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Speaker 1: With technology with hook stuff from how stuff dot com everything.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan's

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Speaker 1: Trickland and on Lauren Vocbum and we're gonna track your

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Speaker 1: activity with activity trackers. That's what we're talking about today.

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Speaker 1: We're talking about various devices that allow you to see

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Speaker 1: how much activity you've you've you've generated over a certain

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Speaker 1: amount of time, and sometimes it helps you figure out

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Speaker 1: how many calories you've burned or how well you've been sleeping.

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Speaker 1: We want to talk about what these devices are, what

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Speaker 1: they do, how they do it, and whether or not

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Speaker 1: they're actually effective if you want to do something like

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Speaker 1: lose weight or get fit. Yeah. Just I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: not that that many people are interested in that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, you know, Yeah, there's like maybe two right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: So the last few times I've gone to C E

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Speaker 1: S I have noticed really it was I think it

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Speaker 1: was two years ago where that it was dramatically apparent

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Speaker 1: that fitness tracking and activity tracking is a real thing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's huge, huge, booming industry. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, as as between circuitry getting smaller

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Speaker 1: and uh sinking, technology improving and the software improving, and

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Speaker 1: just all of these things have been coming together to

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Speaker 1: create these smaller, sleeker, you know, better devices that can

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Speaker 1: really help people out things that are things like interoperability

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Speaker 1: to where it can interact with computers or smartphones. Not

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Speaker 1: not every device does that. Let's be clear about that.

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Speaker 1: There are a lot of devices out there that have

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Speaker 1: kind of a limited use like that. Maybe they just

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Speaker 1: sink with a computer, or maybe it's just a standalone device,

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Speaker 1: but a lot of them do sync up with more

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Speaker 1: than one device. You could do it with a smartphone

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Speaker 1: application or or a computer or other things as well,

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Speaker 1: and they'll let you They'll let you up port port

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Speaker 1: whatever data you record into different apps, so that if,

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Speaker 1: for example, you're into this kind of thing and you

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Speaker 1: have a favorite app you can you can use that

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Speaker 1: one to crunch your numbers rather than whatever other proprietary

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Speaker 1: thing they have created. Right, Right, So this gives you

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Speaker 1: a chance to, uh, to really keep a good look,

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Speaker 1: you know, get a really good look at how much

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Speaker 1: activity you are you have throughout a given amount of time,

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Speaker 1: like a week or a day. So you might say,

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Speaker 1: all right, I want to set a goal for myself

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Speaker 1: and this device will help me measure up against that

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Speaker 1: goal and decide, you know, am I am I meeting

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Speaker 1: my goal? Do I need to uh to crank up

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Speaker 1: the activity? Do I need to maybe you know, do

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Speaker 1: a three mile jog in the morning in order to

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Speaker 1: hit what my goals are? Do I need to UM

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Speaker 1: to scale back or for for for hardcore trainers, am

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Speaker 1: I running my heart rate too hard? Yeah? Yeah, So

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Speaker 1: it all depends on what device you have, whether or

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Speaker 1: not you can actually do these things, because, like we said,

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Speaker 1: not every device does everything. In fact, depending upon what

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Speaker 1: you want, that's going to really guide your choices when

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Speaker 1: it comes to picking an activity tracker. If you're interested

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Speaker 1: in something like that, absolutely and is um there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of really terrific reviews out there on the internet.

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Speaker 1: We'll mentioned at least one good site to go to

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Speaker 1: later on in the podcast. Yeah, there's I came across

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Speaker 1: lots and lots of them. And it's interesting too because

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Speaker 1: you can see where the different preferences come into play,

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Speaker 1: because one reviewer might say, well, you know, X is

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Speaker 1: the best activity tracker because it does things this way,

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Speaker 1: and someone else will say, no, no no, no, why is

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Speaker 1: the best activity tracker because it does things in this

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Speaker 1: other way, and it's just because it appeals to that

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Speaker 1: particular person a very personal choice. Right So, so that's

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Speaker 1: one thing you can get you can walk away with

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Speaker 1: right now, is that we're not gonna at the end

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Speaker 1: of this podcast. It's not like we're gonna say the

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Speaker 1: best activity tracker is blah blah blah, because it all

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Speaker 1: depends on what you want to get out of it now. Frankly,

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Speaker 1: I think if you are looking at one of these things,

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Speaker 1: the thing you really want to get out of it

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Speaker 1: is is making sure that you are living a healthy lifestyle.

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Speaker 1: And most of the ones that are on the market

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Speaker 1: right now will help you do that, depending on how

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Speaker 1: you use it. It's it's not magic device that automatically

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Speaker 1: turns you into a fit pro athlete right now. Now.

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Speaker 1: You have to you have to have your own personal

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Speaker 1: sense of motivation about exercising first. Probably obtaining a fitness

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Speaker 1: tracker is going to be one of the steps that

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Speaker 1: you're you know, carrying out in this motivation um and

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Speaker 1: and study studies have shown um that that that just

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Speaker 1: mindfulness about this kind of thing can really help you

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Speaker 1: out from lots lots of different corners of health and

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Speaker 1: fitness when when you are given the power to track

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Speaker 1: your own data and to kind of take it into

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Speaker 1: your own hands like that, maybe gamify at a tiny

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Speaker 1: bit um you, it really helps you out right. There's

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Speaker 1: an expert, her name's Dina Bravada. I'm sure you ran

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Speaker 1: across her name several times as well, because it's all

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Speaker 1: over the place in the research on activity tracking, and

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Speaker 1: she has said that there there is a bit of

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Speaker 1: a bias that's present with activity trackers in the sense

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Speaker 1: of the people who who are interested in them. She

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Speaker 1: says that here's a quote. Often those kind of programs

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Speaker 1: have been criticized because they attract people who are already

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Speaker 1: physically active. In general, there are two categories of people

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Speaker 1: who use these trackers, those who are told to wear

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Speaker 1: them by a doctor because of an underlying health problem

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Speaker 1: and those who are really active and just get a

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Speaker 1: kick out of knowing their data. Now, none of that

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Speaker 1: is a smack against these activity trackers and whether or

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Speaker 1: not they are effective in what they do. She is

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Speaker 1: simply saying that this is the person side of that equation,

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Speaker 1: not the technology side of that equation. So let's assume

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Speaker 1: that at least some of you guys out there listening

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Speaker 1: are very much interested in this kind of stuff, and

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Speaker 1: you are either interested in just knowing how they work

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Speaker 1: in general, or you're actually thinking, hey, I would kind

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Speaker 1: of like to look into one of these How do

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Speaker 1: they track activity? What exactly is being tracked? And what

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Speaker 1: other features might I be interested in if I want

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Speaker 1: to get one of these things myself. So I thought

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Speaker 1: we'd talked a little bit about some of the basic

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Speaker 1: technologies that you find inside some of these trackers, all right,

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Speaker 1: because these little these little bitty watch sized or bracelet

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Speaker 1: sized or clips clips, you know, you have very very

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Speaker 1: small devices these days. You can pack a lot of

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Speaker 1: tracking devices into them. Yeah, the sensors that are available

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Speaker 1: now really boggle the mind. And like we said, I

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Speaker 1: don't think there is a device out there that has

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Speaker 1: every single version of what we're about to talk about.

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Speaker 1: But they I have not seen one. Yeah, but but

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Speaker 1: many of them have several some of them only have

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Speaker 1: one or two some and it may be that the

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Speaker 1: way that they're packaged is very attractive, but they but

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Speaker 1: from a technological point of view, they are comparatively simple.

