Google Fit and Other Fitness Trackers

I’ve always been intrigued by the various fitness trackers. I’ve never been that excited about their pure healthcare value, but I do believe that the amount we move (or don’t move) matters to our health. So, it makes since to track how much we move as one element of your health.

The problem I’ve had with all the fitness trackers I’ve used is that they end up in a drawer far too quick. In fact, I could never reliably wear one. My wife did better and made it a few weeks, but I just hated having a device attached to me. So, it never worked for me. (Side Note: HIMSS16 has a fitness challenge and they’re even accepting donations of fitness tracker devices you have gathering dust in your drawer.)

The closest I’ve come to a fitness tracker working for me is my cell phone. I was excited when my Samsung Galaxy S5 had the S Health app loaded on it and would track my steps and it could even do my heart rate. It was novel to see my step counts and see the trend over time. I was always excited when I’d go dancing and my step count would go through the roof and blow away all the goals that it had set for me.

I’ve since switched to the Google Nexus phone which has Google Fit built in. It has a similar step tracker and I definitely turned on Google Fit when I started with the phone. However, then I never heard or saw any notifications about it. I did’t really even realize it was on. Then, this week I got the notification from it that Google Fit was going to be disabled to save my battery since I hadn’t opened it in a long time (I can’t remember how many months they said).

What can I say? I totally forgot that it was even tracking me and it didn’t tell me that it was doing it. I do remember getting a notification or two that I’d had an active hour or something, but I’d just give myself a pat on the back and swipe off the notification. I guess that’s not considered using the app.

The other reason I probably didn’t care as much about the Google Fit tracking is that I knew that it was only tracking a small part of my movement since the cell phone is often with me, but not always. I work from home and so when I’m home I take my cell phone out of my pocket and it sits on my desk all day. That means it’s not tracking any of my movement during most days. I also play a lot of sports and I don’t want my cell phone in my pocket while I play. I guess that’s why all the Fitness trackers are these little devices that you could potentially wear while playing. Although, that feels like work and for what value?

Many have been dealing with this for years. What’s interesting is that I’ve been watching it for years as well and not much has changed. Is it nice that Google Fit is tracking my activity with almost no effort from me? Definitely, but with all the gaps in data it’s collecting, is that data really all that meaningful?

Would love to hear other people’s experiences with these trackers. Is there something new that’s changed your perspective on things?

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

Categories