Giving Context to Personal Data
Why we’re trying to make sense of the data generated by wearable devices
Nowadays, we’re surrounded by data: How far we’ve moved, how we slept, how many calories we’ve consumed (and burned), and much, much more. It can be so hard to keep on top of all this data that we’re actually losing sight of what it all means.
The availability of data about our lives has lead to an outburst of creativity and experiments from people all over the world, as we try to learn more and more about our well-being and quantify our daily lives.
The Quantified Self community, led by tech journalists, Kevin Kelly and Gary Wolf, spearheaded this movement and their work has brought thousands of people together and encouraged them to share their stories and findings with each other. For example: Anand Sharm built AprilZero tracking what he does and where he goes.
One of the people captivated by the QS movement is Kouris Kalligas, Addapp’s CEO and Co-founder. Kouris has tried many different wearable devices and a year-or-so back he tried his hand at manually logging his weight data and searching for correlations to give some context to his findings.
“I was tracking my weight, food intake, activity and more, the data was extremely overwhelming,” says Kalligas. “I would have spreadsheet after spreadsheet all filled with different metrics and making sense of it all was near impossible.”
Apps like Apple Health, are making personal data aggregation much simpler. As Kalligas found, what’s still largely missing though, is context.
“The real problem is that the data generated from wearables and tracking apps only tells half the story. You can see how far you move and how well you slept, the next step in the evolution of wearables and personal data is to help you understand why,” Kalligas explains.
At Addapp we’re trying to solve this ‘why’ and provide context to data generated by wearable devices.
We use a data-driven, and science-backed, approach to give you the complete story and create an app that will truly help you live smarter.
Addapp allows you to sync data from the apps and devices you’re using to track your daily life (integrations include: Fitbit, Jawbone UP, RunKeeper and Misfit Wearables).
Behind the scenes our algorithms search for relationships between data sets — your sleep and your running for example — to see how they affect each other and deliver unique, personal well-being insights.
To help us better understand how people are using data from wearable devices and to validate the accuracy of data received through APIs we’ve just launched Addapp Labs.
As Addapp integrates with more and more services it becomes harder to validate the accuracy of the data we receive. Our team uses many wearables — Kouris will often have 5 on at once — but internal testing isn’t scaleable, and our team are not ‘usual’ use cases as we track a lot more than most people.
Before we came up with Labs, we threw around some ideas like getting a robot to walk around the office all day wearing devices and even having a drone we can fly around to mimic running or cycling. As fun as these ideas would have been we settled in favor of something much more human.
Introducing Addapp Labs
Addapp Labs is a 6 month program where we’ll be working closely with a people who use tracking devices every day to see how their data affects their everyday decisions, as well as validating the accuracy of data passed through APIs.
“Addapp Labs gives us the opportunity to work closely with a number of individuals who are passionate about personal data and allows us to really understand what motivates them to track themselves,” explains Addapp CTO and Co-founder, Andreas Creten.
“From a technical point of view it also means we can validate the accuracy of data we receive at Addapp. If the data is we’re receiving is not accurate, then insights we create for users will be less meaningful and we’ll lose trust pretty quickly.”
The 6 month program is open to anyone who would like to know more about themselves. “We’re looking for people who want to learn more about their well-being through tracking and in return for the free device,” Creten says.
“We’d like each participant to quickly confirm the accuracy of their data each week and let us know what, if anything, their device has helped them learn about their well-being.”
Addapp are giving away 17 different wearable devices and premium health and fitness app subscriptions as part of the Labs program.
Enrolling into Addapp Labs is super simple and will only take a minute. Spaces in the Labs program are limited and not everyone who registers will be chosen to receive a free device.
The inaugural Addapp Labs program is open for entry now.
Join Addapp Labs here.
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