Keeping children active can be a challenge for any parent, and for a P.E. teacher, it's hard to keep track of dozens of kids. Heart Zones has created a product that makes fitness tracking easy for teachers and fun for kids.
The post Heart Zones’ wearable monitors make fitness tracking fun for kids appeared first on Digital Trends.
Move over Touch ID! Tapdo is a wearable fingerprint sensor that lets you map a variety of shortcuts for your different smart devices to various parts of your hand. Here's how it works.
The post Wearable fingerprint sensor uses whole hand to control multiple smart devices appeared first on Digital Trends.
One of the biggest issues with the Apple AirPods is that they can fall out of your ear and you could lose them. An Apple patent, however, suggests that could change in a future version thanks to magnetic ear hooks.
The post Apple patent hints at magnetic ear hooks to keep future AirPods in your ear appeared first on Digital Trends.
In the tech world, a lot happens in a week. So much news goes on that it's almost impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of the top 10 tech stories from this week.
The post Weekly Rewind: Festival tents, Super Mario in real life, losing a Princess appeared first on Digital Trends.
Fitness trackers have become popular way to stay motivated and monitor your activity. In fact, we’re at the point where many people have owned an activity tracker for a year or two and are now looking for a second one. Most manufacturers are on second or even third iterations of their popular trackers, adding more capability and slowly but surely bringing prices down. If you’re looking to buy a new activity tracker, it’s important to realize that your choices in 2016 are significantly different from your choices just a year ago. What’s new on the market, and what’s the best activity tracker for 2017? Let WT | Wearable Technologies help you figure out.
Fitbit Charge 2
Fitbit’s 2-year-old Charge HR has been in dire need of an upgrade, and thankfully, the company has finally refreshed its lineup. The new Charge 2 boasts better exercise tracking, more informative stats, GPS capability and a larger screen for the same price as its predecessor. For 150 $ the Fitbit Charge 2 brings some brillliant updates to the popular Charge HR. It can now track your distance by tapping your phone’s GPS for more accurate pace info and will automatically detect that you’re working out after 15 minutes. It also has new modes to analyze activities such as weights and interval training, as well as biking and running. It automatically tracks how long and how well you sleep and wake with a silent vibrating alarm Get a better understanding of your fitness level and see how you can improve over time with a personalized Cardio Fitness Score. Plus, its bigger screen means you can see more stats at a glance.
Polar M600
When you turn on the M600, it looks just like the A360 – complete with the funky activity goal progress widget and a push of the button under the screen fires up Polar Flow. Activity tracking on the M600 includes steps, distance, active time, burnt calories and automatic sleep. Your M600 syncs directly to it and not only will your smartphone be able to display all your stats, but all that data is synced in the cloud so you can dig deeper using the Polar Flow desktop client or the browser based version. When doing sports you get an array of screens to swipe through – with loads of detail on offer on pace, distance, time and heart rate zones. A major plus for anyone wanting super accurate heart rate monitoring is that you can pair the M600 with a third-party chest strap. A final nice touch is that, when locking on to GPS and a heart rate before a run, the green icon for the bpm reading will turn blue if a chest strap’s reading is being used instead of the optical one’s.
Fitbit Flex 2
Fitbit Flex 2 is the first swim-friendly fitness tracker from the company and we can almost hear the collective sigh of relief that we can finally have the waterproof tracker we’ve been waiting for. The Flex 2 is as simple as you can get. It’s capable of tracking steps, calories burned, active minutes, hourly activity and sleep, all of which can be auto-detected with the SmartTrack feature. Currently, the exercises that can be auto-tracked include walking, running, outdoor bike rides on pavement, elliptical, aerobic workouts and sports like tennis, basketball and soccer. One thing the Flex 2 really does have in its favour is its swim tracking capabilities. It can be worn up to 50m. Swimming can be auto-tracked with duration and laps of four strokes monitored: freestyle, breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly. What you do get is an overview of your calories burned in a chart, the amount of time you’ve swam, distance, pace and impact on your day.
Samsung Gear 3
Samsung Gear S3 boasts a 1.3-inch screen with a 46mm body using its predecessor’s 360 x 360 super AMOLED always-on screen. It’s also packed with sensors, GPS, altimeter, barometer and speedometer added to an optical heart rate sensor for beefed up sport creds. Next to skiing and snowboarding you can go for a run, a round of golf, or go exploring on your bike. Gear S3 has a built-in GPS that gives you the freedom to explore and to stay on track even without your phone. GPS and a barometric altimeter are big additions to the mix here: with this on board you’ll be able to take these watches out for a run, learn how high you’ve gone, track your distance and listen to music too. If you’re using the Frontier, you’ll even be able to get phone calls without needing to staple your phone to your arm or stomach. And finally: let’s not forget that these watches are IP68 water- and dust-resistant rated, which means they can thrive under one meter of water for 30 minutes.
Adidas Chameleon
Adidas looks set to take on Fitbit and the activity tracking gang with a new smartband of its own. Details of the Adidas Chameleon “fashion fitness tracker” have been already shared with the new connected band set to launch in 2017. The Adidas Chameleon will come with a low power e-paper display and will sync up with a new Adidas All Day app that will track activity, health and sleep metrics. Adidas might be getting out of the GPS running watch race, but the sports giant is not giving up on wearables altogether it seems. There’s no information about the features and specifications of this Adidas wearable device at this point in time and it’s also unclear what sort of functionality the companion app is going to provide. What many would be most interested in finding out is whether Chameleon features a heart rate sensor, integrated GPS, and additional sports-focused features. None of that is known for sure right now.
These next generation fitness trackers by Fitbit, Samsung and Polar are the best choice for the year 2017 till now. We don´t know which new innovations will come up the next years. So let´s see what happens.
Garmin’s Vivofit 3 is a return to simpler fitness band days, with a few substantial upgrades.
The post Garmin Vivofit 3 review appeared first on Digital Trends.
Sony's latest sensor design is only a single megapixel -- but it's also only 2 millimeters and weighs a tenth of a gram. The tiny sensor and lens combo could wind up in wearables like smartwatches or even drones.
The post This 2-millimeter sensor could bring cameras to the smallest smartwatches appeared first on Digital Trends.
LG has already debuted a few new products ahead of CES 2017, and the company is carrying on that trend with the newly announced Tone Free true wireless earbuds and Tone Studio personal surround sound system.
The post LG is bringing true wireless earbuds, personal surround sound system to CES appeared first on Digital Trends.
In addition to that imaginary angel sitting on your shoulder, you'll have your Apple Watch to help. On Wednesday, December 28, Apple is rolling out a New Year's challenge meant to help you start 2017 on the right foot.
The post Your Apple Watch wants to help you keep your New Year’s resolutions appeared first on Digital Trends.
As we come to the end of 2016 and prepare to start the new year, it’s always a good time to think about how we want 2017 to be better. Every year we want to achieve our New Year´s resolutions but often fail to do so. Thanks to the power of wearable technology perhaps we can change this. In the foreground our New Year´s resolutions are losing weight, eating healthier or to stop smoking and drinking, but nearly every year we forget or don´t manage it. Therefore we now have plenty of awesome wearable devices and apps to help achieve our goals. So let WT | Wearable Technologies introduce you to some interesting solutions.
Responsible drinking with BACtrack
BACtrack Skyn is a wearable device that is worn on the wrist and offers continuous, real time and non-invasive monitoring of a your TAC (Transdermal Alcohol Content). Alcohol is detected and measured with transdermal monitoring, which tracks the ethanol molecules escaping through the skin. TAC samples are then converted into a history of a user’s BAC (Blood Alcohol Content) with BACtrack’s proprietary algorithm. BACtrack Skyn uses an electrochemical sensor and connects via Bluetooth to an app on a user’s smartphone. When you open the app you get your estimated Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) in seconds. It helps people monitor their blood alcohol content and make informed decisions about alcohol consumption. You can compare your perception to actual numbers, and see whether your guesses get better over time. Allows you to track and attach notes or photos to your results. What you drank and ate, who you were with, and how you felt; personalize results to make more meaningful.
Getting fit with UA HealthCare Box
UA HealthCare Box from HTC is the world’s first connected fitness system on the market. The Box includes a Band, a Scale, a Heart Rate strap and a special app called UA Record and is especially created to measure, monitor and manage all the factors that are important to your health. The UA Band measures sleep, resting heart rate, steps and even workout intensity when worn with UA Heart Rate strap. The step counter tracks steps and records your daily step goal while the sleep monitor uses resting heart rate to measure your sleep duration and quality. With UA Scale you can see all of your results. It estimates body fat via conductive paint on top of its glass and recognizes up to eight users individually, syncing results over Wi-Fi. It also tracks your body weight, body fat percentage, and progress towards your weight goal. The included Bluetooth heart-rate strap, is added for extra accuracy during workouts. You can track heart rate, heart rate zone and workout intensity by connecting it with UA Record, which automatically uploads and analyses your data. UA Record App collects your data and provides a 24/7 view of your progress.
Stop smoking with Chrono Therapeutics
Chrono is the first nicotine replacement therapy to solve the morning craving by providing support before the craving strikes. The delivery device is lightweight, comfortable and discreet and is worn overnight and programmed to the quitter’s wake up time. It starts delivering nicotine before the user wakes up. Throughout the rest of the day, it reduces the cravings step by step. By establishing a regular pattern of bedtime cartridge changes and measuring the quitter’s daily use of the device, the platform collects continuous data on the quitter’s adherence to the cessation program, which can be used to inform the quitter’s care team and further tailor treatment. The smoking cessation program takes place over 10 weeks and is a step down program. The nicotine delivery device makes stepping down simple by color-coding the level of nicotine and matching that to the quitter’s progress charts in the paired behavioral support mobile application. Bluetooth communication between the device and smartphone means that data is always there when it’s needed and the system can provide timely, personalized reminders to help the quitter stay on track.
