Fitness trackers are great. They monitor our health. Count our steps. Motivate us to keep moving so that we can reach our daily goals. We can even challenge our friends and family to contests and competitions, weaponizing our health and well-being in the eternal war for bragging rights. But as great as they are, I can’t help thinking that they could be better. Especially if they could track everything we did, not just the steps we take.
That’s why I’d like to create a hypersensitive tracker that would capture all of the movement that a person does in a day. Literally everything that they did. Violent sneezes. Nervous ticks. Twisting and turning while trying to fall asleep. Typing. Scratching an itch. Anything other than sitting still or lying down. Every movement. Every motion.
At the very least I’d like to invent a way to more accurately compare our results when using standard trackers. You see, if everyone is using different trackers (FitBit vs. Apple Watch) or different models of the same trackers and everyone’s height and gait is different….then how do you ever accurately compare your results to someone else’s? It’s virtually impossible. An exercise in futility. That’s why I’d like to invent a mathematical formula that converts all steps into a new universally accepted metric known as a CRAIG – a Certified Really Accurate Indication of Gait. By converting our steps into CRAIGs we’ll know, once and for all, exactly how many steps we actually took each day, and have a way to accurately compete against our friends.
On the other hand, the opposite approach could work as well. Instead of accurately counting everything we did or converting our steps into CRAIGs we could instead inflate our numbers every time we reach a milestone. Hit 10,000 steps, gain an extra 1,000 step bonus. Hit 20,000 steps and get a 5,000 step bonus! Or what if, at randomly selected times, everything you did was worth double or triple steps?! Like a lightning round at a bowling alley. People would have to immediately stop whatever they were doing and get moving. Adding some unexpected excitement to what could be an otherwise boring and mundane daily existence for a lowly cubicle dweller.
Some people may disagree with this approach. Claim that giving out bonus steps would be cheating, akin to waving your hand around while sitting at your desk, trying to jack up your totals without actually putting in the work. And they may have a point. If you’re goal is to purely count your steps then artificially inflating your numbers would be counterproductive. But at the same time isn’t the whole point of a fitness tracker to motivate us to move? To go beyond our comfort zones and push past our preconceived limits? If bonus points and random inflationary periods achieve that desired effect of motivating us to achieve our goals then what’s the harm?
While you ponder that here are some other Fitbit related ideas that I’ve come up with recently that I think have some merit:
- I think it would be great if we could develop a tracker within a tracker. So that I can see exactly how many steps I took during a specific walk. Similar to how your car’s odometer can track how many miles you did on a road trip.
- Cross platform challenges. It would be fun if you could challenge people who use an Apple Watch or Google Health instead of just other Fitbit users. Granted there are other apps that track walking performances from disparate apps but it would be great if you could cut out the middle man and do all of that within the FitBit app.
- I recently discovered that you can join a group (I chose the hiking group) and post pictures to it. Instead of liking your photo, random people can cheer it. It would be nice though if you could like or “cheer” the comments that they leave like you can on Instagram.
- Because of the fact that I’ve been posting pictures I’ve received some friend requests from random strangers. This gave me a great idea: using this ability to find and contact other users to set up a dating portal within the FitBit app to find other like-minded singles in your area. Sticking with the walking theme the first date would always being going on a walk somewhere in your neighborhood. And this doesn’t just have to be for dating. Any two users could connect and users could even start their own walking clubs.
All in all, it’s become increasingly clear to me that if we want to be successful in life there’s one simple thing that we all need to do: step up our games!
Are fitness trackers the Greatest Idea Ever?