There is an App for that?

Do you even know there might be an App or Wearable out there that can help you achieve your personal fitness goals?

In last week’s post we talked about how everyone has personal goals regarding their fitness and how wearables and apps might be useful in achieving them. Our user research showed that many people are not entirely satisfied with the devices and apps that are currently available. So we did some further research and tried to benchmark the modern fitness technology market.

How do you learn most about all those devices and apps? Internet research is the obvious answer. However, we thought we should go one step further. We wanted to get information from persons who supposedly know what they are talking about. Therefore, we went into shops that sell wearables and asked the shop assistants about the devices.

The result of this experiment was rather unsatisfying. Most of them did not really have detailed knowledge about the devices. Others just recommended expensive ones or handed us flyers. Looking at the wearables which were sold at these stores, still gave us a good impression on popular devices. Furthermore, we found that the market for wearables is very fractured. While Fitbit is the market leader, there are tons of different manufacturers with small market shares out there.

Apart from that, we discovered that all the different apps and devices have very different feature sets, accuracies and target groups. The sheer number and variety of apps and devices makes it hard for users to compare them against each other and to find the “best” ones.

Moreover, we stumbled upon some unusual apps and devices during our process we had never even heard about before. Here is a selection of the ones we found most interesting or surprising:

• Zombies, Run! — app that motivates you during your run by sending you on missions and simulating chasing zombies
• Sharkbanz — wearable for surfers, which uses magnetic technology to deter sharks from attacking them
• Flyfit ankle band — wearable for the ankle that is specialised in tracking swimming and cycling movements

In conclusion, we think it is easy to lose track of the market and miss things that might be helpful for you. If it takes us several weeks of research to find all those apps and devices, how is anyone else supposed to find and pick the right technology for their needs?

In the end, all the research made us even more curious and inspired us to start a self experiment. We each got ourselves a different wearable and are about to try them out during the next weeks. You will read about our experiences and conclusions here in another post.