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Speaker 1: But I think one very basic technology we can talk

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Speaker 1: about that you can find and in fact, some people

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Speaker 1: will argue that this is really all you need if

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Speaker 1: you just want to track some basic activity. Is a predometer, right,

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Speaker 1: and these have been mechanical predometers. I believe it's been

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Speaker 1: around since the nineteen sixties. And they hypothetic like this

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Speaker 1: is this is tenuous, tenuous reportage. But but some people

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Speaker 1: say that the da Vinci or Thomas Jefferson came up

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Speaker 1: with the idea many many moons ago. Yeah, that's a

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Speaker 1: pretty big spread in years if I know my history.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, and I do. But yeah, a podometer today,

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Speaker 1: it takes a pretty basic form. Usually you have some

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Speaker 1: sort of display that's going to tell you how many

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Speaker 1: steps you have taken. That's what a podometer does. It's

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Speaker 1: supposed to measure how many steps you take. So how

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Speaker 1: does it do that. It's essentially counting the number of

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Speaker 1: times your foot makes impact with the ground. And really

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Speaker 1: that means it's just measuring various shaking of your body.

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Speaker 1: So if you are in a car and you're on

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Speaker 1: a particularly bumpy road, it's going to start registering that

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Speaker 1: as footsteps if it's particularly bumpy, right, or or if

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Speaker 1: you hold it in your hand and sway your arm

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Speaker 1: back and forth, you would totally fool the device, right,

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Speaker 1: not that I know that from prior get Fit corporate

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Speaker 1: UM programs that I have cheated a tiny bit on right, Uh,

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Speaker 1: if you're not benefiting anyone at that point, let's let's

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Speaker 1: stop the cheating. Hey, Lauren, aren't you the team captain

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Speaker 1: of our own departmental cheating. I was demonstrating to people

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Speaker 1: how the device worked, and I was accused of using

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Speaker 1: that as a way of boosting your numbers. All right,

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Speaker 1: team captain, Now I've learned a little more about you.

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Speaker 1: So anyway, what's what's going on here is inside the

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Speaker 1: pedometer you have a a system that essentially forms a switch.

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Speaker 1: All right, You've got you've got a weight, and when

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Speaker 1: that weight moves it can make a connection that closes

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Speaker 1: a switch and counts as a step. And then when

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Speaker 1: it moves away that and hits it again, that counts

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Speaker 1: as another step. So every time this weight disconnects and

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Speaker 1: then reconnects with a contact, a step is registered. And uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, it used to be that these were pretty

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Speaker 1: big mechanical things where you had a weight suspended on

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Speaker 1: like a spring or a pendulum or a small ball

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Speaker 1: that could roll back and forth, a cross a tiny track.

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Speaker 1: Right now, we're talking about things that are on the

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Speaker 1: the micro structure level. But it's still this basic mechanical

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Speaker 1: motion of making a contact, breaking a contact, and that

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Speaker 1: every time you do that break is what counts is

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Speaker 1: a step. Yeah, so uh, it's still still the same

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Speaker 1: mechanical approach. It's just now it's much much, much, much

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Speaker 1: smaller than what it used to be back in the

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Speaker 1: sixties or earlier. If we are to believe that some

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Speaker 1: of our our genius ancestors came up with this idea,

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Speaker 1: it was probably Tesla, yeah, and it always ends up

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Speaker 1: being Tesla, although his probably would also bring down an airplane.

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Speaker 1: So uh. Anyway, the old predometers, if you would actually

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Speaker 1: pick one up and shake it, you might hear a

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Speaker 1: clicking noise, and that's the little switch that's inside it. Again,

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Speaker 1: it might be that little ball if it's using that

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Speaker 1: particular kind of technology. The newer ones, again, are all

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Speaker 1: chip based. They don't have those little those They don't

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Speaker 1: have things large enough to make that kind of clicking

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Speaker 1: noise unless you've been shaking it way too hard, in

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Speaker 1: which case something is probably loose and it may not

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Speaker 1: be working at all. Anymore. But anyway, that's your very

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Speaker 1: basic pedometer. So it's not terribly accurate in the sense

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Speaker 1: that it can't it can't distinguish between different kinds of

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Speaker 1: impact and say, oh, well that was definitely a step

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Speaker 1: versus that was just a bump, right, um. But they

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Speaker 1: are getting a little bit more technologically advanced in that.

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Speaker 1: Originally you had to use the counter and combine that

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Speaker 1: with a calculation of how long each of your steps

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Speaker 1: were in order to calculate distance. These days, they can

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Speaker 1: do that for you with onboard computers. Sure. Oh so

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Speaker 1: instead of saying like, oh, my stride is this many

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Speaker 1: inches long, therefore this many steps and having to get

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Speaker 1: a little bit of math. By the way, I said inches,

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Speaker 1: and I would say miles because I live in America

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Speaker 1: and that's what we do. But centimeters meters that kind

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Speaker 1: of thing, right, it would It does the math depending

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Speaker 1: on what scale you're using. The more advanced version of

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Speaker 1: this sort of approach is the accelerometer. Now, an accelerometer

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Speaker 1: is different. It's not got a little switch that's just

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Speaker 1: registering a change. Yeah, it's not just like that was

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Speaker 1: a shake. It's actually detecting changes in velocity. Uh. Now,

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Speaker 1: velocity is speed plus direction. So if you alter that velocity,

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Speaker 1: then you are talking about an accelerating force. So, for example,

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Speaker 1: when you start, when you start from a standstill and

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Speaker 1: you start moving into a run, that's accelerating. You're accelerating

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Speaker 1: into a run. Now, once you hit top speed, you

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Speaker 1: are no longer accelerating. You may be maintaining a speed.

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Speaker 1: But accelerat arometers are all meant to detect these changes

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Speaker 1: in velocity. And you've got two basic categories of accelerometers.

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Speaker 1: There are many types of accelerometer rometers, but they fall

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Speaker 1: into two basic categories. They're static accelerometers. Now, these measure

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Speaker 1: a static uh form of acceleration. For instance, gravity, Gravity

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Speaker 1: is static, it's not changing when you are on the

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Speaker 1: surface of the Earth. It's going to remain the same.

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Speaker 1: And so you might wonder why would you need a

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Speaker 1: stack accelerometer. It's so that you can determine the rotation

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Speaker 1: of a device in respect to the surface of the Earth.

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Speaker 1: Very important for something like a smartphone, where you are

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Speaker 1: holding the smartphone, you move it from portrait to landscape,

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Speaker 1: the static accelerometer is what tells it, oh, the the

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Speaker 1: the attitude of this phone has changed not that you're

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Speaker 1: giving off attitude. Necessarily, you might be texting I don't

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Speaker 1: I usually amy, this is fair, but and rather the

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Speaker 1: position in relative to the surface of the earth. So

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Speaker 1: if you were to turn it into the landscape mode,

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Speaker 1: the screen would would change to reflect that. That's why

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Speaker 1: a stack accelerometer is useful. For dynamic accelerometers, they measure

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Speaker 1: changes in motion of the accelerometer itself. So the accelerometer

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Speaker 1: is part of the larger device. So this is too

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Speaker 1: measure the changes in acceleration of that device, not in

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Speaker 1: respect to the ground, but just within that device itself.

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Speaker 1: So you might have both types in a fitness tracker.

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Speaker 1: If the fitness tracker has some sort of screen that

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Speaker 1: will rotate depending upon how you're holding your arm. Let's

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Speaker 1: say it's a it's a screen that's on a wristband

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Speaker 1: or something that's like a watch, and then it might

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Speaker 1: have a stack accelerometer and a dynamic one. The dynamic

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Speaker 1: one would be more useful for it to detect changes

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Speaker 1: in velocity and thus translate that into motion that the

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Speaker 1: user is moving around, and that means that the user

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Speaker 1: is burning calories and is there's there's activity going on,

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Speaker 1: so that's part of the data that this device will

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Speaker 1: gather and analyze to translate that into this is what

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Speaker 1: your body is doing right right, and we should we

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Speaker 1: should add at this point that UM, that a lot

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Speaker 1: of the actual output of data that these devices are

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Speaker 1: giving you is not UM. Is not the actual data

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Speaker 1: that these sensors are making in a lot of it

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Speaker 1: is UM really fancy algorithms. And and thank you to

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Speaker 1: Peter on Facebook for writing it and telling me that

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Speaker 1: I totally say that wrong sometimes because I do UM.

