Comment by suprgeek | Hacker News Reader

Comment by suprgeek | Hacker News Reader

None of the current generation of the "band" devices are in the finished category. I have tried the Basis B1, Jawbone up and my current device the Fitbit Flex.

The Basis was the most sensor packed bundle of the lot and that is a device with lot of promise - two major issues for me:

- I never got used to the fact that it needs to be in Snug contact with your skin 24/7 for all the sensors to work this can get tricky when you sleep (for example) and the device is on on too tight

- No vibrational alarm A device that senses when you go to sleep does not have a simple mechanism to wake you up smartly - just stupid.

The Jawbone up was an unmitigated disaster - should never have been released.

My current device is the Fitbit which seems to have gotten most of the stuff right, but I still have to tell it when I fall asleep and when I am woken up. I also have the Aria Scale from fitbit.

As other commenters have echoed, the first device that will make it "totally frictionless" to record all the data will be a blockbuster.

My Ideal fitness device will also have a powerful camera that can take a fast snapshot of any food I eat, use magic algorithms to find a match to stuff known foodstuff (by using Image matching against a database of known foods) and automatically give me the calories and micro-nutirents of everything that I Eat/Drink.

Then we combine all this data with services such as WellnessFX & their Blood Markers...

Then we integrate implantable "micro-labs" that sample your blood 24/7...

Then we add in genetic data from 23andMe...

> - I never got used to the fact that it needs to be in Snug contact with your skin 24/7 for all the sensors to work this can get tricky when you sleep (for example) and the device is on on too tight

I have a Basis B2 and my experience is the same. I really need the Basis because my pulse has been very erratic lately and it helps me monitor it so I don't overexert or stress myself. But the device is so tight, at least once a day I take it out just so my arm can "breathe" normally.

While it syncs over BT with my iPhone, it takes 3-4 tries to do it. I've just given up and sync with the cable and my computer. Another issue is that if my pulse goes over 100-110, it detects it as half the bpm (50-55), making me look way healthier than I am.

So ya, I'm with you on this. None of the devices are there yet. I'd pay $500 if all of the above are worked out. On the plus side, the sleep detection with Basis (especially REM phase) works surprisingly great.

When I was buying my basis I heard similar things about having to wear it tight to get correct reading. But after wearing it for a few months I've noticed that as long as I'm not running I get the same results, even while sleeping when it's loosened by a hole and it becomes much more comfortable. And tightening it to track my running isn't a huge deal to me.

The Bluetooth syncing worked perfectly for me the first week or so but stopped after that now I need to open the app to get it to sync properly over Bluetooth. But, at least for the unit I've gotten I've been extremely satisfied.

It's not a perfect device and I would like to be able to access the information myself.

When you say Basis B2 do you mean the one with the carbon steel model? I'm fairly certain the B1 is the only model available right.

The bit about taking a picture of food you are about to consume and reading/logging nutritional data might be closer to viability once smartphones get Kinnect-like 3D sensors, making it possible to read volume data. Google's [Project Tango](https://www.google.com/atap/projecttango/) is one such initiative.

Does anyone know of any computer vision research into identifying food?

This will be an extremely difficult thing to do with just computer vision alone. Small changes in food preparation and recipes that don't yield very visible differences in the final product can have huge impacts on nutrition.

For example, a slice of chocolate cake prepared with non-caloric sweetener will look much the same as a cake prepared with brown sugar, but it'll have significantly fewer calories. (It'll also taste gross.)

Sounds like a job for Mechanical Turk

Pixels can't capture calories. There's a much better chance of having location-based menus with calories data.

Are you sure that you want something sampling your blood all of the time? I'd rather enter stuff manually and lose a bit of accuracy.

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