Improve eating habits with BiteBite
BiteBite helps people eat healthier and lose weight with a revolutionary wearable device meant to track, analyze and change the way we eat. The BitBite ear clip is worn in the ear every time you eat and contains a microphone and additional sensors that record and perform initial processing of the incoming sounds. It monitors eating patterns by analyzing chewing sounds via microphones available in off-the-shelf headset devices. BitBite knows when, where, what and how the user is eating. Analysis of this data allows to send real-time dietary advice on how to eat healthier. They also offer a special smartphone app which is the gateway between the ear clip and the cloud, reporting essential diet information and feedback to the user. BitBite Cloud is a cloud-based server for processing and analyzing the user’s data including the sounds of consumption, analyzing eating habits, and triggering real-time data. When you slow down, chew more and eat at regular intervals you’ll be improving your nutrition, feel better and shed those extra pounds.
So as you see we can use the power of wearable technology to achieve our goals for the next year. These four devices can help us to lose weight by doing sports, eat healthier and to stop smoking. So have a good and healthy 2017.
Skinners is minimalist footwear that is perfect for barefoot runners who might happen across broken glass or miscellaneous Lego.
The post Skinners barefoot running socks are so durable you can walk on broken glass appeared first on Digital Trends.
While there has been a lot of growth in tech this year, such as the rise of Facebook Live and advances in the self-driving market -- we're taking a look at some events and products that didn't have such a grand time.
The post From fake news to the burning Note 7, the 10 worst tech failures of 2016 appeared first on Digital Trends.
The fat lady has sung. At least, in the Fitbit versus Jawbone battle. We know exactly why Fitbit decided to give Jawbone a break this holiday season -- its competitor just isn't doing well financially.
The post A holiday miracle! Fitbit no longer trying to block Jawbone sales in the U.S. appeared first on Digital Trends.
Check out our roundup of the coolest crowdfunding projects and product announcements that hit the web this week. You can't buy this stuff yet, but there's no denying that it's fun to gawk!
The post Awesome tech you can’t buy yet: A VR bike generator, smart bidets, and more appeared first on Digital Trends.
Meet the BetterBack, a posture strap that promises to help you "effortlessly sit in perfect posture, easing back pain (and preventing it)," and just maybe, help you straighten out to gain those extra vertical inches you've been looking for.
The post Working on your posture? Get straightened out with revamped BetterBack Therapy appeared first on Digital Trends.
Just a few days after Nokia announced a series of lawsuits against the iEmpire, Apple seems to have tacitly agreed to engage in battle by pulling all Withings products from its digital shelves.
The post Nokia sued Apple, so Apple pulled all Nokia-owned Withings products appeared first on Digital Trends.
This stylish Kickstarter leather wallet will sound an alarm if someone tries to steal it. Its creator told Digital Trends he started developing it after having $600 stolen while overseas.
The post The wailing wallet: Wallor lets you know if you’re being pickpocketed appeared first on Digital Trends.
Clear your schedule. Pokémon Go has made its Apple Watch debut. Despite a fallacious claim that Niantic was no longer bringing Pokémon Go to the iEmpire's wearable, the hugely popular game is now out and about on Apple Watch-wearing wrists.
The post ‘Pokémon Go’ is finally available on your Apple Watch appeared first on Digital Trends.
Fitness tracking has taken multiple forms lately. Smart bands are the most common, but other companies created smart shoes or wearable sensors. Boltt is using all three in their triple-threat solution to fitness tracking.
The post Boltt unveiling AI fitness coach, connected shoe, and more at CES 2017 appeared first on Digital Trends.
A Siri speaker and additional wearables are the most likely entrants in 2017, while an AR play feels at least a year or two away.
A version of this essay was originally published at Tech.pinions, a website dedicated to informed opinions, insight and perspective on the tech industry.
Many tech news publications do “year in review” and preview pieces at this time of year. One of the questions I always get asked is what new hardware products Apple might launch in the coming year. Some things — notably the iPhone — are so predictable in their annual schedule at this point that they’re barely worth commenting on, while others like the iPad and Apple Watch seem to be settling into something of a pattern, too. The most interesting question is often what completely new products Apple might release. With that in mind, here are some thoughts about the new products I think we might see from Apple over not just the next year but the next couple of years.
I love my Apple Watch — I’ve used one version or another all day, every day, since it first came out. It has made a meaningful difference in my ability to manage incoming notifications, my health and my general information consumption. Over the past week, I’ve also been using AirPods a lot, and those, too, are, for the most part, great little devices. However, there are some limitations to both of these products that make me think we might see additional wearables from Apple.
One of the biggest limitations of the Apple Watch, now that it’s usable in the pool and has GPS functionality, is that it’s not appropriate to be worn during certain sporting activities. If you play basketball, soccer, football, lacrosse or any other contact sport, wearing a watch (of any kind) would be either unwise or dangerous for the watch and player safety. If you get a lot of your exercise through these sports, the calories you burn and time spent exercising can’t be captured by the Watch, and therefore, simply go unrecognized by the Activity app. In the past, I’ve used Fitbit devices, which I could slip into a pocket while playing and would track such activity for me. So one obvious device for Apple to launch is a companion of sorts to the Watch which would clip onto clothing or slide into a pocket in order to track such activity, syncing with the Apple Watch when you put it back on.
Others might prefer to have just one of these devices instead of a Watch, if they have never worn a watch of any kind — whether or not someone has traditionally worn a watch seems to be one of the biggest predictors of how they respond to the Apple Watch, in my experience. Some other device worn on the body to track activity and potentially buzz for notifications might be an interesting alternative. If it also came with audio controls as a companion to AirPods, that would make it particularly interesting — I’m finding that using Siri to control playback isn’t always the best fit.
In my experience, the biggest advantage home speakers like Amazon’s Echo or Google’s Home have over Siri on any of the devices where it’s available isn’t functionality of the assistant itself but the size and configuration of the devices on which it operates. Those devices were, without exception, designed first and foremost with something other than microphone performance in mind. They’re mostly intended to be as small as possible, with smooth lines, large displays and other features that hamper the ability to deliver high-performing far-field voice recognition. As such, if Apple really wants to improve Siri performance, especially in the home, the solution probably isn’t in software but in hardware — and that’s where a Siri speaker comes in.
The next question is exactly what such a speaker would involve. Echo and Home are both very similar speakers, but they’re standalone — other than the mobile app used to set them up, they connect to Wi-Fi in the home, and operate independently. Google Home does work with Google Cast, but other than that, it is essentially disconnected from any other device in the home. It seems like an Apple home speaker would be more integrated into the ecosystem of devices in the home, becoming one of several outputs for audio, for example, and potentially working together with the Apple TV and/or other devices for whole-home audio. One can also imagine using Siri on phones to trigger music playing on the speaker, for example. Or even using the Siri speaker to trigger playing a TV show on the Apple TV for a child in the other room. I can also imagine using several of these speakers independently to recreate a sort of Sonos whole-home audio system.
Another interesting category is first-party HomeKit hardware. To be honest, I think this category was more likely a year ago, when HomeKit was still struggling to get off the ground, versus today’s much healthier ecosystem. But I still think it’s possible that Apple might eventually introduce its own hardware to work as part of the HomeKit system, especially in categories where design and ease of use on third-party devices is poor, or in areas where the devices would make a meaningful contribution to other aspects of the Apple ecosystem. For example, sensors placed around the home could help trigger lighting and other home automation features through HomeKit.
Having said all this, I continue to believe that the smart-home space is essentially stuck at the early adopter phase when it comes to these one-off purchases, as opposed to managed services. With that in mind, it’s harder to see how Apple could launch products in this category and have a really significant impact on the market, unless it also provides some kind of installation and management support. That would obviously be a departure for Apple, whose premise for much of its hardware has always been that it just works. But smart-home gear is inherently different in nature from standalone hardware products, because it needs to be integrated into the home. That means dealing with wiring and other potentially dangerous and intimidating challenges that don’t apply when it comes to phones or laptops.
Tim Cook has made increasingly enthusiastic remarks about augmented reality over the last couple of years, and it seems likely that Apple has some kind of play in AR up its sleeve. However, the biggest question is whether it sees the iPhone or some other device as the center of these experiences. We’ve already seen some basic AR features as part of iPhone apps, from an early version of Yelp which superimposed locations of restaurants on a live view of the environment, to the more sophisticated merging of the real and virtual worlds in the Pokemon Go app. With dual cameras and the ability to sense depth, the iPhone is certainly capable of more sophisticated augmented-reality applications than ever before.
But there are still some categories of augmented reality where a head-mounted device of some kind can provide more advanced functionality and, critically, free your hands to interact with the environment. This could certainly be used for gaming, but could also be used for educational and other scenarios, too. Apple is reportedly working on at least some head-worn AR devices, though we don’t know yet whether any of these will make it to market. However, it feels like 2017 could well be the year where we see the first mass-market AR devices launch, testing the market for such devices and potentially laying the groundwork for an Apple entry later.
If I had to guess, I’d say the Siri speaker and additional wearables are the most likely entrants in 2017, while AR feels at least a year or two away. I’m still not 100 percent convinced that Apple should be in the first-party home-automation hardware business at all. And, of course, I’ve said nothing about cars, which seem less likely as a future hardware category today than they did this time last year, and at any rate, would be multiple years away. It’s entirely possible we won’t see a major new hardware product category from Apple at all in 2017, but I suspect we’ll see at least one at some point.
