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Fitness tracking companies: here’s what I REALLY want

Joe Heitzeberg
February 22, 2013

I’ve counted more than 12 “activity tracker” device companies ala Fitbit, Nike Fuel Band, Jawbone Up, Mistfit, Basis, etc. It’s great that we have so many convenient options for quantifying and comparing our activity levels. After all, even moderate amounts of activity can go a long way towards improving one’s baseline health.

Still, I feel like there is a long way to go. Perfection for me would be a system that could correlate all the data (sleep, exercise and food intake) and make recommendations and draw cause and effect conclusions specific to an individual’s health.

These days I consider myself to be very healthry — active (100 burpees / day, etc), eat healthy foods and get plenty of sleep — but I also drink too much coffee some days, get too little sleep or eat some random meal. As a result, I get occasional headaches or feel tired or whatnot (as I’m sure we all do from time to time.)

What I really want is a total health fitness tracking system for sleep, food intake and activity that is capable of telling me specifically how my activities and foods are affecting my health, weight, mood, stress level, etc — and which can make specific recommendations.

I want a wrist band that will tell me things like, “Joe, you should have a glass of orange juice right now and take a 30-minute nap or else you’ll have a headache tomorrow morning.”