This is a guest post by Kerri McMaster, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Performance Lab.
If you own a fitness band, it’s probably not on your wrist right now. Research by Endeavour Partners reveals a third of U.S. consumers who own a fitness band stopped using the device within six months of receiving it. Wearables today offer isolated, one-dimensional reports on what user behavior is being measured. You took X steps, climbed Y flights of stairs, ate Z calories – so what?
Some might argue that obsolescence could actually be a sign of a wearable device or app’s success. This is true if the goal is to nudge behavior in the right direction. But the true potential of fitness wearables lies in their long-term function as a partner for ongoing health and fitness improvement. Clearly aggregating and regurgitating what we already basically know, in ever greater detail, does not constitute this sort of partnership. The Quantified Self paradigm needs to evolve or it will die.
We hear people talk about how fitness trackers need to be more comfortable and aesthetically pleasing for people to adopt them for the long run (pun intended). While true, this is missing the point on the purpose behind these activity bands – to tell our quantified selves WHY we should care and what we should do NEXT. This means understanding context in a much richer way. For example, imagine your FitBit telling you mid-jog that “your effort on that hill was too high given your goal to build endurance; the main factor is your long stride length – try to shorten it on this next hill.”
Sounds like artificial intelligence from the future, right? It’s actually not as crazy as you might think. The seamless integration of software algorithms (a set of rules to define calculations if you will) with next generation fitness trackers will help consumers reach previously unattainable wellness goals – from completing a 10K race to losing 10 pounds. The behavioural changes created from receiving real-time feedback and context establishes user trust that is needed to extend the life cycle of fitness trackers from 6-12 weeks to something consumers feel like they can’t live without.
About Author
Kerri McMaster drives the transformation of unique intellectual property into a scalable and profitable business. Prior to the formation of Performance Lab, she worked in the health sector in the United Kingdom, leading to the commercialization of corporate health management programs that have been hailed as a benchmark within the industry. Kerri has an intimate understanding of the pre-requisites for world class performance and development, as she has won two World Karate Championships back-to-back.