6 ms·

Fitness trackers 20 years from now

56 points by tb8424 5y ago

toastal 5y ago
I was using GadgetBridge from F-Droid to keep my data and send nothing to the company's server (Xiaomi in this case). But when the battery died, I took a hard look at if I was even using that data, if it was worth it to keep Bluetooth on on my phone, if it was worth trying to go around Xiaomi to get firmware updates and hacks to get bitmap fonts covering wider languages. I decided that the easiest thing to do was toss it and bought a cheap Casio where the battery should last years.
- colordrops 5y ago
  I used gadgetbridge initially but ended up switching to "Notify for Me", which is a lot more hseful. It's written by an individual in Italy but is still closed source and phones home, so I use NetGuard and LineageOS to block all network traffic to the app. It still works fine. I don't use most functionality, but steps, sleep time, heart rate, and notifications/alarms have all been useful to me.
  - piaste 5y ago
    Thanks for the tip, I just installed it (revoked network permissions + blocked in TrackerControl) and I will check how it works. Lots more options than Gadgetbridge it seems, which is nice.
  - donclark 5y ago
    Is this the app you are referring to? If not, can you provide a link please? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kila.addnotification.lars&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kila.addno...
    - colordrops 5y ago
      No, sorry, I typed it incorrectly and it's too late to edit. It's this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mc.miband1&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mc.miband1...
killjoywashere 5y ago
This is why DICOM is a thing: because hospitals cannot be tied to a vendor for radiology studies. They have to be able to cancel contracts, novate, etc. Sounds like someone is trying to wrap this up, godspeed: https://spectrum.ieee.org/wearable-health-data-standards https://spectrum.ieee.org/wearable-health-data-standards Also, IMHO, I think healthcare is where protobuf could really win over JSON: a protobuf comes with the schema and any datatype can ride the message. Everything you need is there. Is protobuf a heavier lift to get started? Yeah. So? Healthcare is too heavily regulated (and for good reasons) for this to be a significant issue. The barrier to entry is so much higher than the effort to handle protobuf, that it's lost in the wash.
- nradov 5y ago
  Most of the data generated by consumer health devices would be better suited to HL7 standards rather than DICOM.
  - killjoywashere 5y ago
    Agreed. The point of that example was simple vendor lockin
- leovander 5y ago
  Healthcare companies following a schema? Ha. Maybe the closest thing to there being any consistency is companies making sure they can be listed in Apple's Health app.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Most EHRs and other related healthcare applications now have reasonably correct support of various HL7 interoperability formats. Not perfect, but good enough. Much of this has been driven by federal government regulatory mandates.
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    The closest thing is probably companies assuring they can interact with the transaction formats mandated for electronic transactions under the HIPAA transactions and code sets rule, or EHR standards also mandated/incentivized by the federal government.
Syonyk 5y ago
> I'm trying to imagine a future, 30-50 years from now... I can only hope it's a future in which we collectively realized that smartphones, smartwatches, smartglasses, smartypantstoilets, smartgloves, smartdiapers, etc, were a bloody well idiotic idea and that we've come to our collective senses and realized that they were never what they promised to be, but had, within a few years of launch, turned into just more ways of monopolizing attention for a quick venture capital and IPO payout. Perhaps not the hardware manufacturers, but at least the way the hardware was used. More realistically, those are likely to be dim memories of the past, back before capitalism ran the planet into the ground, and took most of our technology stacks with it. Modern tech stacks are complexity, piled on complexity, built on a few stacks of complexity, built on broken hardware that's overly complex in an attempt to gain the performance required to run the teetering stacks on top of it (all the uarch vulns, DDR4 Rowhammer is a nice touch on top, etc). You'll note that neither of those paths involve us running around with the FitBit 2050 gathering... whatever it is it thinks it ought to gather. The way things are going, probably nothing more useful than Covid tracking stuff. "You were in proximity with 1.7 potential individuals who may have been infected with Covid, please quarantine for the next two weeks. confetti" It would be nice if we had some of our current technology, that open data standards had taken root and we could decide how we wanted to use the stuff, pay appropriately and be paid appropriately for our devices, attention, etc. But that's just not the way things are going, and I fear that's not the way things are going to go, under any reasonable future. There is far, far too much money and "Well, but, see, if you destroy the market you can monopolize it!" money floating around for the near to moderate future to see that future happen. I mean, a bunch of our current companies are literally based on "We will use the venture capital money to undercut everyone else, drive them out of business, and then be the monopoly!" Uber, Lyft, [insert the food delivery service of the week here], the various scooter services, and the list goes on. They're running into the brick wall of, "Wait... what do you mean, we're not going to accomplish that? You mean we have to turn a profit?" I've talked to people who have started taking taxis again, because at least they'll show up, unlike the Sharing Economy Rideshare App of The Future services that weren't remotely pandemic-proof. We'll see. But I would predict that fitness trackers, in 20 years, are a big pile of ewaste, "... ugh, yeah, you know, it's not worth the hassle to get that data out...," and broken promises. And hopefully not being actively worn by then.
