I Bought A Health Tracker
And another and another and another…
Like countless other people, I decided that on January 1st of the new year, I’d begin my life as a healthier person. The plan would involve eating healthier, exercising more, and tracking literally anything I could.
A few in, I wandered upon a sale. For the low price of only $30, I could be the lucky owner of the UP24, a discontinued fitness tracker from Jawbone. At that price, it seemed silly to not give fitness tracking a try. After a quick charge and downloading the Up app, I was ready to start tracking.
I’m a big proponent that tracking activity and food intake can be helpful in staying healthy. I understand that, just like most things, tracking everything and anything that your body does in a day doesn’t work for everyone. But I believe that having that grand amount of information available to you can allow a person to take notice of problem areas in their health regimen and change it for the better. I’m a romantic and a dreamer when it comes to using technology to enrich and enhance my life, okay?
Expectations were high, originally. While I was skeptical of the discontinued nature of the Up24, there weren’t any big problems with it (the product was just cycled out by better trackers), so I wore the tracker without fear. Everything started off great. I was moving more than usual, as just the bright orange tracker itself was a constant reminder that I should be active. The tracker was doing its job well enough and I stuck to my side of the deal.
My health tracking bug soon became a full-blown fever, buying a “smart” pedometer a few days later, and started to use the step-tracker on my iPhone. I’d wake up, check how well I slept, track my meals, and all while counting steps on three separate devices. Unfortunately, discrepancies soon began popping up. Days of odd step counts, congratulations for accomplishments that soon vanished, and disappearing notifications killed my excitement over tracking my health.
A problem that seems to come up with these devices is the lack of interconnectivity. Sure, my Jawbone tracker says I walked 30,000 steps, but my pedometer is only at 17,000 and my phone’s somewhere in between. There are apps that combine info from different sources, but (depending on the app) certain devices are given priority over others. The UP app obviously gives the UP24 preference over the steps my phone tracks or my pedometer. But why do other apps favor my wrist tracker over my pedometer? What makes one tracker more accurate than the other.
Fed up, I finally tested each device to see which one was more accurate. Taking 100 steps with each device yielded interesting (I know I’m pushing that word to its limit) results: iPhone 6- 98 steps, Jawbone UP24- 115, pedometer- 124 steps.
My iPhone was clearly the closest, but, once again, most of my health tracking apps chose to prioritize the results of the UP24.
Wearables, fitness tech, and health trackers are obviously all inside a newly defined category of devices. As these gadgets get more fleshed out, I’m hoping we’ll start to see devices that can truly talk with and interact with each other. Until then, I guess I’ll just have to stop using so many health trackers.