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Speaker 1: You know, it's it's it's approximating more complex technology, or

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Speaker 1: it's UM gathering together a bunch of these little tiny

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Speaker 1: numbers and figuring out something useful that I can tell

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Speaker 1: you in return, exactly taking this raw data and making

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Speaker 1: it meaningful to us, because otherwise we really what an

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Speaker 1: accelerometer would tell you is how much voltage it was generating,

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Speaker 1: which doesn't help us at all. That doesn't that's not

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Speaker 1: meaningful to at least it's not meaningful to me, and

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Speaker 1: I suspect not to Lauren. Uh. Some of you electricians

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Speaker 1: out there might say, no, I totally get it, but

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Speaker 1: the rest of us are thinking, no, we need this

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Speaker 1: translated into something that makes sense like how many calories

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Speaker 1: did I burn or how many steps did I take

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Speaker 1: or how far did I go? So that's that's the

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Speaker 1: basic uh two kinds of accelerometers. The the types underneath

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Speaker 1: those are how they detect these changes in the law city. UH.

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Speaker 1: And there's a lot there's there are capacitive ones, there's

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Speaker 1: piece of electric, there's pizza resistive, there's magneto resistive, there's

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Speaker 1: heat transfer. There's lots of different types. There's some that

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Speaker 1: use light. But the one that I think, the type

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Speaker 1: that's used the most in electronics as far as I

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Speaker 1: can tell, is the capacitive type. And so you might

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Speaker 1: wonder how does this work. You've got some micro structures

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Speaker 1: within a chip, all right. One of them is you've

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Speaker 1: got a housing which is is mounted directly to whatever

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Speaker 1: the devices on a substrate. So this housing uh will

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Speaker 1: move in uh the same way that the device itself moves.

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Speaker 1: It's it's dependent upon that. Then you've got a little

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Speaker 1: micro structure inside of it that can move freely uh

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Speaker 1: in respect to the housing. So if you were to

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Speaker 1: shake the device, the micro structure would lag a little

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Speaker 1: bit and then pick up that motion, just as if

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Speaker 1: you had a spring with a ball on the end,

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Speaker 1: and you started moving the top of the spring and

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Speaker 1: then the ball would start to move. It's this whole

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Speaker 1: momentum thing that's coming up. You've also got these other

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Speaker 1: little bitty structures, these micro structures inside this this tiny

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Speaker 1: little chip, and I'm talking about teeny tiny we're we're

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Speaker 1: tug on the level of microns. Yeah, these are all

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Speaker 1: called a microelectro mechanical systems. Yeah, they're they're so small

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Speaker 1: that you have to have an automated system to etch

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Speaker 1: them onto chips because there's no human with the precision

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Speaker 1: necessary to make these things so super tiny. But as

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Speaker 1: the microstructure moves, it starts to move between these plates

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Speaker 1: that have capacitance. That changes the capacities. It causes current

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Speaker 1: to flow, and measuring the current tells you how much

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Speaker 1: this device is moving. And by putting these chips in

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Speaker 1: different arrangements within a device, you can track different types

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Speaker 1: of movement. Because you can only detect movement along one

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Speaker 1: axis with a with a very simple accelerometer. Uh, that

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Speaker 1: means that you can detect movement along one line of

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Speaker 1: one one vector. Really you can't anything up beyond that.

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Speaker 1: It wouldn't detect So let's say left right versus up down. Uh.

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Speaker 1: If you had three of these accelerometers or to two

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Speaker 1: axis accelerometers that were at right angles to one another,

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Speaker 1: you could then detect things like along the x axis,

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Speaker 1: the y axis, and the z axis. So three axis

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Speaker 1: accelerometers what we call those, and those are that those

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Speaker 1: are the popular ones and in all of the new

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Speaker 1: devices coming out these days. Yeah, and it's also the

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff you find in things like video game controllers. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And it's some of them you hear about six axis,

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Speaker 1: which is really just getting more specifically precise. Um. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and so this will detect those changes in motion and

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Speaker 1: be able to translate that into again meaningful data once

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Speaker 1: you run those raw numbers through whatever software you've got. Uh.

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Speaker 1: So those are your two basic ways of detecting motion

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Speaker 1: from a purely like this device is moving kind of perspective.

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Speaker 1: There are other things that will also detect motion, which

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Speaker 1: we'll talk about as well in a little bit. Before

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Speaker 1: I get to that, though, I do need to say

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Speaker 1: there's a couple of are things that are important about accelerometers.

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Speaker 1: One is that sensitivity of an accelerometer is extremely important.

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Speaker 1: The more sensitive and accelerometer is, then the more it

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Speaker 1: will generate a larger charge in our larger change in

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Speaker 1: signal rather for a given change and acceleration compared to

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Speaker 1: a less sensitive chip. So these bigger changes are easier

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Speaker 1: to measure, and that gives the device a better idea

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Speaker 1: of the actual changes in acceleration. So, in other words,

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Speaker 1: if you if you make it so that these changes

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Speaker 1: are are huge, uh, it can really narrow down the

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Speaker 1: parameters of what that change means, and it can be

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Speaker 1: more precise in thinking this is more likely an actual

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Speaker 1: step versus someone just bump their knee on their desk

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Speaker 1: and went out, yeah, yeah, that the technology is getting

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Speaker 1: a lot better at um weeding out those false positives exactly.

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Speaker 1: And then there are other things you've got to keep

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Speaker 1: in mind, like what's the maximum swing of your accelerometer

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Speaker 1: that's telling you how much force it can measure or

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Speaker 1: how much of a change in nextceleration it can measure. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is really more important if you are designing something

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Speaker 1: that moves really really fast and comes to really fast

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Speaker 1: stops like a jet, not so much with a person,

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Speaker 1: because while you feel you might be fast compared to

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Speaker 1: other stuff, you're really slow less less fast than the jet.

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Speaker 1: And then you have bandwidth, which is how many times

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Speaker 1: a second you can take a reliable acceleration reading. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And we don't need anything too precise for human activity

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Speaker 1: because again we're not moving that quickly. But these are

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Speaker 1: things that are important in accelerometers in general. Uh. We've

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Speaker 1: got a lot more to talk about as far as

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Speaker 1: the sensors go within this these uh, these activity trackers.

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Speaker 1: But before we get into that, let's take a quick

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Speaker 1: moment to thank our sponsor. Alright, we're back. So, so

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Speaker 1: we've talked about accelerometers and photometers, there is one other

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Speaker 1: way the device can track whether or not you've moved around, right,

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Speaker 1: Because accelerometers are really great fear for example, on a treadmill, Yeah,

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Speaker 1: fantastic because it doesn't have to track your location. It

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Speaker 1: just has to track what you are doing. But if

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Speaker 1: you have a EPs receiver in your activity tracker, and

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Speaker 1: some of them do with them, you can actually track

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Speaker 1: where you are in relation to I don't know anything

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Speaker 1: else on the planet. But these are not so useful

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Speaker 1: if you're just running on a treadmill. No, but but

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Speaker 1: they are very much more accurate for calculating the distance

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Speaker 1: that you have gone, right. Yeah. So GPS in general,

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Speaker 1: this Global Positioning system, Uh, what what's going on is

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Speaker 1: You've got the satellites that are beaming down information here

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Speaker 1: to the planet and network of twenty four of them. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so your GPS receiver receives this these signals from the

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Speaker 1: various satellites. Now, each satellite is sending its own unique

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Speaker 1: signal down that has essentially a time stamp on it, right,

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Speaker 1: and they're all synchronized. Right, So you're getting these different

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Speaker 1: signals all at the same time from at least usually

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Speaker 1: at least three satellites. Four works best, four works best,

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Speaker 1: and and so your device gets these different signals from

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Speaker 1: these different satellites, and by measuring how long it took

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Speaker 1: the signal from each satellite to get to that uh,

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Speaker 1: that device it just compares that against its own its

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Speaker 1: own little internal clock. It can tell you where you

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Speaker 1: are in the surface of the Earth. Technically you could

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Speaker 1: be in one of two places, but that second places

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Speaker 1: inside the earth, So we pretty much just say that's

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Speaker 1: not it cuts that right out. Yeah, and that this

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Speaker 1: was originally military technology, I believe in the seventies and nineties,

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Speaker 1: in fact, when when we first started getting consumer access

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00:21:30,520 --> 00:21:35,600
Speaker 1: to the Global Positioning System, Uh, the accuracy of that

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00:21:35,640 --> 00:21:38,960
Speaker 1: system for consumers was limited on purpose, right, Yeah. They

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Speaker 1: they put limitters into the devices to say like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we don't really want you to know this. Then we

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Speaker 1: can say you are somewhere within feet here is here ish.