acwan93 5y ago
Don't file formats like .FIT or .GPX handle this case? I had this problem when migrating nearly 10 years of running data from Nike Running --> Strava. It wasn't perfect but eventually I got "good enough" data after weeks of wrestling with unknown aggregators who either scraped sites or used an unofficial API. Apple Health is the closest thing I've seen where there's somewhat of an open standard despite the walled garden in Apple's ecosystem. Without some overarching body, like a government regulator, I'm not optimistic there will be widespread adoption of interoperability.
- nradov 5y ago
  The FIT file format isn't truly open because it's controlled by Garmin. But anyone can download the SDK for free, and most fitness trackers will export data in that format. With Garmin devices you can connect to a USB port and copy the FIT files directly to do whatever you like. https://developer.garmin.com/fit/overview/ https://developer.garmin.com/fit/overview/
- NoboruWataya 5y ago
  Yes, the three file formats I have seen used are FIT, TCX and GPX. FIT and TCX are controlled by Garmin but the documentation (and, in the case of TCX, the schema) is publicly available. I'm not sure what licence it is available under. GPX is described on its website as being an open standard and is very widely used, both for fitness data and other applications. The purpose of GPX is to describe GPS data; by itself it is not as suitable for fitness data as FIT or TCX as things like heart rate and cadence data are not part of the standard. However, GPX can be extended. From an open web perspective, GPX with standard extensions for other fitness-related data would probably be best, but FIT and TCX are getting ever more popular. For now, the situation is fine because it's fairly easy to convert between them. The risk is that Garmin tries to close off the TCX and FIT standards in the future.
tnhh 5y ago
We have explored whether the GDPR's right to data portability might help in this regard: https://tnhh.org/research/pubs/wraps2021.pdf https://tnhh.org/research/pubs/wraps2021.pdf Of course this will only work in some jurisdictions, and even then it needs stronger enforcement to ensure that data controllers will comply (or even understand their obligations).
MarkusWandel 5y ago
Maintain access 20 year old fitness data? What for? I'm fairly far along on the data hoarding spectrum. This extends, for example, to over 200K photos from my life, categorized and indexed. It's trivial to look at "what happened on this day 20 years ago" or at least on the nearest date to that day that had pictures taken. And here's the thing: As the memories fade, so does interest in the photos. 10 years ago you still remember clearly. 20 years ago is another era. And that's photos. Fitness data? Do I really want to see how I declined over the last 20 years? I see that already from the average speed display on my bike computer. Fitness data is the ultimate "looking forward" thing. But maybe that's my age; it may look different from a younger perspective. Agree with others that just use a platform that lets you export open-ish files. .gpx doesn't do heart rate, but .fit does, and gpsbabel can translate that to another format as needed.
- gpetukhov 5y ago
  Would love to know how you categorize and index 200k photos.
  - MarkusWandel 5y ago
    Homemade system that is not in any way publishable. It's a folder hierarchy but also viewable as a chronological timeline. The main key is to organize them as you go, and not fall too far behind.
    - skytreader 5y ago
      > Homemade system that is not in any way publishable. I can still access all the photos I took since around 2008, when I first started to nurture an interest in photography as a hobby. I never delete b-rolls unless they're absolute crap (i.e., I triggered with my lens cap on, too dark with no flash---blurry, out-of-focus shots do not count as absolute crap). I also manage it with a homemade system! This system is closer to my darkest shame than proudest achievement. It kinda reminds me of Destin's pre-Linus-organized system[1] except way smaller and a few scripts more sophisticated (my system has redundancy, ha!). Despite that, I have maintained access despite moving across continents. In fact, last year, slightly spurred on by the pandemic situation, a bunch of friends asked me if I still have copies of photographs I took years prior. The oldest query was only for 4-5 years ago but I am proud to say that I was able to oblige despite my shameful system. Kids, don't do this in prod, but homemade systems FTW! :) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcWSrIiR1tY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcWSrIiR1tY
phillipppp 5y ago
Sounds like the author is referring to standards like FHIR (https://www.hl7.org/fhir/ https://www.hl7.org/fhir/).

