Exist

Turn your burned calories into donations to fight hunger, and more: Quantified Self weekly links

1. Weightless Project

An admirable attempt to fight both extremes of the world's food problems: obesity and hunger. After signing up and connecting your fitness tracker (currently supports Jawbone UP and Fitbit, with more devices and apps to come), every 1000 calories you burn will raise $1 to support the Weightless Project.

So far the project has raised $18,194 from over 82,000,000 calories, which doesn't seem to add up by my calculations. Apparently the partnered device manufacturers are donating funds directly to foundations like the Red Cross to aid hunger relief programs, without any money going through the platform itself. If it succeeds, this could be a great incentive to get moving a bit more.

2. Where are my insights?

Joe Procopio calls for Quantified Self devices and apps to do more with the data they're collecting:

a ton of self-bettering, money-saving correlations between my activity, my sleep, and the resulting quality of both has all come from me, when it should be coming from whoever sold me the device.

Joe also points out that these insights would be worth paying for, and far better than the irrelevant social features and product ads Quantified Self companies are making money from now:

2014 started with an explosion in hardware that tracks the activity of everything from you to your house to your car to your dog. We have an opportunity to shift the paradigm from using that data to sell you shit, to using that data to make you better at those things you want to be better at.

This is the Internet, paid for by the direct value it provides to the consumer, not propped up by ad money.

3. Do people really want a Quantified Self?

Jane Sarasohn-Kahn asks in a Huffington Post article whether normal consumers really want all the tracking devices hitting the market:

Don't get blindsided by the supply side of the market, even as you don your Google Glasses. The demand side of consumers, largely still confined to the couch, will need convincing through a variety of strong nudges, including but not limited to "carrots" (in the form or reduced premiums for health insurance and free stuff), "sticks" (through increased out-of-pocket health costs), and something known as health activation, which can't be bottled. If you can find the secret in that sauce, put your money on that bet.

4. JayBird Reign

A new wristband tracker from JayBird that focuses on individual data (it doesn't have any social elements, apparently) and providing recommendations for future exercise and sleep habits.

Apparently the Reign app (iPhone, Android and web) will tell you how much sleep you need tonight based on last night's stats and can tell you when you're in the "Go-Zone" — i.e. when your body is ready to be active.

The Reign is apparently shipping in May 2014, and you can sign up for email notifications on the website now. It sounds like there aren't any plans for an API, though, which we don't like.

5. Insurance companies should give away fitness trackers

Sam Lustgarten explored the idea of health insurers handing out free fitness trackers in a blog post:

Ideally, health insurers will recognize the financial appeal of such devices and encourage certain clientele to use these trackers. By encouraging people to engage in more healthy behavior and connecting it with a financially solvent future, it may make the impetus and desire to exercise more potent.

More:

• Easy Tracker!: a simple manual-tracking app [iPhone]
• Skechers GOwalk: simple wristband tracker [iPhone and Android]
• Cuff: a wearable (and fashionable) safety alert system
• Mimo: a onesie to track your baby's sleeping and breathing

Image credits: Weightless Project, JayBird Sport