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Speaker 1: But now they're very, very accurate. That's eventually gotten to

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Speaker 1: the point where, uh, you know, it's it's just the

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00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:59,280
Speaker 1: way technology works accurate. Yeah. Yeah, So the GPS receiver

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Speaker 1: will act where you are by by taking all this

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Speaker 1: information from the satellites and running that through its own

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00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:09,160
Speaker 1: algorithm and then determining what your location is on the Earth.

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Speaker 1: And that way you can do something like, uh, if

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Speaker 1: you jog a specific path and you really liked it,

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Speaker 1: you can plot it against a map and share it

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00:22:17,800 --> 00:22:20,160
Speaker 1: with other people. Or you can just you know, see

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Speaker 1: how far you went based upon some mapping program. It

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Speaker 1: may be that you could compare how far you went

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Speaker 1: based from the map compared to whatever the activity tracker says.

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Speaker 1: Because some of these have multiple sensors in them, right,

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Speaker 1: some of them might have a pedometer or some other

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Speaker 1: um means of saying this is how many steps you

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Speaker 1: took and use these in conjunction to Yeah, and it's

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00:22:41,440 --> 00:22:44,520
Speaker 1: funny because I've seen somewhere they do both. They have

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Speaker 1: the GPS tracker and they have the pedometer part where

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Speaker 1: it tells you how far you went based upon how

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Speaker 1: many steps you took, and you can compare the two

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Speaker 1: to see how accurate the pedometer is, and in some

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00:22:54,760 --> 00:22:57,600
Speaker 1: cases it's not so accurate. That's why reading reviews is

429
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Speaker 1: really important because you might you might say, well, if

430
00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:02,240
Speaker 1: I by the predometer, it says I ran four point

431
00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:04,359
Speaker 1: five miles, but when I look at the map it

432
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:07,159
Speaker 1: says two miles. So yeah, that is a that is

433
00:23:07,200 --> 00:23:09,440
Speaker 1: a large difference. Yeah, there there was actually a review

434
00:23:09,480 --> 00:23:12,440
Speaker 1: I saw that specifically said that. Okay, so those are

435
00:23:12,480 --> 00:23:15,800
Speaker 1: all the various kinds of sensors and technologies that might

436
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:21,119
Speaker 1: be an activity tracker to motion that you moving around,

437
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:23,240
Speaker 1: but there are other sensors to right, Yeah, there's a

438
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:25,080
Speaker 1: whole bunch of them. Um. And these these are all

439
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:28,719
Speaker 1: the physiological sensors that are going to track things like

440
00:23:28,760 --> 00:23:31,240
Speaker 1: your sweat and your heart rate. And there's been a

441
00:23:31,280 --> 00:23:34,439
Speaker 1: bunch of different things over the years that have that

442
00:23:34,520 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: have contributed to this. The original heart rate monitor, of course,

443
00:23:37,640 --> 00:23:40,240
Speaker 1: was the electro cardiogram a k a. The e c

444
00:23:40,440 --> 00:23:45,280
Speaker 1: G or e kg UM and that was using electrical

445
00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:48,320
Speaker 1: pickups in an amplifier circuit that would detect the hearts

446
00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:52,040
Speaker 1: electrical impulses through your skin. Um. And you know, when

447
00:23:52,080 --> 00:23:54,120
Speaker 1: when your heart beats, it the way that it does

448
00:23:54,119 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 1: it is it generates these pulses, It sends a signal

449
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: out over the nerve pathways on the surface of the

450
00:23:59,040 --> 00:24:02,080
Speaker 1: heart that caused the muscle to contract during each heartbeat.

451
00:24:02,520 --> 00:24:05,399
Speaker 1: And by picking up those electrical signals, you can you

452
00:24:05,440 --> 00:24:09,000
Speaker 1: can track your heartbeat, which is really groovy for um,

453
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 1: for knowing how hard your body is working, right, because

454
00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:13,800
Speaker 1: I mean, there's there are a lot of things that

455
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:15,879
Speaker 1: are important when you're exercising, right. It's not just how

456
00:24:15,960 --> 00:24:18,560
Speaker 1: much activity you're doing, how many calories you're burning. If

457
00:24:18,600 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: you want to have really good cardio workouts, if you

458
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:24,000
Speaker 1: want to have a good aerobic workout, then you need

459
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:26,199
Speaker 1: to get to have your heart beating and within a

460
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:29,960
Speaker 1: certain range for a certain amount of time, right. Uh.

461
00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:32,280
Speaker 1: And and that's I'll get into that a little bit

462
00:24:32,280 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 1: more and in the moment, but uh, e c G

463
00:24:35,480 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: s are a little bit more clunky. Um. Usually they

464
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:41,680
Speaker 1: work with a chest strap that many runners, especially because

465
00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:44,359
Speaker 1: they're they're they're bouncing around, moving a lot, found very

466
00:24:44,440 --> 00:24:48,960
Speaker 1: uncomfortable to wear. UM. And So a new technology that

467
00:24:49,000 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: has come out and has become the standard in noninvasive

468
00:24:52,080 --> 00:24:56,399
Speaker 1: heart rate sensor sensory m has been the photo platesmograph

469
00:24:56,720 --> 00:24:59,879
Speaker 1: a k A. The PPG, which may or may not

470
00:25:00,119 --> 00:25:03,000
Speaker 1: be called an optical heart sensor for people who don't

471
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,720
Speaker 1: even want to mess with that entire word. Gotcha, Well, yeah,

472
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:08,520
Speaker 1: photo would tell me that there's light that's playing a

473
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:12,960
Speaker 1: role in this somehow. Yes, PPGs bounce light and most

474
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:15,879
Speaker 1: cases from an l ED in terms of fitness trackers,

475
00:25:15,920 --> 00:25:18,280
Speaker 1: because LEDs are cool bulbs that will not you know,

476
00:25:18,640 --> 00:25:22,000
Speaker 1: burn your skin, burn your skin, which is cool. Um Uh.

477
00:25:22,080 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 1: They bounce light through your skin and back to a

478
00:25:24,440 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: sensor and measure the volume of blood moving through your capillaries.

479
00:25:29,200 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: And the way this works is that blood absorbs more

480
00:25:32,119 --> 00:25:35,439
Speaker 1: light than it's surrounding tissue. So the less light that

481
00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:38,439
Speaker 1: comes back to the sensor, the greater the volume of

482
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:41,000
Speaker 1: blood is moving through those capillaries at the time. UM.