Jan Dawson is founder and chief analyst at Jackdaw, a technology research and consulting firm focused on the confluence of consumer devices, software, services and connectivity. During his 13 years as a technology analyst, Dawson has covered everything from DSL to LTE, and from policy and regulation to smartphones and tablets. Prior to founding Jackdaw, Dawson worked at Ovum for a number of years, most recently as chief telecoms analyst, responsible for Ovum’s telecoms research agenda globally. Reach him @jandawson.
Google confirmed two Android Wear smartwatches will launch in early 2017 and they will be the first to launch with Android Wear 2.0. The update will introduce Google Assistant and Android Pay to the platform.
The post Google confirms two Android Wear smartwatches will launch in early 2017 appeared first on Digital Trends.
But does anyone still care?
When Apple brought Niantic on stage in October to show off Pokémon Go running on the Apple Watch, it seemed pretty cool.
Pokémon Go was the hottest game on earth but it had the annoying side affect of forcing players to be constantly staring at their phone. Being able to play at least parts of the game on a watch seemed to offer a bunch of advantages.
For some Pokémon diehards, it seemed like maybe enough of a reason to even go out an buy one of the price wearables.
But, as the Pokémon Go arrives for the Apple Watch on Thursday, it seems almost a little passé. The game, while still popular, has lost much of its buzz and mainstream appeal.
That said, I’m sure plenty of those who remain avid players will welcome a new way to play the game. I, for one, plan to devote significant time in the next few days to aggressively test the watch app.
The watch version lets you integrate the steps you take with both Apple’s fitness apps as well as the in-game rewards that are tied to walking. You can collect resources from Poké Stops and see what creatures are nearby, but to actually catch a Pokémon you will have to pull out your phone.
As important, the Watch app could help mitigate the Pokémon Go’s enormous drain on the iPhone battery. Players have to start a session on their phone, but can then switch to another app or even lock their phone and put it away. The watch app runs in the background to give trainers credit for all the steps they take.
Pokémon Go creator Niantic has been counting on the Apple Watch app, as well as a series of improvements to the game, to help re-engage early fans and keep avid players involved.
As for juicing Apple Watch sales, though, the timing could be better. The watch App was promised for before the end of the year and Niantic did hit that goal, if barely. But the biggest time for Apple Watch sales is during the holiday shopping season and that is nearly over.
But even if Pokémon Go fails to be a giant catalyst for the watch in its own right, it could provide a roadmap for the next developer on how to create a game that spans watch and phone.
The first lesson might be to have the watch app ready from the get go, or soon after, to strike while the iron is hot.
Every year, millions of tourists and thrill-seekers visit theme parks around the world exploring one of a kind sights, sounds and heights. Some theme parks have an idea to enhance the entertainment experience for tourists with wearable technologies. In this article, WT | Wearable Technologies would like to reveal how wearables impact the theme park experience.
MagicBands at DisneyLand
What does the MagicBands do? MyMagic+ is the system which is supposed to help you navigate the daunting task of theme park visits with a MagicBands on your wrist. The bracelet links electronically to an encrypted database of visitor information, serve as admission tickets, hotel keys and credit or debit card. It begins when you book your hotel and tickets through Disney. After that, you are able to plan every detail on your trip from airport to hotel transportation. Additionally you can also schedule when your visit to each theme park is, where you would like to dine for meals. Moreover, you are allowed to pre-order your food. You don’t need to endure waiting in a super long line when you are hungry. Also, the tracking power is extremely important for Disney theme park because it helps Disney determine when to add more staff at ride, what restaurants should serve, what souvenirs should be stocked and how many employees in costume should roam around at any given time.
Accesso Prism
Accesso Prism is a wearable device that shines a new light on your experience. It gives theme parks and attractions the power to schedule ride bookings without kiosks or cell phones and connect with you in new ways throughout your entire visit. It allows you to have a wait-free experience by reserving your place in line, changing your ride selection and monitoring your ride return time. The new accesso Prism does much more than wait in line for you. It also has an integrated smart park which provides front gate entry, to allowing cashless purchases and providing the first interactive wearable that can push notifications or trigger nearby events based on your location. Accesso Prism sets a new standard for the theme park.
TapuTapu
Universal’s Vocalno Bay water park will also join the wearable world in 2017 with TapuTapu. You will receive new TapuTapu wearables when you enter the park. The TapuTapu will let you virtually wait in line while you are playing in other areas of the park. You will get an alert when it’s your turn to ride. Moreover, the technology can trigger special effects, for example, controlling streams of water spurting.
At the moment, the biggest impact is being able to accommodate more people because wearables are just more efficient. Additionally, wearables definitely enable guests to have a substantially better experience than they’ve had before.
We can all agree on one thing: running in the rain is not fun. Wet feet mean blisters, but the fabric specialists over at W.L. Gore and Associates can fix that. Their new material can keep you dry, yet retain the feel of a running shoe.
The post Gore Invisible Fit shoes will keep your feet dry during the wettest of runs appeared first on Digital Trends.
You may not be able to use Snapchat in China, but that certainly doesn't mean you can't work for them. Snap, the parent company behind Snapchat, has set up a new office in Shenzhen, China.
The post A ban on the app? No problem, says Snap as it sets up its China office appeared first on Digital Trends.
Fitbit is launching an update for the Fitbit Charge 2 that makes the tracker much more capable than it was before. For example, it will finally have an on-screen battery indicator, and will now let you pause and resume your workouts.
The post Fitbit Charge 2 gets a whole lot better with its latest software update appeared first on Digital Trends.
A new report from research firm eMarketer reveals that fewer than 40 million American adults will use a wearable once a month by the end of 2016. That's far fewer than the initially projected 64 million monthly users.
The post Don’t expect an Apple Watch or Fitbit under your tree this year appeared first on Digital Trends.
This winter edition of our news roundup recap comes along with Santa Claus and with some surprises!
Nobody saw it coming when back in 2015 we saw the most funded Kickstarter campaign of the history turning into a reality. We are talking about the Pebble Time Smartwatch. Not even one time but twice with the Pebble 2, positioning them in the ranking of the top 3 of most-funded campaigns on Kickstarter. Now things have changed as Fitbit recently bought software assets from Pebble. The purchase excludes Pebble’s hardware. The deal is mainly about hiring the startup’s software engineers and testers, and getting intellectual property such as the Pebble watch’s operating system, watch apps, and cloud services. Another company we lost on the way among many others.
Osram also made a big announcement, launching the first broadband infrared LED. Osram Opto Semiconductors is using converter technology for infrared emitters for the first time. The result is a LED that emits broadband infrared light in a wavelength range from 650 to 1,050 nanometers (nm). The main application is near-infrared spectroscopy, for example for analyzing food. This translated into an every day language means that we could use this in the future as an add-on in our phone that paired with an app could measure calories, the freshness of the food or nutritional content thanks to the characteristic absorption behavior of certain molecular compounds. If a defined spectrum is directed at a sample it is possible to determine the presence and quantity of certain ingredients from the wavelength distribution of the reflected light. If you want to learn more about Osram and to hear the latest developments they made they will be speaking at our upcoming WT | Wearable Technologies Conference on February 7-8 in Munich!
TÜV SÜD tested the new Huawei Fit wearable. Huawei had its new HUAWEI FIT model MES-B19 tested according to the TÜV SÜD standard and was awarded the Wearables certification mark. It is also the first model to include the usability test of the mark. As consumers generally wear these devices 24/7, the aspect of personal health and safety is of special significance. The TÜV SÜD certification mark is designed to offer guidance to customers, by affixing the certification mark to its product, Huawei can now demonstrate that its MES-B19 is safe to all its consumers.
To finish this year we end with the news from Snapchat and their latest marketing move including a wearable! Spectacles are sunglasses with an integrated video camera that makes easy to create Memories. The spectacles connect directly to Snapchat via Bluetooth or Wi-Fi and transfer your Memories directly into the app. Now the marketing trick, where can we get those? They are not available to everybody or everywhere or at any specific store…You can only get these from a flying bot that lands at designated points of different cities and like a vending machine delivers the glasses in exchange for $130…
These were the latest news so far for this 2016. We can’t wait for the next edition to see all the wearables and innovations that CES will bring us! Stay tuned!
Today Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors introduced MiGlo NFMI, an ear-to-ear wireless component that coordinates the sound between ears. If the sound signals between your ears drop out, lag, or are unsynchronized, you won't be happy.
The post How much you like hearables depends on what’s going on between your ears appeared first on Digital Trends.
The first refurbished Apple Watch models have started to appear in Apple's special online store, and both Series 1 and Series 2 versions are available. Prices start at $230, so it may be the right time to grab a bargain.
The post Time to grab a bargain? Refurbished Apple Watch models start at only $230 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Did you put down $159 for a pair of Apple's AirPods? Having any issues with them staying in your ears? If so, how about sorting out a couple of piercings to ensure they never slip out again....
The post Here’s one way to ensure your AirPods never slip out appeared first on Digital Trends.
Mobile and wearable accessory vendor Nomad is offering free chargers for Pebble owners after Pebble announced it was shutting down due to an acquisition by Fitbit. Nomad's chargers were supposed to sell for $15.
The post Nomad is offering free chargers for Pebble devices amid Fitbit acquisition appeared first on Digital Trends.
There are a number of tech innovations that are working hard to make football safer. SyncThink adapts virtual reality to discover concussions sooner and with more accuracy. Within one minute, the headset can highlight early signs of brain trauma.
