ACTIVITY TRACKING
FitLinxx’s AmpStrip sticks to the body, so it tracks activity 24/7
If you can’t get perfect data, don’t worry about perfect data. Instead, measure relevant data
If trackers can help motivate and measure progress, is absolute accuracy so important?
appears on someone else’s machine. You can’t guarantee the readings are yours.” Digital solutions such as Ant+ and Bluetooth can eliminate cross-talk.
Progress or accuracy? When it comes to accuracy of calculating calories, it seems the main issue is not whether the device is wearable, an app or a piece of gym equipment. It’s more that, with current tech – or at least tech that’s appropriate for everyday use – it’s very hard to calculate calories accurately. Mick Rice, operations director at Pulse,
confirms: “There’s lots of data we don’t know and can’t get at – for instance, a person’s BMI. Anything other than an oxygen mask to some degree gives you an average.” And McClure agrees: “The question is: how close can we get to that gold standard in a consumer-friendly environment?” But if existing technology can’t measure
calorie count and heart rate accurately, how – short of people running around with oxygen masks on – can technology measure fitness progress?
“If you can’t get perfect data, don’t worry
about perfect data,” suggests Jeff Bartree, networked fitness product manager at Precor US. “Instead, measure relevant data.” He continues: “If you walk 10,000 steps
or do 45 minutes on a cardio machine and you’re told you’ve burnt 450–500 calories, you also know you’ll burn even more if you increase the speed, the intensity or the time. You may not know exactly how many calories you burn off, but you’ll get in better shape, and that’s the real aim.” Rice agrees. “All this is just an index
that encourages people to keep up levels of activity and track trends,” he says. “Time, distance travelled or intensity provide more accurate indicators. Calories burned gives an indicator of sorts, so too heart rate and step count. So why not put them all into a wearable device? “People are motivated by different
things. We want users to hold on to some method of keeping up an active, healthy lifestyle, so we should offer them as many indicators as possible.” Bartree agrees, adding: “It’s also useful if technology
48 Read Health Club Management online at
healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital
allows you to record what you do across a number of different types of exercise.”
Watch this space Eventually, technological advances will enable trackers to be more accurate. “We’ll get better data recording, better algorithms and better ways of communicating this to users in meaningful and useful ways,” says McClure. “Today’s technology is much more accurate than early tracking tech and I don’t see any reason why this trend wouldn’t continue.” Bartree believes people, and headline
writers, need to be more patient: “This technology is a relatively new thing for mass market fitness. It might not be accurate at the moment, but now it’s caught on there will be lots of clever people looking at it. Over time, it will get more accurate.” Currently, the general consensus is that
tracking relative progress and offering people different measures to motivate them – to be used as an index against which to measure progress – should be more important than absolute accuracy. ●
May 2015 © Cybertrek 2015
PHOTO: SHUTTERSTOCK/SYDA PRODUCTIONS
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92