483
00:25:41,200 --> 00:25:44,000
Speaker 1: And and this this volume pulses with each heartbeat and

484
00:25:44,040 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 1: so by tracking those pulses, a PPG tracks your heart

485
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:50,520
Speaker 1: rate at rest and during exercise. That's really cool. So

486
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:52,200
Speaker 1: this is the same sort of thing you get when

487
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:53,919
Speaker 1: you go into a doctor's office and they have like

488
00:25:53,920 --> 00:25:56,520
Speaker 1: the little finger clamp thing that ends and it uses

489
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:59,119
Speaker 1: it shines a light onto your fingertip. That is exactly

490
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:01,639
Speaker 1: what that is. UM. And these these days they have

491
00:26:01,720 --> 00:26:04,560
Speaker 1: become they're they're they're getting a little bit more sensitive

492
00:26:05,640 --> 00:26:08,720
Speaker 1: and UH. And most of them will come in watch

493
00:26:08,800 --> 00:26:10,800
Speaker 1: format and it will be right against the inside of

494
00:26:10,800 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 1: your wrist. But you know there they can they can

495
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:17,880
Speaker 1: be thrown off by the movement of your skin and muscles. UM,

496
00:26:18,280 --> 00:26:21,800
Speaker 1: which happens during workouts pretty frequently in light I would imagine,

497
00:26:21,840 --> 00:26:25,119
Speaker 1: can also cause problems. So some models are pairing a

498
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:28,680
Speaker 1: PPG with an accelerometer, sometimes a devoted accelerometer, in order

499
00:26:28,720 --> 00:26:33,000
Speaker 1: to compensate for your body's movement. Cool and UH also

500
00:26:33,040 --> 00:26:37,000
Speaker 1: also an interesting point, not entirely relevant fitness trackers, but

501
00:26:37,040 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: I thought that this was so cool. PPG works differently

502
00:26:39,400 --> 00:26:42,800
Speaker 1: with different wavelengths of light, and so in laboratory and

503
00:26:42,840 --> 00:26:46,560
Speaker 1: hospital situations, infrared radiation can sometimes be used to assess

504
00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,639
Speaker 1: blood volume in deep tissue, whereas light in the visible

505
00:26:49,720 --> 00:26:54,000
Speaker 1: range is used in smaller, more commercial devices like these

506
00:26:54,000 --> 00:26:57,240
Speaker 1: fitness trackers. Oh excellent, awesome, So what else? Okay, so

507
00:26:57,280 --> 00:27:01,320
Speaker 1: we've got we've got various ways of tracking the how

508
00:27:01,359 --> 00:27:04,760
Speaker 1: hard or how quickly your heart is beating. We've got

509
00:27:04,840 --> 00:27:07,679
Speaker 1: the idea of position. Are there other ones as well?

510
00:27:07,720 --> 00:27:10,000
Speaker 1: Another great thing to figure out how much you're exerting

511
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,480
Speaker 1: yourself is the galvanic skin response censor, which is a

512
00:27:13,560 --> 00:27:15,919
Speaker 1: really fancy way of saying, how much are you sweating

513
00:27:16,080 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: right now? Um? It attracts your perspiration by measuring the

514
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:23,600
Speaker 1: conductivity of your skin. Um, because your skin is a

515
00:27:23,600 --> 00:27:26,680
Speaker 1: pretty good conductor of of of electricity to begin with,

516
00:27:26,720 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: but when it's wet a k a. When you're sweating,

517
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:34,760
Speaker 1: it's an even better conductor. So um, so yeah. The

518
00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: the the amount that you're perspiring relates to how much

519
00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: you're exerting yourself, and so by tracking this this conductivity,

520
00:27:40,600 --> 00:27:45,120
Speaker 1: you can track your exertion. Another great way is through thermometers,

521
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 1: good old thermometers um, sometimes infra red, sometimes heat flux,

522
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:55,040
Speaker 1: which just detecting the increase in temperature on you on

523
00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:57,480
Speaker 1: the surface of your skin. Right, yeah, as well as

524
00:27:57,520 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: I assume there has to be one to detect ambient

525
00:27:59,840 --> 00:28:02,960
Speaker 1: to perature as well. It's usually two paired thermometers. Yeah,

526
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:07,040
Speaker 1: one tracking your body temperature exactly, one tracking the ambient temperature.

527
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:10,439
Speaker 1: Because you're a higher body temperature means that you're working harder,

528
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:15,199
Speaker 1: and you'd also be working harder in a colder ambient temperature. Gotcha, gotcha,

529
00:28:15,440 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: as opposed to it's just plain hot, right exactly right,

530
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:23,320
Speaker 1: all right. So these are various trackers and sensors that

531
00:28:23,400 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: you can find in a lot of the activity trackers

532
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:27,080
Speaker 1: that are out there. There are other ones as well.

533
00:28:27,160 --> 00:28:29,639
Speaker 1: Some of them are much more specific, and when you

534
00:28:29,680 --> 00:28:31,640
Speaker 1: get down to things like, well how does it track

535
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:34,560
Speaker 1: your sleep? Well, that's usually things you know, tracking the

536
00:28:34,800 --> 00:28:37,760
Speaker 1: changes in motion. Again, it's usually the accelerometer. If it

537
00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:40,280
Speaker 1: has something that tracks your heart rate, it will be

538
00:28:40,320 --> 00:28:42,480
Speaker 1: tracking your heart rate. Yeah, but it's basically it's usually

539
00:28:42,520 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: how much you're wiggling around. Yeah. Yeah, So so if

540
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:47,480
Speaker 1: you you know, it'll that's all when you plug in

541
00:28:47,520 --> 00:28:50,040
Speaker 1: this device, when you sink sink it with whatever, whether

542
00:28:50,120 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: it's an app or it's your computer, uh, and you

543
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: get the data back saying you had a really good

544
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: night's sleep, and maybe because you took it off and

545
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:01,640
Speaker 1: set it down next to you instead of or it. Um.

546
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:03,719
Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean these are these are the basic

547
00:29:03,880 --> 00:29:07,320
Speaker 1: ways that gathers information. Now. The way it processes information

548
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:10,520
Speaker 1: is different from one company to the next. It's all

549
00:29:10,960 --> 00:29:15,160
Speaker 1: various proprietary softwares and algorithms that take this, crunch the data,

550
00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:17,920
Speaker 1: and turn it into stuff that makes sense to us. Yeah,

551
00:29:18,000 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: some of them have really great onboard computers for doing that. Um,

552
00:29:21,200 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: it's very tiny onboard computers for doing that to to

553
00:29:23,720 --> 00:29:25,320
Speaker 1: give you a little bit of a live output, and

554
00:29:25,360 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: some of them give you zero live output other than

555
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:29,960
Speaker 1: maybe a little blinking led or something like that. Right,

556
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,440
Speaker 1: I had a body media fit, for example, and that

557
00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:35,920
Speaker 1: did not have its own screen. Rather, it would you

558
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,920
Speaker 1: would have to sink that either to an app via Bluetooth,

559
00:29:39,440 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: or you would sink it to your computer via a

560
00:29:41,440 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: USB cable, and then you could make sense of what

561
00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:47,440
Speaker 1: information had been collecting. But you couldn't even tell what

562
00:29:47,840 --> 00:29:50,000
Speaker 1: it had been collecting until you did that. Right, There

563
00:29:50,040 --> 00:29:53,120
Speaker 1: was no uh screen indicators, so you couldn't read it

564
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:54,880
Speaker 1: at a moment's notice unless you have to have your

565
00:29:54,880 --> 00:29:56,960
Speaker 1: phone they're paired with it, in which case you could

566
00:29:56,960 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: pull up the app and take a look that way. Um,

567
00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:02,320
Speaker 1: but yeah, there are other devices that have a dedicate screen,

568
00:30:02,360 --> 00:30:04,240
Speaker 1: so it's going to give you at least some information,

569
00:30:04,280 --> 00:30:07,680
Speaker 1: if not everything. And you know, it's again that depends

570
00:30:07,800 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: very highly on your personal preference and how much information

571
00:30:10,440 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: you need at the moment and how much you just

572
00:30:12,480 --> 00:30:14,200
Speaker 1: kind of want to check up on it later. Yeah,

573
00:30:14,200 --> 00:30:16,640
Speaker 1: And and some of these will give you information that's

574
00:30:16,720 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: in uh, very kind of concrete terms in the sense

575
00:30:20,160 --> 00:30:21,920
Speaker 1: of this is how far you walked, or this is

576
00:30:21,960 --> 00:30:26,000
Speaker 1: how how much activity your heart has had today. You know,

577
00:30:26,040 --> 00:30:29,520
Speaker 1: how how how often were you in that perfect zone

578
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: when you were working out versus you weren't quite pushing

579
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 1: yourself as hard as you needed to, or maybe you

580
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: were pushing yourself too hard you need to pull back off.