The post VR used to help football players recover from concussions appeared first on Digital Trends.
HTC and Quanta Computer recently made a huge investment in Lumus, a maker of transparent optical screens for augmented reality-based glasses. The screens are based on the Lumus Optical Engine that blends digital and physical worlds.
The post HTC invests in transparent optical display maker for augmented reality appeared first on Digital Trends.
Android's bold new operating system for wearables hasn't been much to look at, but it boasts ample functionality. These 16 tips and tricks will help you make the most of your smartwatch in a matter of minutes.
The post Decrypt Android Wear with these 16 essential tips and tricks appeared first on Digital Trends.
If you have an Apple Watch, you'll know how easy it is to take off the strap it came with, so why not buy yourself another one? There are so many to choose from, so we've gathered together the best ones we've seen so far.
The post The 17 best Apple Watch straps you can buy right now appeared first on Digital Trends.
Smart shoes that fit your style are hard to find. And switching shoes around means no more smart features. The Lechal smart insoles allow you to transfer the brains from shoe to shoe. Now you can stay connected no matter the attire.
The post Lechal insoles use GPS, haptic feedback to make any pair of shoes smart appeared first on Digital Trends.
These days, runners are using technology to understand much more about their performance and their recovery. Under Amour has announced three new running shoes that will track your run and offer insight into muscle fatigue before a workout.
The post Keep track of your run with Under Armour’s newest smart running shoes appeared first on Digital Trends.
It looks like Niantic may be developing its own wearable for Ingress and Pokémon Go -- which could be the reason the Pokémon Go for Apple Watch app has been slightly delayed, at least according to reports.
The post Niantic may delay the Pokémon Go Apple Watch app to develop its own wearable appeared first on Digital Trends.
For an average golfer, feeling every movement within a swing can be difficult. MySwing uses 3D motion-capture technology to record exactly how your body moves, then provides helpful feedback.
The post MySwing uses 3D motion-capture technology to improve your golf stroke appeared first on Digital Trends.
Researchers at Cornell University say the technology could help restore sensation to amputees.
Scientists at Cornell University’s Organic Robotics Lab have developed a robotic hand that has a level of sensitivity that approaches a human’s — it’s sensitive enough to detect the shape, softness and overall texture of what it touches
The silicone hand — developed by a team of roboticists led by Robert Shepherd, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at Cornell — is filled with optical fibers that can detect how light that passes through the hand, which changes as it moves and comes into contact with other objects.
Watch the soft robot pick the ripest out of three tomatoes, in various stages of maturity, just by touching them.
Unlike most tactile robots that feel with sensors on the outside of the machine, this robotic hand has its sensors on the inside, more similar to a human. Typically, robots that sense what they touch rely on the object being able to conduct electricity, which the robot could then detect to try to learn things about what it’s touching.
The hand made by the Cornell lab only works when the machine moves and changes shape. “If no light was lost when we bend the prosthesis, we wouldn’t get any information about the state of the sensor,” Shepherd said in an interview with the Cornell Chronicle. “The amount of loss is dependent on how it’s bent.”
The Cornell researchers say this technology may one day power prosthetic hands that restore people’s sense of touch, or could give biologically inspired robots a more delicate and sensitive style of physical contact.
Huichan Zhao, the Cornell doctoral candidate who is the lead author on the research on the soft robo-hand published in the Science Robotics journal this month, told NPR that she estimates that her team’s soft robotic hand could be made for as cheap as $50.
But, as with other soft-robot projects, the hand from the Cornell lab needs to be filled with compressed air to cause the fingers to balloon, bend and hold their shape. And right now, air pumps are generally too big for a person to comfortably wear.
Don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
It's as true in tech news as it is in politics: Don't believe everything you read on the internet.
Despite reports on Saturday to the contrary, Pokémon Go is still coming to the Apple Watch.
Rumors of the demise of the watch companion to the popular game app first appeared on Reddit, where someone posted what appeared to be a customer support email saying that the app had been put on hold. Then, citing an unnamed source, 9to5Mac said that the wearable companion app for the popular game had indeed been shelved.
Not so, says Pokémon Go creator Niantic.
“Pokémon Go is still under development and has not been canceled,” a Niantic representative told Recode on Saturday. “We'll have more news soon.”
The company made a similar statement on Twitter.
Pokémon Go for Apple Watch is coming soon. Stay tuned.
— Pokémon GO (@PokemonGoApp) December 17, 2016
Niantic made a splash at Apple’s September event, when it showed a preview of a Pokémon Go companion app for its wearable. The app for Apple Watch was promised for before the end of the year.
That doesn’t leave much time for Niantic to make its deadline. Time is ticking — and there are Pikachus that need catching.
While the wait for the Apple Watch game app continues, there is already a dedicated wearable for Pokémon Go, a small, $35 Bluetooth device known as the Pokémon Go Plus, which allows basic game functions such as claiming resources from a nearby Poké Stop.
According to the latest research, there are little to no privacy standards in existence when it comes to consumer health data. So what does that mean for you? Perhaps most immediately, more targeted ads.
The post Watch out for your wearable — new report expresses concerns about big data appeared first on Digital Trends.
In the tech world, a lot happens in a week. So much news goes on that it's almost impossible for mere mortals with real lives to keep track of everything. That’s why we’ve compiled a quick and dirty list of the top 10 tech stories from this week.
The post Weekly Rewind: Yahoo’s massive hack, Japan’s weird answer to the Echo, and more appeared first on Digital Trends.
Nuheara's wireless earbuds for consumers benefit from its co-founders' experience with hearing protection and enhancement products for industrial settings. IQbuds amplify speech and control background noise, customizable via a mobile app.
The post Nuheara IQbuds are designed to give you control of your listening experience appeared first on Digital Trends.
He’s leaving for a new gig as a venture capitalist at the end of the year.
After years of being one of the most widely read and quoted Apple analysts on Wall Street, Piper Jaffray’s Gene Munster on Friday released his final research note on the company.
Munster, who is leaving Piper Jaffray for a new career in venture capital at year’s end, has written 874 research notes on Apple, most of them bullish. In the final note, Munster offers his thoughts on the next years for Apple and a cool story of what got him excited about the company in the first place.
As for Apple’s future, Munster sees the company looking to increasingly become a services company and points to augmented reality as one of the key opportunities for Apple to innovate.
“The smartphone remains the world’s window to augmented reality today,” Munster wrote in the note. “While this will change driven by augmented and mixed reality hardware in the future, we would expect the next five years of AR innovation will happen mainly through the device in our pockets.”
Adding various sensors to phones and creating external glasses are among the short-term opportunities, he said. But over the longer term (more than five years out), Munster said he believes “Apple could develop some type of AR or MR wearable that ultimately replaces the smartphone.” There was no mention in the note of Apple’s plans to build an actual television set, which Munster had predicted for years.
And he doesn’t see the company giving up on cars, though he said Apple may end up working with traditional carmakers and focusing on what kinds of services it can offer them.
“We believe the efforts in automotive tie back to services in that automotive for Apple may mean partnering with experienced automakers to deliver great services rather than building the hardware itself, cars in this case,” Munster wrote. “While an autonomous vehicle solution from Apple, either a car or the software, is likely multiple years away, we view auto as the next platform likely for the company to try to own.”
Munster closes the note with a story, pointing to the 2001 launch of the iPod, which he got for Christmas from his parents that year, as the starting point in his interest in all things Apple.
“In those days, you had to have a Mac to put music on the iPod, so I would spend nights in the design office at Piper Jaffray painfully uploading music from CDs on the only Mac I had access to,” Munster wrote. “The experience was rough, but using the iPod gave me a sense of joy I never had from any other product. They did it with the iPod and recreated that joy with the iPhone. That magic is a big reason why we’ve been unwavering bulls on Apple for almost the entire time we’ve covered it. Sometimes we missed the short-term, but long-term it’s been the right bet.”
For those who want to follow Munster’s next chapter, his new company Loup Ventures has a placeholder site here.
Update: I asked Munster what it felt like to pen that final note.
“It’s cliche, but there were lots of emotions,” he said in an e-mail. “I’ve been doing this a long time, and I was thinking back to the fun that I’ve had, the people who have helped me, and how much I’m going to miss them. I love research, and knowing that I'll continue to do that in my new role made writing my farewell to the sell side a little easier.”
We are just at the beginning of the ski season but remember asking your ski buddies if they saw how much air you got off that jump at the lift line. But now you can actually answer those questions, on the spot, in real time with the innovations of wearable technology. From different GPS watches, connected goggles to high-tech action cameras and smart helmets, skiing is the ultimate sport for wearable tech. There are numerous wearables to track your metrics while you rip over corduroy and weave through trees off-piste. So let WT | Wearable Technologies introduce you to some exciting products which will make your ski and snowboard trips to a unique experience.
PIQ Robot
PIQ, by Rossignol is a sensor which is strapped to the boot of the skiers. It’s quite small, lightweight, and the company is currently integrating it with a wealth of existing sports giants. The waterproof sensor gives the wearer an access to air time, edge to edge speed, rotation data, G-force and even carving angle. PIQ analyses your carving style by the millisecond. With PIQ you get to know how explosive you were from one edge to the other, how much angle and force you’ve put into each of your turns like angle, transition, and G-Force. It also records all of your jumps with jump-specific performance metrics including rotations, airtime or even G-Force at landing. After each session you can share your best carving and your winning factors with your friends with Rossignol and PIQ app. With this sensor and the app you get access to an intelligence you have never seen before on the mountains.
