and more likely to snag.

Cutting open the skin and it was clear that the electrical connection between the main band and the toggle/light unit had been totally broken. There were plenty of pieces of debris.

And as I cut further down the band, it's clear that the Up is not yet sufficiently robust to last for a year of normal wear. I've had mine since late May so it lasted just over 5 months.  You can see that the internal plastic frame was breaking in a number of other places too.

Still, I've stuck it all back together with tape and will continue to use it as a pedometer, if only to compare with the Fitbit One, which becomes my main monitor (for the time being).

Two weeks with Fitbit One

So the good news.

I haven't lost my Fitbit One yet, and week 2 saw more activity than week 1; something I can clearly see thanks to my handy weekly roundup email.

Indeed, my daily average was over the 10,000 steps recommended, although we know that as with other government recommendations, it's pretty much a random number.

What more impressive - for me at least - is that I did a 10km run during week 1 so I've clearly been more broadly active in week 2, although I have been travelling during part of the week so that will have a lot to do with it.

The only downside is my average sleep is down 40 minutes; again that's due to travelling.

However, in my even-running comparison between Fitbit One and Jawbone Up, there's been a big development. The Up band has stopped working.

Of course, this is after 6 months of use (compared to 2 weeks), so let's see how the One's operating in April 2014 (if I haven't lost it by then).

This also underlines a key issue with wearables. You have to be able to wear them all the time and they have to be robust and not easy to lose.