581
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:43,440
Speaker 1: Some of them are a little more vague, like so

582
00:30:43,880 --> 00:30:47,880
Speaker 1: Nike's fuel Band, for example, everything's in fuel points and

583
00:30:47,880 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 1: and I know that the fuel band is very popular.

584
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 1: It's a gorgeous device, looks very full disclosure. My wife

585
00:30:55,840 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: has one. She loves it. She and she has the

586
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:00,960
Speaker 1: app that it's paired up with her iPhone. So she

587
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,720
Speaker 1: can see what's going on, but it's doing everything in

588
00:31:04,760 --> 00:31:07,560
Speaker 1: fuel points, and some people have said, some critics have

589
00:31:07,640 --> 00:31:12,040
Speaker 1: said that that makes it less useful because you don't

590
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:15,760
Speaker 1: know what they mean necessarily. I think, well, you know,

591
00:31:16,200 --> 00:31:18,760
Speaker 1: it always reminds me of Microsoft Points and how you're

592
00:31:18,920 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 1: kind of sort of tricking the system in order to

593
00:31:21,880 --> 00:31:23,479
Speaker 1: make it a little bit more of a game and

594
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:27,200
Speaker 1: less of a reality, which helps lots of people actually,

595
00:31:27,200 --> 00:31:28,680
Speaker 1: because because a lot of people don't want to know

596
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:31,200
Speaker 1: how many steps they've taken. They're like, oh, that was

597
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 1: a lot of I wasted so much time getting fit yesterday.

598
00:31:34,480 --> 00:31:36,200
Speaker 1: Why did I do that? But if you get fuel points,

599
00:31:36,200 --> 00:31:39,440
Speaker 1: then you get especially especially if it has a gamification

600
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:42,040
Speaker 1: element to it, where you are measuring your own activity

601
00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:45,440
Speaker 1: versus the activity of other people. If you set your

602
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 1: if you have a way of setting a specific goal

603
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:49,920
Speaker 1: using one of these trackers, and the tracker can keep

604
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:53,240
Speaker 1: track of that so that it will tell you, Hey,

605
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:56,400
Speaker 1: you met your goal today. That's a reward system, right

606
00:31:56,440 --> 00:31:59,400
Speaker 1: you You immediately get that reward, that that sense of

607
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:02,280
Speaker 1: satisfact and that you have met your goal for that day.

608
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 1: Then you have the added sasfaction. If there's a gamification

609
00:32:06,880 --> 00:32:10,760
Speaker 1: level there beyond just just getting the badge for yourself.

610
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:12,960
Speaker 1: If you can share that badge with your friends and say, hey, guys,

611
00:32:13,040 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 1: check what I did. Did you do it? You didn't

612
00:32:14,680 --> 00:32:16,800
Speaker 1: do it? Stuck up right. Yeah. So if you're all

613
00:32:16,920 --> 00:32:19,640
Speaker 1: using like fitbits, for example, I know people who are

614
00:32:19,720 --> 00:32:22,600
Speaker 1: using fitbits as a way of challenging each other to

615
00:32:22,640 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: see how many steps they could take. Uh, and they would.

616
00:32:25,520 --> 00:32:28,400
Speaker 1: You know, there'd be groups of friends who were trying

617
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:31,920
Speaker 1: to walk out walk each other, which is great. I mean,

618
00:32:32,080 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, if that gives you the motivation to

619
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 1: get exercise, that's great. You know, there's there's nothing wrong

620
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:40,680
Speaker 1: with using the desire to rub your friends faces and

621
00:32:40,720 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: your achievements in order for you to get fit, as

622
00:32:43,280 --> 00:32:47,600
Speaker 1: long as you, you know, practice some restraint a little

623
00:32:47,600 --> 00:32:49,520
Speaker 1: bit hytically, I can tell you that a punch to

624
00:32:49,560 --> 00:32:53,520
Speaker 1: the face is not good for your physical fitness. But yeah, so,

625
00:32:53,840 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 1: and there are other levels of a gamification to There's

626
00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:59,040
Speaker 1: some devices out there that have games built into the

627
00:32:59,160 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: software of the device or on the computer that you play,

628
00:33:02,120 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: so that as you use the device, as you move around,

629
00:33:05,120 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: you generate like online currency to play in a little

630
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,080
Speaker 1: online game to Strive has that there's a little online

631
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 1: game where you can as you walk around, you generate coins,

632
00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 1: and using those coins you can buy stuff in the

633
00:33:17,880 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 1: game world of a little bit like Sonics rings or

634
00:33:21,520 --> 00:33:25,959
Speaker 1: something like that. Yeah, like Conville, but using this you

635
00:33:26,000 --> 00:33:29,560
Speaker 1: generate the currency just by moving around, so that's the incentive. Yeah,

636
00:33:29,720 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: or um. An office favorite for a while was a

637
00:33:32,240 --> 00:33:34,080
Speaker 1: Zombie Run I think is the name of the app?

638
00:33:34,120 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 1: Which which which? I think it's run Zombie Run something

639
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,200
Speaker 1: like that, something like that. Yes, that that gave you.

640
00:33:40,600 --> 00:33:42,960
Speaker 1: It was hooked up to a GPS related system on

641
00:33:43,000 --> 00:33:45,320
Speaker 1: your cell phone, and I would would give you these

642
00:33:45,360 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: little like are you out running the zombies or are

643
00:33:47,560 --> 00:33:49,720
Speaker 1: you totally dying? Right? Yeah? I I used to have.

644
00:33:49,840 --> 00:33:51,960
Speaker 1: In fact, I had the beta version of that app

645
00:33:52,240 --> 00:33:54,640
Speaker 1: back when it came out in the beta form for Android,

646
00:33:55,000 --> 00:33:56,720
Speaker 1: and the way I don't know if it still works

647
00:33:56,720 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 1: this way. I haven't used the app in a long time,

648
00:33:59,040 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: but the way it originally worked was that you would

649
00:34:01,120 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: be somewhere and you would tell it where you wanted

650
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: to go. You would open up a map program and

651
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 1: this zombie app and say, all right, here's you know

652
00:34:08,640 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 1: based on my GPS location, this is where I am,

653
00:34:11,360 --> 00:34:13,239
Speaker 1: this is where I want to go. It would then

654
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:17,560
Speaker 1: generate these virtual zombies on the map that could actually move,

655
00:34:18,080 --> 00:34:20,960
Speaker 1: so the little blips would start moving toward you, and

656
00:34:21,000 --> 00:34:23,359
Speaker 1: your goal was to get to your destination without being

657
00:34:23,400 --> 00:34:25,719
Speaker 1: intercepted by one of those little zombie blips. So you

658
00:34:25,800 --> 00:34:28,520
Speaker 1: might have to find a different route than the one

659
00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 1: you had intended, and you may have to book it,

660
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,719
Speaker 1: and yeah, yeah, you might have to. You might have

661
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:35,400
Speaker 1: to speed up and slow down, which in running terms

662
00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: is is actually really great for training. So and there

663
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:41,040
Speaker 1: were also, as I recall, there were story elements to

664
00:34:41,080 --> 00:34:43,520
Speaker 1: that game as well that that were added in later.

665
00:34:43,560 --> 00:34:45,320
Speaker 1: I had it where it was just the game mechanic,

666
00:34:45,360 --> 00:34:46,839
Speaker 1: but I know, and it may not even be that

667
00:34:46,880 --> 00:34:48,560
Speaker 1: app It maybe a similar one, because there were a

668
00:34:48,560 --> 00:34:50,359
Speaker 1: few that came out that had the same sort of theme.

