the onda

Over the last 3.5 years I've logged almost 3,000 miles with my Nike+ system, a low-cost pedometer that uses the iPod/iTunes ecosystem to submit my runs to a site for online competitions and other interesting data-oriented tasks. I have come to rely on the Nike system so much that if I find myself without it, I won't run. By just collecting data and transparently uploading it to a place where I can go back and look at it, it has managed to alter my behavior.

This trend appears particularly powerful for health related issues. The Withings scale (WIFI and with the ability to broadcast your weight to various social networks) seems to be popular among the folks I follow on Twitter and the always "almost here" Fitbit promises to track all sorts of activity related stuff for subsequent analysis. As dorky as it sounds, it would appear that "what gets measured gets done" at least by a certain part of the population.

Today I ran into an ingenious mass market personal telemetry device that appears suited for children: simple, stylishly designed (but easy to to personalize), and best of all, cheap, the S2H Replay is essentially a low budget Fitbit/Nike+ system that fits inside of a color rubber wristband and tracks activity. What may make the Replay the Flip of personal telemetry devices though is that rather than relying on any sort of Wifi signal or a complex base station, it just emits a code that details the amount of work you've done to the site where you are then able to earn points.

Fans of the fully automatic will think of this as an ugly hack that disqualifies the Replay from the pantheon of early personal telemetry devices— after all, the user has to remember to go enter his code to claim credit for the exercise done. However, if my experience with the sometimes buggy Nike+iTunes combination is any indication, users will be very motivated to "get credit" for work done.

Which incidentally is where S2H performs its second great hack: getting users to compete for prizes in the forms of certificates to various different e-tailers. Think of it as a credit card reward program used for good.

I'll have more to say in a few weeks after I've used my own two guinea pigs for a test (boys, 7 & 4), but for now I sure am glad that there are so many creative approaches being taken towards kickstarting the personal telemetry revolution!

(And here is the Russell Davies's excellent review that tipped me off to the existence of this neat gizmo).