56 points by tb8424 5y ago

I was using GadgetBridge from F-Droid to keep my data and send nothing to the company's server (Xiaomi in this case). But when the battery died, I took a hard look at if I was even using that data, if it was worth it to keep Bluetooth on on my phone, if it was worth trying to go around Xiaomi to get firmware updates and hacks to get bitmap fonts covering wider languages. I decided that the easiest thing to do was toss it and bought a cheap Casio where the battery should last years.

colordrops 5y ago
I used gadgetbridge initially but ended up switching to "Notify for Me", which is a lot more hseful. It's written by an individual in Italy but is still closed source and phones home, so I use NetGuard and LineageOS to block all network traffic to the app. It still works fine. I don't use most functionality, but steps, sleep time, heart rate, and notifications/alarms have all been useful to me.
- piaste 5y ago
  Thanks for the tip, I just installed it (revoked network permissions + blocked in TrackerControl) and I will check how it works. Lots more options than Gadgetbridge it seems, which is nice.
- donclark 5y ago
  Is this the app you are referring to? If not, can you provide a link please? https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kila.addnotification.lars&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kila.addno...
  - colordrops 5y ago
    No, sorry, I typed it incorrectly and it's too late to edit. It's this: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mc.miband1&hl=en_US&gl=US https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mc.miband1...

killjoywashere 5y ago

This is why DICOM is a thing: because hospitals cannot be tied to a vendor for radiology studies. They have to be able to cancel contracts, novate, etc. Sounds like someone is trying to wrap this up, godspeed: https://spectrum.ieee.org/wearable-health-data-standards https://spectrum.ieee.org/wearable-health-data-standards Also, IMHO, I think healthcare is where protobuf could really win over JSON: a protobuf comes with the schema and any datatype can ride the message. Everything you need is there. Is protobuf a heavier lift to get started? Yeah. So? Healthcare is too heavily regulated (and for good reasons) for this to be a significant issue. The barrier to entry is so much higher than the effort to handle protobuf, that it's lost in the wash.

nradov 5y ago
Most of the data generated by consumer health devices would be better suited to HL7 standards rather than DICOM.
- killjoywashere 5y ago
  Agreed. The point of that example was simple vendor lockin
leovander 5y ago
Healthcare companies following a schema? Ha. Maybe the closest thing to there being any consistency is companies making sure they can be listed in Apple's Health app.
- nradov 5y ago
  Most EHRs and other related healthcare applications now have reasonably correct support of various HL7 interoperability formats. Not perfect, but good enough. Much of this has been driven by federal government regulatory mandates.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  The closest thing is probably companies assuring they can interact with the transaction formats mandated for electronic transactions under the HIPAA transactions and code sets rule, or EHR standards also mandated/incentivized by the federal government.

Syonyk 5y ago

> I'm trying to imagine a future, 30-50 years from now... I can only hope it's a future in which we collectively realized that smartphones, smartwatches, smartglasses, smartypantstoilets, smartgloves, smartdiapers, etc, were a bloody well idiotic idea and that we've come to our collective senses and realized that they were never what they promised to be, but had, within a few years of launch, turned into just more ways of monopolizing attention for a quick venture capital and IPO payout. Perhaps not the hardware manufacturers, but at least the way the hardware was used. More realistically, those are likely to be dim memories of the past, back before capitalism ran the planet into the ground, and took most of our technology stacks with it. Modern tech stacks are complexity, piled on complexity, built on a few stacks of complexity, built on broken hardware that's overly complex in an attempt to gain the performance required to run the teetering stacks on top of it (all the uarch vulns, DDR4 Rowhammer is a nice touch on top, etc). You'll note that neither of those paths involve us running around with the FitBit 2050 gathering... whatever it is it thinks it ought to gather. The way things are going, probably nothing more useful than Covid tracking stuff. "You were in proximity with 1.7 potential individuals who may have been infected with Covid, please quarantine for the next two weeks. confetti" It would be nice if we had some of our current technology, that open data standards had taken root and we could decide how we wanted to use the stuff, pay appropriately and be paid appropriately for our devices, attention, etc. But that's just not the way things are going, and I fear that's not the way things are going to go, under any reasonable future. There is far, far too much money and "Well, but, see, if you destroy the market you can monopolize it!" money floating around for the near to moderate future to see that future happen. I mean, a bunch of our current companies are literally based on "We will use the venture capital money to undercut everyone else, drive them out of business, and then be the monopoly!" Uber, Lyft, [insert the food delivery service of the week here], the various scooter services, and the list goes on. They're running into the brick wall of, "Wait... what do you mean, we're not going to accomplish that? You mean we have to turn a profit?" I've talked to people who have started taking taxis again, because at least they'll show up, unlike the Sharing Economy Rideshare App of The Future services that weren't remotely pandemic-proof. We'll see. But I would predict that fitness trackers, in 20 years, are a big pile of ewaste, "... ugh, yeah, you know, it's not worth the hassle to get that data out...," and broken promises. And hopefully not being actively worn by then.