669
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:53,839
Speaker 1: But there was one where there was an overall progressive

670
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: storyline and as you participated, you would unlock more of

671
00:34:57,840 --> 00:35:01,840
Speaker 1: the story. I got eaten. I couldn't get from I

672
00:35:01,880 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: couldn't get from the train station to my house because

673
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:07,160
Speaker 1: there was really there was only one way you could

674
00:35:07,160 --> 00:35:09,359
Speaker 1: go by foot, and it kept wanting me to cut

675
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: through the woods. I kept wanting to not run into

676
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 1: barbed wire fences that are hard to see. Look, if

677
00:35:15,680 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: you don't bring your bolt cutters to the zombie apocalypse,

678
00:35:17,920 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: then I don't think you're going to get very far.

679
00:35:19,600 --> 00:35:22,240
Speaker 1: And I'm no longer allowed to bring my bolt cutters

680
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:24,480
Speaker 1: to work. That was the problem, right, because this was

681
00:35:24,520 --> 00:35:27,960
Speaker 1: my commute back home, and so I already had that

682
00:35:28,080 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: limitation set on me. I tell you, you make one

683
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:35,120
Speaker 1: silly mistake with a with an internet line and they

684
00:35:35,160 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: just never let you forget it. It's crazy. We're very

685
00:35:37,520 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 1: unforgiving here and how stuff works. But the game of

686
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:43,360
Speaker 1: vacation obviously plays a big part. Yeah, and you know

687
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,080
Speaker 1: it's it's the recommended target number of steps per day

688
00:35:47,080 --> 00:35:50,440
Speaker 1: for for healthy human people is about ten thousand and

689
00:35:50,640 --> 00:35:52,799
Speaker 1: um and that's that equals out to maybe about five

690
00:35:52,800 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: miles and uh and and yeah, so anything that helps

691
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:59,240
Speaker 1: people get to that. And and in fact, Dina Bravada,

692
00:35:59,280 --> 00:36:01,400
Speaker 1: the person I mentioned at the top of the podcast,

693
00:36:01,440 --> 00:36:04,280
Speaker 1: who you know, she's she's a specialist in in health

694
00:36:04,320 --> 00:36:07,960
Speaker 1: matters and has expressed some skeptic skepticism as to whether

695
00:36:08,040 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: or not these activity trackers are really you know, a

696
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: huge benefit. I mean, they helped the people who are

697
00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:16,880
Speaker 1: already interested. But she did notice she did a study

698
00:36:16,960 --> 00:36:19,399
Speaker 1: or she was part of the study where uh they

699
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: gave pedometers to a group of participants, UH in a

700
00:36:23,920 --> 00:36:27,280
Speaker 1: randomized trial where some some participants didn't get a podometer,

701
00:36:27,440 --> 00:36:30,000
Speaker 1: some did, and they were all asked to uh kind

702
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:31,960
Speaker 1: of track their activities. And it turned out that the

703
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: people who had the pedometers increased their physical activity by

704
00:36:35,520 --> 00:36:39,920
Speaker 1: about two thousand three steps per day over the baseline.

705
00:36:40,480 --> 00:36:42,960
Speaker 1: And uh and so that ended up being a twenty

706
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:47,600
Speaker 1: seven percent increase in physical activity. And that's provided said, well,

707
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:51,560
Speaker 1: that's significant. So if you have, if you're actually using

708
00:36:51,600 --> 00:36:54,160
Speaker 1: one of these things and you're paying attention to it,

709
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:57,440
Speaker 1: then you are more likely to actually engage in more

710
00:36:57,480 --> 00:37:01,200
Speaker 1: physical activity and thus exercise more and be have a

711
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:04,799
Speaker 1: healthier lifestyle. Um. And that's that's the chief argument for

712
00:37:04,840 --> 00:37:07,560
Speaker 1: these activity trackers is the idea that with this information

713
00:37:08,040 --> 00:37:12,680
Speaker 1: you can really be more mindful of what you are

714
00:37:12,719 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: doing and how it's affecting you. A lot of these

715
00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:19,319
Speaker 1: activity trackers come with software that also have as part

716
00:37:19,320 --> 00:37:22,840
Speaker 1: of it a way of keeping a a food journal,

717
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: which is also very important because you could be exercising,

718
00:37:26,239 --> 00:37:28,680
Speaker 1: but if you're not eating well, then that's not gonna

719
00:37:28,680 --> 00:37:32,160
Speaker 1: help you. You can be sabotaging yourself certainly. So for example,

720
00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 1: the body media fit device I had, uh part of

721
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:37,320
Speaker 1: the software that you would have once you had to

722
00:37:37,360 --> 00:37:39,520
Speaker 1: subscribe to it. So you you'd have to buy the

723
00:37:39,560 --> 00:37:41,600
Speaker 1: device and you had to subscribe to the service. But

724
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,680
Speaker 1: once you subscribe to the service, you could track your meals.

725
00:37:44,800 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: And every meal you would track, it would tell you

726
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,160
Speaker 1: how many calories you've consumed. It would break it down

727
00:37:49,200 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: by what type of calories they were, etcetera. And then

728
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:56,000
Speaker 1: the the information from the device would tell you how

729
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:58,359
Speaker 1: many calories you would burned. And so that would give

730
00:37:58,360 --> 00:38:01,000
Speaker 1: you an idea like did I burn more reason I consumed?

731
00:38:01,040 --> 00:38:03,520
Speaker 1: If I did, then I'm on the road to losing weight.

732
00:38:03,680 --> 00:38:06,319
Speaker 1: I mean that's a that's a very basic way of

733
00:38:06,440 --> 00:38:09,600
Speaker 1: figuring it out, calories out. But uh, it also meant

734
00:38:09,640 --> 00:38:12,239
Speaker 1: that you were much more mindful when you started doing

735
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:14,239
Speaker 1: things like you sat down for a meal. You'd think, oh,

736
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:15,719
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you know, if I want to if

737
00:38:15,760 --> 00:38:17,879
Speaker 1: I want to be on track and I don't want

738
00:38:17,880 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 1: to have to go home and run five miles. I

739
00:38:21,320 --> 00:38:24,839
Speaker 1: probably shouldn't pig out on that deep fried onion, even

740
00:38:24,920 --> 00:38:28,600
Speaker 1: though it's super tasty. Now, there is a flip side

741
00:38:28,600 --> 00:38:30,880
Speaker 1: to this coin, of course, we're talking all about keeping

742
00:38:30,880 --> 00:38:34,880
Speaker 1: all this data and really looking at and making something meaningful. Uh,

743
00:38:35,120 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 1: there can come a point where too much data is

744
00:38:37,440 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 1: actually harmful, where you're just you're just overwhelmed by all

745
00:38:40,200 --> 00:38:43,040
Speaker 1: the information and you can't really see a way of

746
00:38:43,160 --> 00:38:45,040
Speaker 1: using it in a in a way that makes sense.

747
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:47,600
Speaker 1: That can happen. I don't know that most I think

748
00:38:47,640 --> 00:38:50,920
Speaker 1: most activity trackers are pretty good where you're not going

749
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:53,840
Speaker 1: to get that much unless you're really digging down and

750
00:38:53,880 --> 00:38:55,120
Speaker 1: you want to see. Oh, no, I want to I

751
00:38:55,160 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: want this in pie chart form. No, I wanted in

752
00:38:57,239 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 1: line graph form. But that is one of those things

753
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:02,120
Speaker 1: that we're going to be looking into later in a

754
00:39:02,200 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 1: in a later episode of tech Stuff. We've already planned

755
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:06,800
Speaker 1: on recording this. We haven't recorded it yet, but we

756
00:39:06,840 --> 00:39:09,239
Speaker 1: want to do an episode where we're talking about kind

757
00:39:09,239 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 1: of that anxiety you get when you have so much

758
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 1: information that you know, you start to think, is my

759
00:39:15,280 --> 00:39:18,879
Speaker 1: life being boiled down to data points and charts? Yeah,

760
00:39:18,920 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: and how much of that is healthy, and you know,

761
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:23,279
Speaker 1: it's it's yeah, whether whether or not it's okay that

762
00:39:23,320 --> 00:39:26,720
Speaker 1: we know so much about ourselves at any given second. Yeah,

763
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:29,480
Speaker 1: I've I know more about me than I'm comfortable with.