GoPro 5 Hero
The GoPro HERO5 Black Camera is the most powerful and easy to use GoPro ever. HERO5 Black can capture stunningly smooth video in Stunning 4K and make 12MP photos, in Single, Burst, and Time Lapse modes mounted to your favorite gear and much more. It also has voice control, one-button simplicity, touch display and waterproof design. GoPro HERO5 Black automatically uploads footage to your GoPro Plus cloud account to provide easy access on your phone. Then, you can create amazing videos with the special GoPro editing app, called Quik. The camera comes with the most advanced technology in a GoPro ever and the easiest to control, including hands-free control of your camera using simple voice commands, previewing and playing back your shots, changing settings and trim your footage, all on you’re Hero 5. It is absolutely the best GoPro out there to capture your skiing and snowboarding experiences.
Fenix 3
This multi-sport smartwatch by Garmin is a master of the slopes. This GPS smartwatch automatically tracks individually runs while recording speed, distance and vertical drop data. It also tracks the total number of runs and it has an auto pause for when you’re on the lift. The progression from the Garmin Fenix 2 adds an automatic run counter with auto pause support and as you’re on the way back up the mountain, you can instantly see how your run compared to others on that day. Through the fabric strap, you can wear it over your jacket and you can even use it as a remote control for Garmin’s action cameras. The Fenix 3’s main functions include an altimeter, barometer, compass, temperature gauge and, of course, GPS. It will also pair with your smartphone to show text messages, alerts, e-mails, weather and a host of other brilliant features. Now there’s something to do on the ski lift other than enjoying the view.
XON Snow-1
Cerovo´s Xon Snow-1 smart bindings are meant to turn all the devices into connected devices. The binding has opened up various possibilities in the snowboarding area. It includes balance tracking which is more advanced and better than the stereotypical stats tracking. There are four different load-balance pressure sensors in the sole of the binding. The sensors are meant to monitor your weight distribution on both sides, so you don’t face a hazardous fall. Also, there are two strip sensors the measure the flex of the board. The strip sensors will be beneficial to all those who prefer one leg over another, which totally defies all the principles of basic snowboarding. The Xon Snow-1 bindings can be connected to your iPhone or iPod through Bluetooth 4.0. On your Smartphone, you can see all the measurements of the weight distribution and flex via Xon app. The app apart from you results will also show you speed, distance, acceleration and altitude etc. With the help of GPS, the binding will also trace your route and will keep a note of it.
Forcite Ski Helmets
Forcite is the world leader in the development and integration of smart helmet products. Forcite’s custom hardware and software package called the “EON system” is adaptable for specific purposes and functions. It eliminates the need for externally mounted devices such as cameras and communication headsets allowing for the creation of the most sophisticated and safe smart helmets available. EON is a fully operational computing system capable of supporting high tech features such as communication, high definition video footage, head-up displays as well as compiling complex performance and analytical data. The Forcite Helmet System runs a proprietary software on the EON and also includes standalone application for iOS and Android phones. The phone applications allow the customer to access sophisticated configurations for the helmet, video footage, and monitor performance status. The Forcite software can be adapted according to the partner company’s needs.
It all started with special helmet-mounted cameras, but has now developed into an entire industry with exciting products. In previous years, skiing technology has often been focused on new forms of lightweight clothing fabric or new ski innovations, but now, winter fanatics have plenty of awesome wearable devices and perfect accessories specifically developed for winter sports like skiing and snowboarding. So have a lot of fun and enjoy winter season 2016/2017.
We all love our pets. Dog people, cat people, whoever we are, we can all agree that we would never want to lose our furry friends. Trakz GPS tracker wants to help make sure that this never happens.
The post Never hang another lost dog poster with Trakz GPS for pets appeared first on Digital Trends.
One of the best new features of Android Wear 2.0 is that it lets users install standalone apps, which are apps that don't need a smartphone companion app. Here's a quick look at some of the first of these.
The post Here’s a look at some of the first standalone apps on Android Wear 2.0 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Smartphone gimbals create steady footage, but they also tend to be bulky. One simple design change is allowing the FlowMotion One to be mount-friendly. It takes up only about 5 inches above any GoPro mount, and can also be worn.
The post Extreme athletes redesigned the smartphone gimbal to be mount-friendly appeared first on Digital Trends.
The motion-capturing Smartsuit Pro brings a studio-level mocap experience but replaces wires and cameras with smart sensors and Wi-Fi. Whether you want to make movies or games, this is the suit for you.
The post Affordable motion capture system is an entire studio in one skintight suit appeared first on Digital Trends.
The Verge’s Lauren Goode and Recode’s Kara Swisher — with help from our readers — attempt to answer the question on the Too Embarrassed to Ask podcast.
On a recent episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask, The Verge’s Lauren Goode and Recode’s Kara Swisher talked about fitness apps: Which ones are best, which ones don’t deliver and which ones are just silly enough to get you out of your comfy chair.
You can read some of the highlights from their discussion at that link, or listen to it in the audio player above. Below, we’ve posted a lightly edited complete transcript of their conversation.
If you like this, be sure to subscribe to Too Embarrassed to Ask on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn or Stitcher.
Transcript by Celia Fogel.
Lauren Goode: So you’re back from your diplomatic trip to Washington, D.C.
Kara Swisher: Yes, I am. I settled all the problems across the globe there and I hung with the hoi polloi — the elite, apparently.
And how was that?
The swamp, as they say. It was nice. I really enjoyed it. I was not invited to the state dinner where I could see Michelle Obama and that Versace outfit. I was not invited. I don’t know where the invitation was.
Oh, that’s such a bummer. You know, they did serve one pretty well known California wine, I read the menu, and Mario Batali was there and everything, so I’m going to get you a bottle of that wine just so you can experience that.
No, that’s okay. I mean, I’ve been to state dinners. I covered them when I worked at the Washington Post a million years ago. But I have not been invited to one as yet.
Kara, even though you are back in San Francisco now, you’ve shown that you’ll go to great lengths to avoid me, it seems, because you’re in the same city but you’re actually at a remote location right now. So you’re using Skype, in case Kara sounds different to everybody.
I have to travel to Vegas later to do our Code Commerce event. And so I have to rest up for, you know, my all-night binge with Dan Frommer and Jason Del Rey.
Well, it’s understandable. But if you’re resting up that means maybe you’re not going for a run today, and today we’re talking all about running apps, or workout apps, really.
Yes, exactly. I know, but I will run. I will run in Vegas. I’ll run from, you know, across the casino and everything else. And I do want to talk about this because I’ve had a lot of problems with these running apps. I’ve been trying a whole bunch of them and I’m very dissatisfied with them in general. But, you know, we can talk about this.
Yeah, it seems like workout apps, running apps in general, are something that people have been asking us about a lot. Because we’ve talked a bit about unwearables, as Kara calls them — you know, wearable gadgets that you slap on your wrist, or in some cases other parts of your body, and track your data for you. In a lot of cases, this is specific to health and data tracking.
But in some instances you really just don’t need that extra piece of hardware. I mean, there’s the positives of having a wrist wearable that tracks certain granular statistics, but in a lot of cases you just need a smartphone app. And there are plenty of health and fitness apps out there. In fact, it’s one of the more popular categories on the app stores, and that’s all you need, because you have your phone with you all day anyway.
Yeah, I’ve been trying a bunch because I want to be told what to do. I literally ... that’s what I’m waiting for in all these fitness things. They give me numbers, they give me steps, they give me all kinds of stuff, but they never tell me what to do. Like, run this far and then tell me how I did, you know, essentially. I want them to just say, “This is what you work out today, this is what you work out tomorrow.”
And I find none of them are really ideal in the way they do them. And so I’ve been sort of frustrated. And I don’t like just the devices themselves because again, good, I did 10,000 steps, what does that mean? What should I do next? What is the time? You know, I want a lot of contextual stuff that they’re not giving. And I really do want them to boss me around more. That’s what I like.
You need a Kara Swisher for Kara Swisher is what you need. Kara in app form, workout app form.
I would like to have them give me, just like click it on, I go for the run, it records it, it asks me to make a smiley face. You know, a lot of them have that, but each of them is just so glitch-prone and so non-intuitive that I’m waiting for the perfect one to come out.
So you’ve been using the Nike+ Run Club app.
Yeah, I’ve used a lot of them actually, I’ll tell you the truth. I’ve used ... I’m going to open my phone right now.
Okay, tell us which ones you’re using.
Right now, I’ve tried the Run 10k. I kinda like it. It’s okay. Everything’s not perfect. I’ve tried the 10K Runner, which is one of the more popular ones. I went and looked up, you know, which ones are the most popular. I’ve tried Runkeeper, I’ve tried the Nike Training app, the Nike Run Club app. The original Nike Run app was actually the simplest and the best, but the new one is full of glitches, and I’ve called Nike to complain many times and gotten all the way up to the top, but they don’t seem to be fixing it or focusing on it.
Yeah, in fact Cult of Mac wrote an article last month that was titled "Why Did Nike Ruin Its Beautiful Running App?"
Yeah, exactly.
And the article talked a lot about how instead of it just being a pretty straightforward running app like the prior one, which had four-and-a-half stars in the App Store and was wildly popular, this one tries to tie in some social networking features, and people don’t seem to be reacting very well to it.
I literally just want to be told, “Run 1.5 miles today.” “Okay, today you do a bunch of sprints.” “Okay, today get over to our training one …”
You know, the Nike one’s the best-looking one, but just in general. And I think a lot of them keep runs and if you’re a good runner, that’s okay, you do understand that. Do you know what I mean? But if you’re not a good runner, you’re just a person, it just tells you where you ran. And what I want to know is much more than that. And I know some people want to have their friends do it, but I would like not to.
