The future of health and fitness devices is not the trackers themselves but the analysis of the data they collect for meaningful advice that helps users adjust their behaviour. Photograph: Richard Drew/AP

Wearable technology’s evolution is not about the gadget on the wrist but what is done with the data they collect, says computational biologist
fitness trackers

Samuel Gibbs in Las Vegas

The future of wearable technology in fitness and health isn’t about the fitness bands and health monitors – it’s about what can be done with the data they collect, according to the founder of health firm LifeQ.

The focus from the technology industry has been on getting gadgets on to wrists, but that will change in the very near future as consumers start to demand more from the lumps of plastic attached to their person.

“Mobile health is following a very similar evolution to weather forecasting, going from simply going outside, through barometers to sophisticated computational forecasting,” said Riaan Conradie, a computational biologist and founder of LifeQ speaking at CES in Las Vegas.

‘Metrics everywhere, spitting out data you don’t know what to do with’
“You started with going to the doctor for a snapshot of your health, but it was very hard to know how hard to run before causing injury. Now we’re overwhelmed by the number of devices, with metrics everywhere, spitting out data you don’t know what to do with.”

The nascent wearables market has expanded in the last few years, with more than 70m fitness trackers and health gadgets sold globally in 2014 and another 68m expected to ship in 2015, according to data from research firm Gartner.

Fitness trackers range from wrist bands and small clips to headphones that can track heart rate. As the capability of the sensors has increased while decreasing in cost, the devices have dropped in price to impulse-buying territory under £50.

‘Just adding insult to injury’
But the myriad of wearables all report data under different metrics with little in the way of useful interpretation.

“The future of wearables is not wearables per se,” said Conradie. “Just like in weather forecasting, the traditional meteorological recording equipment is still needed, but it’s more about analysing and using that data.

“People will become resistant to all the data streams and metrics – they want more valuable, actionable insights. So fitness generation two is about data, about recombining data to make sense of it and creating something actually useful for users.”

Conradie’s firm applies computational biology models to the data collected from wearable devices to provide insight into what a user’s body is doing and what it’s trying to tell them.

“Checking a device that tells you you’ve had five hours of terrible sleep is just adding insult to injury. You already know that,” said Conradie. “But identifying why I’m not sleeping well after X, Y, Z – after I’ve eaten too much, drank something, not exercised enough – then it becomes useful to change habits and do something about the poor sleep.”

Fitness and health tracker manufacturer Jawbone is moving in a similar direction with its new Up3 band, which uses heart rate to track sleep among other metrics, but collates that data and uses it to create useful coaching tips to improve sleep and overall health.

Other companies – including Fitbit, Misfit and Intel’s Basis – are also doing similar things, while Google Fit, Microsoft Health and Apple Health services promise to provide a universal store for the personal health data collected by devices for a deeper, more meaningful analysis.

‘We have police and security services, but we still lock our door’
Conradie said that that kind of deep analysis of data sets is not something a single company can achieve as it will need collaboration between industries, technology, medicine and science to provide meaningful insights.

Having a digital copy of a person’s metabolism in the cloud opens up many possibilities to interrogate that data not just for fitness but for overall health. But security of that invasive personal data is crucial.

“This was a bad year for security in general, but one critical thing has come out of it: data security should be the responsibility of everyone, from the users to the companies,” said Conradie. “Like how we have police and security services, but we still lock our door. We should be moving to that kind of model, where consumers take responsibility for data security as much as companies do.”

Source :: The Guardian