Future uses of fitness apps and data.

[anonymous-user]

Watching bbc inside track there’s a guy on from a South African health insurance company talking about incentivising customers by giving them points when they submit workouts etc to their website somehow. Seems like you might link strava or something to it and maybe get cheaper insurance if you’re more active. Obviously the health insurance company could get all sorts of other health data now and even more in the near future in this way.

The amount of health metrics your smart devices can record now are pretty amazing. Sleep data heart data, work outs, recovery time, general activity levels. Lots of information about where you go etc

Future developments look likely to include diagnostic capabilities for apps maybe with owners having to buy some extra equipment for the home, we already have smart scales doing weight plus other functions. Could we also have home health kits to do other diagnostic functions like blood pressure, temperature or even other more complex functions?

Is this far off? People being able to use apps and say an Apple Watch to self diagnose or submit watch data to their GP or even some Apple health professionals (or algorithms) to see if you’re ok etc?

Then maybe linked to you’re health insurance like data about driving through black boxes is already being used by car insurance companies.

Some great possibilities for health benefits but like all tech, possibilities for negative outcomes for the user.

Maybe users will be overcome with health data and actually more worried by possible illness etc they can’t do anything about? If you’re a bit of a data junkie for your workouts and training, imagine if you’ve also got all that extra health data to obsess over.

[Harpoon]

Vitality already do this - as an example the more "activity points" you log, the cheaper an Apple watch is

https://www.vitality.co.uk/support/activity-tracke...

[anonymous-user]

Harpoon said:

Vitality already do this - as an example the more "activity points" you log, the cheaper an Apple watch is

https://www.vitality.co.uk/support/activity-tracke...

I think that’s the South African one that was on the news.

That’s just based on steps to buy a watch but presumably you could get discounts or refused insurance itself based on other metrics your Apple Watch is monitoring or may be able to monitor more of in the future? Like black boxes on cars for insurance at the moment.

Is it good or bad or just a thing that’s happening?

I wonder if it’s a bit like arguments about having ID Cards or having more government abilities to monitor us. Part of me thinks only the guilty (or unhealthy) have anything to fear but there must also be drawbacks regarding individual freedoms and privacy?

It’s a bit like with strava, at first I thought why would I want other people to see my workouts, then I got used to it and shared them but maybe not the heart data or where I lived (for some odd reason) now I share them and gradually my activities also get shared with not just people I know really well but also people I don’t know so well but maybe work with, then I get friend requests from a manager at work, do I want them seeing my activity? What if I’m off ill but do a little workout?

I suppose It’s just about the gradual creep of information and data that might be beneficial or might have negative consequences. Maybe it’s like all social media where you just have to spend time with the settings and being more careful about who you ‘friend’ and what you share.

[markcoznottz]

Someone's got to eat all the cheap food at farmfoods though...

[sleepezy]

I had a meeting a few weeks ago with an app developer that's looking at tracking 'habits' in the broadest sense to derive an indication of low level chronic inflammation levels.

Apparently they're getting some traction with high end sports clubs, insurers and even a vehicle manufacturer who is looking to integrate an algorithm into the dashboard in some way.

The issue I see it, and the bit they struggled to convince me they had a solution for, was that they needed to capture so much of your data to undertake an assessment. The analysis of data wasn't the issue, and I think their theory had some merit, I just can't see anyone logging everything they do and eat all the time. Maybe i'm just too old though but is there really a market of people who record every single thing they eat, every activity etc. etc. I can see it working if/when we get to an automated recording somehow - but before hand it's just too much of a PITA for me.