Are you training for a race?
I just picked one, that’s what I thought would be a good thing. I was going to ... I just picked “run for a 10K.” I ran a 10K I think back in 1983 or something like that [laughs]. But I definitely was just ... I used that because I think it’s the best way to do it. And so I’m looking at Runkeeper right now, and again, like I go right to “run a race,” pick a 5K for example, “5K plans,” and it goes “sub-30 minute 5K, beginner 5K, to finish run-walk, beginner 5K,” and I just don’t understand the difference. It’s still not like this is what I want to do. And they’re fine, but they’re just not ideal. I don’t know how else to explain it.
As you’re running, are you looking down at your phone and looking at your pace and your split time and things like that?
You know, I’m just a casual runner. I think a lot of people who are serious runners have all that other gear. And I’m not a serious runner. I would just like to be able to do a 10K really well, that’s all. That kind of thing.
Have you ever tried Strava?
I have, but that doesn’t tell me what to do.
Yeah, there are training programs. So a lot of these apps, by the way, are structured similarly in that they do the basic tracking thing for free. You can download the app for free, a lot of them are available across platforms, iOS and Android, and then if you want to get a training program, if you want to get more granular insights, in some cases, like with Strava, they even just added a safety feature where, Kara, even if you’re not a Strava user, I could send you a unique URL to my workout while I’m out running in the dark at night, and then you could essentially track me and know that I’m safe, and if my battery died, you would get an alert that my phone battery died, and like all this cool stuff, right? But that’s a premium feature.
In some cases you might see a workout app that will allow you to post a photo after your workout. That might be a premium feature. So basically, they’re tiered. They’re freemium. And a lot of them will just do sort of the basic, “okay, you just ran 3.5 miles and here’s a little map” afterwards. And then if you want to get more into it, you want the training program and things like that, you have to pay for it. Which is ... I don’t think a lot of people do pay for them.
I get it, but I’m looking right now at the Runkeeper one for a 10K. The first day, two miles slow, three miles slow, two miles slow, four miles slow. I’m like, what? One of the reasons I did like the Nike one is because they did all kinds of different things. And so all of them have ... I can’t say all of them are perfect. Does that make sense?
Yeah.
All of them problematic, is what they are.
They all have something that’s bugging you about them.
Yeah, exactly. What I’d like it to be is as easy as Tinder, which I use almost daily. No, I’m kidding [laughter]. It’s just like ... it should be like click, click, click, and it’s not. It’s not. And it should be ... I don’t think there’s that many options that you’d need to put in, but I find them all problematic for different reasons.
The Tinder of running. So an entrepreneur out there right now is listening to this, and they’re going to come up with the Tinder for running. And I just hope that you give Kara Swisher credit for that because, yeah, you should just be able to open the app and swipe and start. And it should be like super simplified, and you know, some of them are trying.
But the thing that bothers me ... so I love Strava, and one of the reasons I like it is because of the community that it has. It’s really, I think, predominantly still kind of a cycling app and known as a cycling app, although they have more and more people using it that are now doing different things, and a lot of people use it for running as well, and I use it for both running and some cycling, although I don’t do all that much cycling. And so there’s like this sort of rabid community of people who get involved and give you kudos for certain workouts, and you can look at your neighborhood routes and see, “oh well, this person ran this particular route or trail or path at this time, and so I’m going to compete with them.” It establishes this level of competition even with strangers, even with people that you’re not following on the app. And so it’s kind of fun.
But like you’re saying, there’s always something about one of these apps that you don’t like, and with Strava for me, it’s some of the privacy features. For example, you could do a workout and then you lock it at the end so people can’t see it. But you can’t lock certain aspects of it. Like let’s say I didn’t mind all of my friends on Strava knowing I went for a run that morning. But I don’t necessarily want them to see my time. Or I want them to see my mileage but I don’t want them to see what time I went running because I don’t want people to know ... establish a pattern with what time I go running. Do you know what I mean? Like things like that.
I get that completely. I don’t want anyone to know what I’m doing at all, frankly. But I just feel like they could be just a lot more fun and engaging, and I know when you put the Fitbits on, you compete with other people. I don’t want everybody to know what I’m doing.
So you don’t want the social aspect.
No, I absolutely do not.
You just want it to work for you. And that’s interesting, too, because a lot of these companies — by the way, Fitbit included, which makes hardware, but, you know, part of their value proposition is the app — they talk about their social community as being one of these things that brings people in and that keeps them engaged.
Apple just introduced a new social feature with their Health ... they call it, let’s see, it’s the Apple Watch but it’s the Activity app on Apple Watch. And there’s a social feature in there now too, because they think, “Oh, if you’re able to share with other Apple Watch users, it’s going to keep you going.” I think there have been some studies that show that is what keeps people motivated, because it is in a sense this digital equivalent now of going to a gym with a friend. Like you used to go for a run with a friend. But it’s interesting to hear you say that it’s actually not what you’re into.
Yeah, there’s one that I just started trying, which I’m going to try this week, called Skyfit, which has subscription classes. You know, they have yoga, they’ve got running, cycling. But really, again, it’s cool to do that and it’s a little like the Peloton thing, where you have a Peloton and then the things come streaming in.
What I’d really like is a dead simple ... and again, yeah, I’d like the Nike app back, that’s exactly how I think about it. Like it’s dead simple with a few little features so I can try to, you know, just do a better job. And some of them are so badly designed, like I’m looking at 10K Runner and I think it’s probably better, but it’s ugly as heck. And I don’t understand W1/W2 ... workout one, day one, I guess.
It’s just not pretty. They’re not pretty. I think Nike’s is pretty nice looking, but either they’re not attractive or ... just no one ... I don’t know why they’re not spending time on it. And then they’re always trying to get you to buy other things. So if I’m on this one that I was just talking about that’s run by Fitness22, immediately they ask me if I want to do meditation sounds, calm your mind, great abs, great butt, great legs — you know what I mean?
[laughs] That’s a lot to offer with one app. They should focus.
Literally like, “great chest and arms” — that guy does have great chest and arms, I’ve got to say. Here’s a person squatting, it’s called “gear up to 100 squats in 10 weeks.” And then you just have to buy these other apps. There’s one just on sit-ups. There’s a weird one, “Work up at home, exercise.” You know, there’s a lot out there and I get the point, but the one I really like is the seven-minute one I downloaded from the New York Times.
Oh, the seven ... someone actually tweeted that they really liked that app, that they lost a lot of weight using the Seven-Minute Workout app.
It’s dead simple. All you do is, it tells you to do what ... the lady talks to you, says, “30 seconds, jumping jacks,” and then, “10 second rest.” And she’s got kind of a robotic voice that you sort of want to do everything she says. But I find it great. And then they offer other ones. They have a very simple workout and then you can buy more. And I’ve bought several because I like them. They’re dead simple and really enjoyable. And then they have videos if you need to stop and look at how to do the exercise just right; there’s videos to do it.
Mhmm, yeah. A lot of the apps with a killer feature, they do one thing really well. I think you’re generally better off than something that tries to be everything. Especially when it comes to something like …
I’m super disappointed in Nike. I have Nike shoes, I’m wearing Nike pants, I love the Nike hat, I’ve got a Nike shirt!
Oh man.
I’m all Nike!
Oh my god, I haven’t worn that much Nike since I was like in the 8th grade playing basketball.
The hats are friggin’ fantastic. If only their app could be as good as their hats, I’d be perfectly happy. [LG laughs] But it’s ... literally, I’m like, Nike, you cannot get this right? You couldn’t do the thing around the wrist, and now you can’t do this. Like, what is happening? I’d love to get the head of Nike onstage at Code and just start strafing him with questions.
I think that you’ve already made a really great pitch for that. I think the best way to do that is to continue to rant about the app.
Yeah, I’ve been online, and the head of PR called me almost immediately. That was interesting.
Well, Nike, you’ve heard it here on Too Embarrassed to Ask. Kara Swisher is not too embarrassed to tell you. She does not like your app, she thinks you should go back to the old app. Imagine how happy people would be. All those people that have given you two stars in the iTunes App Store.
They’ve got like the New Coke. And you know, there’s another one, Run 10k, and again, there’s a weird little figure, I don’t quite understand it, and something like “jog 30, walk for 30, repeat seven times.” What? Again, I don’t even understand it.
And the last part I will say, and then we can get to questions, is music. Right? You want music to be playing during the thing. And Nike actually has a nice integration with Spotify. Quite a few of them have great integrations with your own music or Spotify which is great, and they have different playlists with stuff I’ve never heard and really gets me going when I’m running. But, it’s always glitchy! Sometimes it turns on, sometimes it doesn’t turn on. And I don’t know why and I can’t stop it. And if I stop the app, it thinks I finished. And then you can’t ever go back. It’s just so not intuitive. And so you can’t get the music playing and then you have this boring run for 20 minutes where you don’t get to listen to cool tunes.
You have to get out of the app and get into your music app and then switch back and then …
No, I can’t. It’s really hard.
I’m surprised, actually, at the number of running apps that don’t directly integrate music. I think Runkeeper does if I remember correctly from the last time I used Runkeeper. I don’t think Strava does. Yeah, I mean generally you’re stuck controlling the music experience outside of the app that you’re in, which is not good. It sounds like, with the exception of Nike.
And then you want to integrate into the Apple stuff, too, if you could. But again, none of it integrates.