764
00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:32,239
Speaker 1: But uh, and that's for a later episode. And I

765
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,680
Speaker 1: really do think that most of these physical activity trackers

766
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,000
Speaker 1: aren't quite at that level. It is a little interesting

767
00:39:38,080 --> 00:39:40,279
Speaker 1: to you know, sit there and say, oh, look at

768
00:39:40,320 --> 00:39:43,399
Speaker 1: my sleep patterns. What can I do to make these better? Uh,

769
00:39:43,440 --> 00:39:45,840
Speaker 1: there's really only so much you can do. And you know,

770
00:39:45,920 --> 00:39:48,239
Speaker 1: you can try and make sure that the environment you're

771
00:39:48,239 --> 00:39:52,239
Speaker 1: in is conducive to sleep and rest, but there are

772
00:39:52,239 --> 00:39:53,960
Speaker 1: a lot of little things that you can that you

773
00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:55,839
Speaker 1: can work on that that a lot of people might

774
00:39:55,920 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 1: not be completely aware of. Um. And and again a

775
00:39:59,400 --> 00:40:03,680
Speaker 1: lot of this is just about awareness. And along those lines, um,

776
00:40:03,719 --> 00:40:05,560
Speaker 1: you know, these these fitness trackers that we were talking

777
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 1: about can run from fifty fifty dollars on the low end,

778
00:40:08,880 --> 00:40:12,160
Speaker 1: I guess, you know, ten dollars for up to two

779
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 1: for some of the super fancy ones, or or even

780
00:40:15,200 --> 00:40:18,320
Speaker 1: more for the really high level performance triathlon kind of things.

781
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:21,000
Speaker 1: So there's a huge I mean or down to free

782
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:23,680
Speaker 1: apps that you can download for your smartphone right, which

783
00:40:23,719 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: is mostly using GPS tracking to figure out how far

784
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 1: you've gone exactly, keeping in mind that that's not necessarily

785
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:32,960
Speaker 1: going to translate into a very accurate measure of how

786
00:40:33,040 --> 00:40:35,359
Speaker 1: much how many calories you burn, but you at least

787
00:40:35,400 --> 00:40:37,640
Speaker 1: give you an idea of how far you went. Uh,

788
00:40:37,960 --> 00:40:41,680
Speaker 1: you know, it's It's definitely something that I've been interested

789
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:43,520
Speaker 1: in the past. And you know, we're about to do

790
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 1: this exercise thing here at work where we all have pedometers,

791
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:48,839
Speaker 1: so I'm sure we're gonna I'm in a group with

792
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:51,960
Speaker 1: Holly Fry, who is a marathon runner, so I know

793
00:40:52,160 --> 00:40:55,160
Speaker 1: my group is going to do really well. Yeah, so

794
00:40:55,200 --> 00:41:00,600
Speaker 1: I don't plan on moving for most of July. Uh,

795
00:41:00,640 --> 00:41:04,320
Speaker 1: that's the spirit. But but you know, it really depends

796
00:41:04,320 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 1: on what you want the device for, how you're going

797
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 1: to use it, and also, like we said, read reviews,

798
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,160
Speaker 1: because some of the ones that are really expensive may

799
00:41:12,200 --> 00:41:14,520
Speaker 1: not have all the features you want and may not

800
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:18,560
Speaker 1: perform better than than less right, and they might just

801
00:41:18,600 --> 00:41:20,880
Speaker 1: be you know, for a different subset of human person

802
00:41:20,920 --> 00:41:23,279
Speaker 1: than than you happen to be and not yea, not

803
00:41:23,320 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 1: all of these are for everybody. If I may make

804
00:41:24,920 --> 00:41:28,880
Speaker 1: a personal recommendation. D C. Rainmaker has a blog that

805
00:41:29,040 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: is brilliant. He's a triathlon runner, but um our triathlon

806
00:41:32,560 --> 00:41:38,040
Speaker 1: athlete who who's just triathlete, Yes, that would be that

807
00:41:38,080 --> 00:41:40,719
Speaker 1: would be the technical term for that. Who has just

808
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 1: reviewed all of the devices, all of them, all of them,

809
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:49,520
Speaker 1: and and and he gets very highly technical, which I love,

810
00:41:50,000 --> 00:41:52,920
Speaker 1: um and but but also tends to put his his

811
00:41:53,000 --> 00:41:56,840
Speaker 1: kind of final thoughts in an extremely succinct package. Excellent, excellent,

812
00:41:56,880 --> 00:42:01,760
Speaker 1: good recommendation. Yeah, uh, and you know again, take a look,

813
00:42:02,640 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 1: find out what's going to work right, work well for you.

814
00:42:05,560 --> 00:42:06,960
Speaker 1: You know, if if you have one that's going to

815
00:42:07,000 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 1: sync up with a smartphone, make sure that it's compatible

816
00:42:09,200 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 1: with which you with your smartphone. Make sure that your

817
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,240
Speaker 1: smartphone has the type of Bluetooth that the device wants

818
00:42:14,280 --> 00:42:16,840
Speaker 1: to sync up with, because that can be very very messy. Right.

819
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:18,200
Speaker 1: You can say, well, it was supposed to work with

820
00:42:18,239 --> 00:42:22,200
Speaker 1: an iOS device, and technically this iPhone three G is

821
00:42:22,239 --> 00:42:25,919
Speaker 1: an iOS device, but you know, yeah, that's obviously something

822
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 1: you want to make sure is all all working before

823
00:42:29,400 --> 00:42:33,480
Speaker 1: you you dive in. But uh, yeah, I think these

824
00:42:33,520 --> 00:42:37,000
Speaker 1: are really interesting devices. I've seen some great implementations. I've

825
00:42:37,000 --> 00:42:40,040
Speaker 1: seen some gorgeous designs. The body media fit thing I

826
00:42:40,080 --> 00:42:43,040
Speaker 1: had worked really well for me. Um, I haven't been

827
00:42:43,120 --> 00:42:45,960
Speaker 1: using it for a while, but uh it's you know,

828
00:42:46,040 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: it was definitely an interesting thing that that you wear

829
00:42:49,239 --> 00:42:51,279
Speaker 1: it all the time except when you're going to get wet,

830
00:42:51,840 --> 00:42:54,160
Speaker 1: and uh so that was kind of interesting the idea

831
00:42:54,840 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: that this became a part of me for for several months.

832
00:42:58,200 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 1: And I did lose weight because I was very my

833
00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:03,960
Speaker 1: full about my activity and what I was eating, and um,

834
00:43:04,000 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 1: you know, I should really get back into it. But uh,

835
00:43:06,600 --> 00:43:08,399
Speaker 1: not that I've gained a lot of weight. But could

836
00:43:08,600 --> 00:43:11,000
Speaker 1: you stand to lose a few more pounds anyone who's

837
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: watched forward thinking we would do. But anyway, everyone everyone

838
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,280
Speaker 1: can stand to be a little bit more said. Probably

839
00:43:17,400 --> 00:43:20,880
Speaker 1: probably so, Guys, if you have any suggestions for future

840
00:43:20,920 --> 00:43:24,920
Speaker 1: episodes of tech Stuff. You've got some question about a

841
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:28,520
Speaker 1: type of device, or a company or a person in tech,

842
00:43:28,960 --> 00:43:30,879
Speaker 1: or just a concept that you want to know more

843
00:43:30,920 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: about that's technologically relevant, please let us know. You can

844
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:37,799
Speaker 1: get in touch with us by email our addresses tech

845
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:41,200
Speaker 1: Stuff at Discovery dot com, or drop us a line

846
00:43:41,200 --> 00:43:43,719
Speaker 1: on Facebook or Twitter. You can find us there. We

847
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:47,440
Speaker 1: have to handle tech stuff. HS double and Lauren and

848
00:43:47,440 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again really soon for more

849
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:57,600
Speaker 1: on this and bathans of other topics because it has

850
00:43:57,640 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 1: to have work dot Com. This is a kid che