What companies have been at least mildly successful in Personal Analytics? From where I am standing I can't think of any.
Yes Fitbit is a great pedometer that gets people to walk more but last time I checked they weren't recording that much data and linking to connected scales is useful but its barely scratching the surface.
One issue with Personal Analytics is we need more data and it needs to be EFFORTLESS to record. The ROI is only high enough when the effort is very low. This is a challenging problem that requires "true innovation". I don't think a tracking app on my mobile phone is going to be the answer.
Another issue is the ability to improve some facet of my life with this data(weight, sleep, etc). Even if I can correlate drinking coffee in the evening is causing me sleep problems unless I can change my habits its not useful information. We need to be able to change our habits and processes based on this data. There are scientific strategies to get people to change habits and simply telling them they need to walk more or eat less do not pass scientific muster. Trigger -> Habit -> Reward. If we need to change Habits we must replace them something. If I need to stop drinking coffee then I need to replace it with something.
Well the basis watch is pretty good in the passive recording department. It automatically tracks your sleep and activity levels with many sensors and can give you a pretty good estimate of your daily calorie burn. You never have to press any buttons to track sleep like with the fitbit, making it purely passive. It's also in a watch form factor, preventing the device loss you can get from the fitbit form factor.
Basis although is lagging in the software department. Their mobile apps are not very useful and their API is not open so people can't grab their data without doing unofficial hacks that accesses the web apps json data directly.
I think although people are going to be using something like the iPhone 5S's M7 motion tracker more than something like a fitbit, because they carry their phones everywhere and don't have to buy or manage a separate device.
This would be the best current combo if basis opened it's data silo:
1. A basis watch for sleep and general activity.
2. A wifi weight scale for weight & easy to measure BF%
3. Runkeeper, etc to track your cardio activities. Basis & fitbit doesn't track actual fitness activities (like biking or hiking) too well compared to runkeeper.
4. Also lets you manually input personal measurements such as your navel, hips, waist, etc from the mobile app. Fitbit does not do this.
All of these items in one cloud-managed website & mobile app will be pretty powerful. The closest you have for this is fitbit right now.
In the future, a credit card / payment system that automatically tracks nutrition purchasing info will be very powerful. This needs to be combined with more nutrition estimates in restaurants although.
Passive 24/7 location tracking can also help co-relate events. It can track the effects of vacations, ski trips, trips to the pool, more grocery shopping less restaurants, etc to put more meaning into your graphs. It can co-relate you going to the gym frequently or not going to burger king anymore with you losing weight.
I think just awareness that your slowly gaining weight can help snip weight gain trends in the bud, along with warnings your eating a lot of high calorie crap that you might not be aware just how high calorie it actually is.
Having the right data be effortlessly recorded is key. If I have to manually input data, I'll forget to enter things and my data will not be completely accurate. Plus, if I don't get immediate value out of the system, I'll stop entering data all together because it's not worth my time.
But, with the new wave of smart watches, glasses and other smart technology there is an opportunity for that data to be easily imported into a personal analytics application.
Yes Fitbit is a great pedometer that gets people to walk more but last time I checked they weren't recording that much data and linking to connected scales is useful but its barely scratching the surface.
One issue with Personal Analytics is we need more data and it needs to be EFFORTLESS to record. The ROI is only high enough when the effort is very low. This is a challenging problem that requires "true innovation". I don't think a tracking app on my mobile phone is going to be the answer.
Another issue is the ability to improve some facet of my life with this data(weight, sleep, etc). Even if I can correlate drinking coffee in the evening is causing me sleep problems unless I can change my habits its not useful information. We need to be able to change our habits and processes based on this data. There are scientific strategies to get people to change habits and simply telling them they need to walk more or eat less do not pass scientific muster. Trigger -> Habit -> Reward. If we need to change Habits we must replace them something. If I need to stop drinking coffee then I need to replace it with something.