You know, another thing that I think serious runners or people who are on an intense training schedule are looking forward to is stuff around recovery time. And I think very few of these apps actually offer that, unless you are wearing some type of other, you know, wearable device that’s maybe taking your heart rate into consideration or taking your VO2 max into consideration. And once they have those data points, they’ll say, “Okay, your next run really should be in a couple days from now because you need to recover from that really long, really intense run.” But most of them don’t really do that. Most of them are just like, “Okay, great, good job, you ran a few miles.” And then you get to pick up the app and do it again. I don’t know, it’s like unless you’re really paying for premium features or you’re paying for advanced sensors, you’re using it at a really basic level.
Should we talk about the business of these apps really quickly, too, before we get to our reader commentary about these apps? Because in the past couple of years there’s been a lot of consolidation in this area. We’ve seen Under Armour bought Endomondo, MapMyRun, MyFitnessPal, which is not a workout app, but there is an exercise option; it’s all about food tracking. Adidas bought Runtastic, which is another popular running app. Runkeeper was acquired earlier this year by Asics. And so it seems like a lot of apparel companies ... it’s a trend. It’s officially a trend. They are snatching up these health and fitness apps, they’re adding them to their digital strategies because all the apparel companies need to have a connected fitness or digital strategy now. But I think the other side of the story is that some of these makers of apps have had a hard time having meaningful revenue. Getting people to pay for those advanced services.
Yeah, I won’t pay ... like I did pay for 7 Minutes, which I downloaded just from the New York Times. So it installed right from the ... it wasn’t even an app — I think it’s a website. I think it’s just a mobile website that I’m using. But I have paid them like 99 cents every time to get more, just to keep it exciting. You know, I don’t think I would pay for too much. You know why? Because I want the dead simple one, versus one with all the bells and whistles and kooky stuff.
If you look at something like MyFitnessPal, which is part of Under Armour, I used to use that app for pretty basic food tracking and I really liked it for its simplicity. Now you see a lot of content and ads and things like that. It took a little while, but you’re starting to see like, “Here’s where you should buy those really expensive Under Armour pants,” showing up in your feed.
I can’t help but wonder if that’s the future of some of these applications. Because with the companies that are buying them doing it, they’re basically getting all this personal data on you. They know your height and weight and all that because you enter it when you start using this running app. And then they know what your habits are …
You lie a little bit about that part.
[laughs] Right. I’m always 5’7”. I’ve been 5’7” since I’ve been playing basketball, okay? Every single basketball player lies about their height, it’s true. Even though I’m really 5’6”. But yeah, they have all this information on you and that is the gold mine to apparel companies.
Yeah, exactly. I don’t know if I wouldn’t want to buy; I just don’t want to be bothered when I’m working out, I guess. You know, they could write me later or something like that, or at the end like, “How are your shoes?” I wouldn’t mind help with that stuff, and I wouldn’t mind it in an app form. I just literally can’t say enough that I don’t want to play games, I don’t want to talk to people. I just want a nice thing to tell me what to do and then tell me how my progress is. And possibly if I’m wearing an Apple Watch or something else, my heartbeat and everything else. That’s really pretty much the simple stuff. And then just literally, like, you have a trainer, essentially.
Yeah, Kara wants Tinder for running apps with the occasional real-life encounter, a.k.a. the trainer.
Hello there.
[laughs] There should be a Tinder for trainers. That would be great! Imagine you woke up one morning at 5 in the morning, you were feeling especially motivated to go to the gym and you just swiped ... you were like, “I’m just going to swipe for an available trainer in my neighborhood and they’re going to go running with me.” Like in real life, not digital, not like Peloton, like through a screen.
Yeah, I think about buying the Peloton and then I know I’ll immediately regret it.
Oh, there’s a Peloton store now at the shopping mall at Stanford.
I saw.
Of course, because it’s sandwiched right between, you know, SoulCycle and Tender Green or Sweetgreen or what’s that place called? Sweetgreen salad shop. I mean, is there nothing more Palo Alto going on right now than the fact that there’s a Peloton store.
Well, SoulCycle’s trying to do it, too.
Eric’s wearing a Stanford University T-shirt right now, too.
I did a podcast with the Peloton folks. And I think it’s really a compelling idea. I just think it ends up like all my other exercise bikes, sort of as a coat rack for my things.
I have to say, for cycling I really like the IRL experience. The in-real-life. There’s something great about it.
In a minute we’re going to hear some comments about workout apps from our readers and listeners. They had a lot more comments than questions this week. But first ...
[ad]
This week, we didn’t so much get your questions as we did ask for your feedback about running and workout apps. We wanted to hear from you what your favorite workout apps are or what your gripes are about these. So we have a lot, I’m just going to plow through them, Kara. The first one is from Amelia Gapin, she’s @entirelyAmelia on Twitter, that is a great handle. She says, “I use Dailymile and Strava. I don’t care about gamification but the social aspect can be nice.”
Well, Strava, which you mentioned. I don’t know Dailymile.
I don’t know Dailymile either.
I’ll look at that. I mean again, that’s the problem. There’s no one top app. Everyone uses different ones, and again, wish Nike would bring that one back. [LG laughs] But I will try dealing with Strava, I will try. But it’s harder to get workouts on Strava. It’s more ... you keep recordings.
Well yeah, the Strava is GPS based. So what happens is, if you’re doing a GPS workout like running or cycling, you could start it and then it’s great and then it saves. If you aren’t doing something GPS based, you basically just have to go do your workout. Like if I lift weights or do a yoga class or something like that. And then afterwards I go onto the Strava app and I manually log it. But it doesn’t record things that aren’t using GPS.
Yes, I get that. But I also ... you also would like programs. Again, you have a different thing, you just like going and running because you’re a long-legged lady and you can just run and run and run. I just want to get it done and move along. You know what I mean?
[laughs] In my head I’m like that lady who used to run a lot and then I had a knee surgery and then I complained about it a lot and now I go out every so often just to prove to myself that I can still do it and pretty much hurt myself.
I’m just like a little troll running up and down Castro, so there you have it [LG laughs]. The next one is Casey Mungle, @CaseyMungle. He uses Strava for running, “although the Apple Watch needs to update badly to support GPS in series 2.” Talk a little bit about the Apple Watch app and also the Apple Watch with all these things, because some of them work with them, some of them don’t.
Yes, so Apple Watch of course has it’s own core workout app called Workout. And it syncs to Apple’s own Activity app on the iPhone. It’s a pretty good app, it’s really simple — you’re talking about simplicity — the Apple Watch workout app is as simple as it gets. You open up the app, there’s some tiles, you can either tap on running or walking or hiking or cycling or other, whatever workout it is. You can even use Siri to launch it if you want. The app remembers the last workout you completed so that will be at the time as kind of a shortcut option. It’s just super simple.
But then these other third-party apps like let’s say Strava or RunKeeper, they can also make an app for Apple Watch, which means that is the app you open on your wrist, on your tiny little watch, and use as you’re running. And then in theory it is supposed to sync that data back, both to that app, like the Strava or RunKeeper app, and to Apple Health. But in my experience so far, it has not worked perfectly. It depends a little bit on whether the third-party app makers have optimized their apps for the latest software and the latest hardware. It depends on whether they have agreed to work with Apple on the back end, to share data and stuff like that. So if I’m going to go through the trouble of running Strava on the Apple Watch — and in a lot of instances I take my phone with me anyway — I’d probably just run Strava on the phone right now until it becomes fully optimized for Apple Watch, too.
Right, and one thing I’ve also noticed, just as you’re doing it, is you have to make an account in each of these places, either through Google or Facebook. But I find that also astonishingly annoying. I’d just like to use it sometimes, but I get why they want you to sign up, but it’s very confusing.
Yeah. Absolutely. Facebook especially. And they always say, “We’re not going to post to Facebook on your behalf,” and you’re like ...
Right, I won’t do that. I just don’t agree with it and I don’t want Facebook to know my stuff. I don’t know if I want them jacked into Facebook — some third-party apps jack into Facebook — and with all this hacking going on, I worry about that. Because I’ve got so many of these that it’s worrisome.
Yes. Next comment is from Kevin McPartlon, he says, “It’s all about Strava.” We’re getting a lot of Strava here. “Watching your friends work out more and longer than you is always good motivation.” Okay, the next one’s from John Reynolds, @TechnoGust, “Gamification works in the beginning, but soon you realize that hard work is necessary and then you learn to move beyond and not need it.”
Gamification is one of those things that’s become quite a buzzword in technology over the past few years and it’s something that applies not just to what we’re talking about now, health and fitness apps, but something that’s applied to enterprise software and marketing. It’s this whole idea that if you just add this layer of gaming or points and badges and rewards to anything that people will become more engaged in the software.
Everybody’s a 12-year-old now, they can’t just ... [LG laughs] Like we have to entertain. “Are we not entertained?!”
Right. I’ve actually done a little bit of reading on whether or not gamification works because I’m so interested in this from a health and fitness perspective. And it really seems like there are mixed results and a lot of it depends on the contextual application for it. In education it might work because in a lot of ways education, especially like online learning, is gamified anyway. But in a lot of cases, gamification is something that’s done not very thoughtfully. You have to really have an intelligent approach to designing it when you add gamification to something and determine if it like makes sense.
I think it’s essentially competing with your friends, right? That’s what it feels like.
Or yourself. There’s an app called Zombies, Run that I’ve used before. I reviewed it for All Things D years ago. I don’t think you’re as much competing with friends in that one as you are ... you’re running from zombies and this audio world, you’re listening to the app in your head, and you could be running around Central Park but it kind of feels like you’re running away from zombies and you’re leveling up and stuff like that.
Are we allowed to curse on this show?
Of course we are.
Because all I can think of is for fuck’s sake [LG laughs]. Like what? Are you 2?
Stop fucking swearing, Kara.