acwan93 5y ago

Don't file formats like .FIT or .GPX handle this case? I had this problem when migrating nearly 10 years of running data from Nike Running --> Strava. It wasn't perfect but eventually I got "good enough" data after weeks of wrestling with unknown aggregators who either scraped sites or used an unofficial API. Apple Health is the closest thing I've seen where there's somewhat of an open standard despite the walled garden in Apple's ecosystem. Without some overarching body, like a government regulator, I'm not optimistic there will be widespread adoption of interoperability.

nradov 5y ago
The FIT file format isn't truly open because it's controlled by Garmin. But anyone can download the SDK for free, and most fitness trackers will export data in that format. With Garmin devices you can connect to a USB port and copy the FIT files directly to do whatever you like. https://developer.garmin.com/fit/overview/ https://developer.garmin.com/fit/overview/
NoboruWataya 5y ago
Yes, the three file formats I have seen used are FIT, TCX and GPX. FIT and TCX are controlled by Garmin but the documentation (and, in the case of TCX, the schema) is publicly available. I'm not sure what licence it is available under. GPX is described on its website as being an open standard and is very widely used, both for fitness data and other applications. The purpose of GPX is to describe GPS data; by itself it is not as suitable for fitness data as FIT or TCX as things like heart rate and cadence data are not part of the standard. However, GPX can be extended. From an open web perspective, GPX with standard extensions for other fitness-related data would probably be best, but FIT and TCX are getting ever more popular. For now, the situation is fine because it's fairly easy to convert between them. The risk is that Garmin tries to close off the TCX and FIT standards in the future.

tnhh 5y ago

We have explored whether the GDPR's right to data portability might help in this regard: https://tnhh.org/research/pubs/wraps2021.pdf https://tnhh.org/research/pubs/wraps2021.pdf Of course this will only work in some jurisdictions, and even then it needs stronger enforcement to ensure that data controllers will comply (or even understand their obligations).

MarkusWandel 5y ago

Maintain access 20 year old fitness data? What for? I'm fairly far along on the data hoarding spectrum. This extends, for example, to over 200K photos from my life, categorized and indexed. It's trivial to look at "what happened on this day 20 years ago" or at least on the nearest date to that day that had pictures taken. And here's the thing: As the memories fade, so does interest in the photos. 10 years ago you still remember clearly. 20 years ago is another era. And that's photos. Fitness data? Do I really want to see how I declined over the last 20 years? I see that already from the average speed display on my bike computer. Fitness data is the ultimate "looking forward" thing. But maybe that's my age; it may look different from a younger perspective. Agree with others that just use a platform that lets you export open-ish files. .gpx doesn't do heart rate, but .fit does, and gpsbabel can translate that to another format as needed.

gpetukhov 5y ago
Would love to know how you categorize and index 200k photos.
- MarkusWandel 5y ago
  Homemade system that is not in any way publishable. It's a folder hierarchy but also viewable as a chronological timeline. The main key is to organize them as you go, and not fall too far behind.
  - skytreader 5y ago
    > Homemade system that is not in any way publishable. I can still access all the photos I took since around 2008, when I first started to nurture an interest in photography as a hobby. I never delete b-rolls unless they're absolute crap (i.e., I triggered with my lens cap on, too dark with no flash---blurry, out-of-focus shots do not count as absolute crap). I also manage it with a homemade system! This system is closer to my darkest shame than proudest achievement. It kinda reminds me of Destin's pre-Linus-organized system[1] except way smaller and a few scripts more sophisticated (my system has redundancy, ha!). Despite that, I have maintained access despite moving across continents. In fact, last year, slightly spurred on by the pandemic situation, a bunch of friends asked me if I still have copies of photographs I took years prior. The oldest query was only for 4-5 years ago but I am proud to say that I was able to oblige despite my shameful system. Kids, don't do this in prod, but homemade systems FTW! :) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcWSrIiR1tY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcWSrIiR1tY

phillipppp 5y ago

Sounds like the author is referring to standards like FHIR (https://www.hl7.org/fhir/ https://www.hl7.org/fhir/).