I love collecting data from any resource I could attach a digital device to. The temperature or humidity of my terrarium, weather data, a cycle computer on my Brompton – you name it :)
My newest gadget is an activity tracker called Withings Pulse. This small 8-gram device made it into my bag yesterday. Several trackers hit the market in the last months. I tried the Nike+ FuelBand (the first of its kind) and owned a Jawbone Up band. A friend of mine uses the Fitbit Zip and I played with this one too. That’s a more or less outright collection. Nobody needs one of those and I don’t think that rational arguments justify the investment of around 100 EUR. But who needs a reason for everything?!
A major problem with all those trackers: they don’t support cycling activities. In fact they are wireless pedometers. If you carry the tracker on your wrist as you do with the Nike+ Fuelband or the Jawbone Up, they don’t recognize any movement at all when you ride your Brompton.
The Pulse and the Fitbit Zip could be stored in your pocket and they will at least record something while cycling like a champ. I’ll have to test it what comes out of my new Pulse. On the first ride of around 5km the reading showed a walk of 1,4km or 1.700 steps and a moderate action. Simply forget the absolute values! The relative amount of action compared to an individual goal or personal reference is what comes into play here.
The Pulse offers more then that. The little black device can measure my heart rate. I have to press my finger on the back of the Pulse for a few seconds. Don’t know the application for this feature but it is a nice showcase if friends ask me about my new gadget. I’m not sure if the Pulse has an altimeter build in, but the device tries to calculate the elevation climbed. This morning I got a reading of 17m – the next day showed 3m less for the same route.
The distance traveled or the calories burned: I don’t take those values too serious. But I use the numbers to compare my activities to what happened yesterday, last week or last month. It’s not “hey, 4 points more” but “what a lazy week”.
On the right you see my sleeping pattern. The Pulse measures the duration, the depth of sleep (no movement) and how long it took to fall into sleep. That’s fun to compare the readings with your sensed sleep quality. The Jawbone Up seems to be more accurate and allowed in addition to set an alarm based on the sleeping cycle. I used the alarm feature only once and so I don’t miss it on the Pulse.
I love the design of this little device. So small, so light. The display might give you problems in direct sunlight – but every time I showed it to a friend they liked the design of the display a lot. The design is a winner. Best of all trackers I put my hands on so far.
The data collected with the Pulse will be send to your smartphone (iOS and Android) via Bluetooth. No need for a cable. The app is nice and offers all the features you need. No big difference to other vendors. There is also a webpage called “healthmate” to play with your data. You need a password to access your personal page, but at least you send all your personal tracking data to this server – the NSA… who knows. If your fitness values are too bad, you will never get a job as a secret agent.
Suspension Tuning