You know, this entire election’s become gamified. And Trump’s losing because the entertainment’s not as good.
Ooo, the gamification of the American government.
Oh please. That’s exactly what’s going on. Anyway.
We should tell Ezra to write about that.
Yeah, I’m going to. He’ll do an angry video, it’ll be good. Ahhh.
[laughs] All right, the next comment is from Alexandra Biker who has the perfect name because she uses Strava and her last name is Biker. But she also uses the gyroscope app and Garmin is her data backup through her Garmin GPS. Garmin, I will say, is one of those things, if you are going to spend $150 to $400 on a fancy Garmin wrist wearable, Garmin’s software called Garmin Connect does share a lot of these other popular apps. And so you know, if you like the Strava app but you have to wear something Garmin on your wrist, they share data pretty easily. Fitbit does as well, although Fitbit doesn’t work with Apple Health or Google Fit. So the Gyroscope app — Kara, have you used that one?
No.
I haven’t either, and a lot of people wrote in to us and told us that they liked that. You do have to give it access to a lot of your accounts, you know, these are open APIs in a lot of cases and you’re saying, “Sure you can link to my Strava or you can link to my Fitbit,” or whatever it is.
And then it creates these really — it’s probably for data viz nerds — it creates this really beautiful visualization of your activities throughout the day.
Probably run by the Russians. [LG laughs] Assume it’s the Russians. When they’re not hacking John Podesta’s emails they’re watching where we’re running, Lauren.
Right, and creating these gorgeous little circles and bubbles to look at to distract us from the real meaning behind it all.
Again, right now I’m looking at Strava and again, they want me to join like ... the only thing I can do is join these dopey challenges and I don’t want to. It doesn’t give me a little ...
No, you can skip those. You should sign up for Strava because we can be on it together.
But it doesn’t tell me what to do. I need to have them tell me what to do. You see what I’m saying?
You want them to offer you a training program or you don’t?
I do. I do. I do. I would like something because I’m just totally confused, you know what I mean? I don’t want to follow my friends, I’m sorry. I like you but not that much.
[laughs] All the Silicon Valley people use Strava.
Yeah, whatever. Because they don’t want to be told what to do. I do.
Yeah, and then they ... there’s a saying that if you didn’t Strava it didn’t happen.
Ech, god. What, are they going to have all that data in their coffin when they die? Anyway. All right, so the next one is Treadmore, @TrentLMoore: "Doesn’t work for me, I use Pebble Health to try and hit 10,000 steps a day so I’m not fat. Motivation enough for me." Okay, those are those step things. Those work just fine. Every one of those works just perfectly fine no matter which one you use. Typically.
I’m wearing a Pebble 2 right now and I walked around Chicago a whole bunch this weekend, I got my steps up. And I have no idea if it’s totally accurate. I found with the Fitbit Charge 2, I found some bugs while I was using it. They say it’s fixed now, but it was totally inaccurate in terms of distance tracking. And I don’t know how accurate some of these are in some instances. But I will say there’s something motivating about seeing your steps like that and saying, “Yeah, if I do 8-10,000 steps I’m doing okay, even if I didn’t get a workout in.”
Fitbits are fine, they’re all the same. I don’t care about the steps. I have no idea what they mean. It doesn’t give me any meaning in life. All right, next one.
It’s funny, I don’t think they actually are in some ways. I mean, the 10,000 step thing is something that was created decades ago. It’s something that the CBC recommends in terms of the ideal daily activity of the average U.S. adult. But there’s been a little bit of pushback to the whole idea of 10,000 steps. Over the past couple of years some startups just say, you know, 10,000 steps is not the metric by which you should strive to.
You should shoot for heart rate invariability, you should shoot for a daily activity level that works for you, it should be a dynamic level that’s kind of fluid and changing depending on your activity. One company called Mio that’s based up in Canada, they’ve created an entirely different score — I think they call it the PEI score — that is based on this longitudinal study that it’s more about heart rate variability than 10,000 steps.
One of the things I use a lot of the time when I want to do this, although I certainly rely on just the Apple one because it’s just fine for me, is the simple pedometer. It’s the simplest thing ever, it’s just a pedometer and there’s several of them in the Apple store, there’s one just called pedometer and that works just fine for me.
Once again, that’s about step counting, right?
Yes, exactly, step counting, right. Which we may not want to have. I just think it’s probably a good approximation of what you should do, step counting. Correct? Or not?
No, you’re right. And for some people that’s all the motivation they need. This next comment is from Glen George, @Glen_George. He says, “There is unexplainable happiness in finishing the rings or getting those trophies.” He’s not saying what he’s referring to but closing the rings is generally what people say about the Apple Watch, so I’m pretty sure he’s referring to that. And that is something that, it’s not like the 10,000 step mark, but it’s a visual representation of accomplishing a daily activity goal and some people say they find it really motivating.
All right, let’s get through the rest very quickly. I’m going to read two at once. Miles Underwood, “I use Jawbone Up app because it ties into my company’s health care system,” which is really important, a lot of companies are trying to force people to be healthier. “And I use Garmin watch, RunKeeper and Nike Plus. Having the watch is probably my favorite.” All right. And Virtual Cycling with “Go Zwift and Wahoo Fitness. The gaming aspect is perfect for motivation.” Everyone’s got a different thing.
Yeah, it’s also fragmented and I think this really underscores it. There’s another person named David Linsley who wrote that he loves RunKeeper, “It’s so accurate, it keeps reminding me of how I’m doing, whether I’m making progress.” He’s not the only person. Jason Evans said he uses RunKeeper currently because he “likes to collect data, routes, heart rate, but seeing others exercise doesn’t really motivate me.” So he’s in the same camp as you, Kara.
But the next guy say, “I prefer to say where and what my running friends are running as opposed to gamification.”
And he said Strava, Strava was his. So this is an interesting comment. We got this from Joseph Boulevant. “I’m your typical fitness fanatic but literally the only ‘gamification’ that worked was Pokémon Go, making me run or walk more.”
So there’s one vote for Pokémon Go. And Joseph is not the only person, by the way, who is apparently influenced or motivated by Pokémon Go. Recode ran a story earlier this year based on some data that shows that the most engaged fans of the game walked 25 percent more than they did before Pokémon Go’s release. And then there were some anecdotal stories that came out about people who just say that they were simultaneously wearing their Fitbit while they were playing Pokémon Go and they got like 14,000 steps *ahem* Ina Fried. No, actually I don’t know if Ina Fried was wearing a Fitbit, but I think she’s still into the Pokémon Go thing.
Here’s another comment from Andres Marchuski, @DaveRage, “I love Zombies, Run!” See, Zombies, Run, the one we mentioned earlier, “got me to 5K. Nothing to do with points and badges, storyline and atmosphere.” It is really funny when you first start it. It’s a British accent in a helicopter being like, “Oh hello, you’re going to be running from the zombies today. I hope you make it, mate. Dropping you off here now.” [laughs] That was a really bad combination of an Australian accent and ...
I don’t know what that was.
[laughs] … and a British one. But all of a sudden you get really freaked out! You’re like, “Oh my god, there’s zombies behind that bush!”
All right.
Do you want to read the last couple of comments, Kara?
Yeah, I shall, I think you need to calm down. “Definitely Gyroscope app, beautiful app, beautiful reports, gamification, has everything.” Another person is MacPP MacPole, “Also fun fact, I sometimes listen to Too Embarrassed while running.” Oh, wow.
[laughs] I hope you’re listening to this one. If you’re listening to this one, “WATCH OUT FOR THE ZOMBIES!” [laughs]
All right, Lauren. Let me know when you’re done because I’ll just move on.
[laughing] Okay, go ahead, keep going.
I know, you crack yourself up. “I use many apps from Runtastic and I find them really motivating to work out or go for a run.”
Well, and that’s the point. Ultimately, that is the point, right?
Yup.
These companies, they want to suck you into their app ecosystem and get all your data and maybe eventually have you buy stuff. But for people who are using them, the end goal is really to have something that is motivating and is useful and gives them maybe a little bit more data than they might normally get while they go for a run. Or they’re working out in some way, shape or form. Actually, I was really hoping that we would be able to do this podcast while we were running today, Kara. I think it’s still something that we have to do.
Yeah, no no. No. I’m looking at Dailymile, it’s very nice, but again, it doesn’t tell me what to do.
You look into Dailymile, I’m going to look into Gyroscope, I’m going to see how supposedly these data visualizations are. And then I think you should try Zombies, Run because I think it would be fun.
Yeha, would you? I really don’t want to run from zombies, I really don’t.
Yeah, I have, but I even paid for it at the time. I think it was $4.99 at the time that I was originally used it, and I liked it. Not enough to make it my daily running app. I think sometimes for me running is actually a break from noise. I’ll still listen to music and I’ll still have an app running in the background but I don’t want something that like gets me sort of, “Oh my god, zombies!!!”
[laughs] I think I’m going to create a running app for people like me. Like, “Listen, you lazy pieces of something, let’s get up …” and I’ll just talk to them throughout it, like, “That was slow of you.”
That would be amazing. You should absolutely do that. Oh my god, let’s tape an entire podcast — Eric is nodding, but I think he’s only nodding because he’s locked in this little room with me — we should tape the podcast ...
No. I am, right as we speak, as we finish up, I’m downloading every single one these and we’ll see. And I’ll get back to you later on the show, on another show, which one I like. So far I don’t like any of them that I’m looking at.
Kara, maybe as part of our sponsorship we can raffle off a run with you.
Yeah no. But thanks for the thing. Anyway, this has been another great episode of Too Embarrassed to Ask.