By David Ponce

Now that the technology is maturing (read: getting small enough), more and more gadgets are being conceived with the goal to track our health and make it more fun and interactive to stay fit. I reviewed the Fitbit Ultra and came away reasonably impressed. But at Digital Experience here in Vegas I saw something that could knock it out of the water. It’s a wristwatch and it’s called the Basis. The reason it’s cool is that it tracks more than elevantion and steps taken (the Fitbit’s two metrics). Being a wristwatch, it’s able to keep tabs on your heartrate, your temprature, your sleeping patterns and your galvanic skin response, as well as the number of steps taken. These five metrics are then fed into the company’s algorithm and spit out a more accurate, more granular picture of your overall health. We didn’t get down into the nitty gritty of what exactly they mean by “health”, but the fact that they track five metrics as opposed to two (three if you actually bother to put the Fitbit on your wrist to sleep), makes the Basis a more compelling product in my eyes.

It doesn’t currently connect to the cloud through Bluetooth, though that’s in the works. It’s a USB affair for now. And it’s $200 on pre-order, with shpping sometime in Q2.

[ Product Page ]

By David Ponce

To borrow Greg Giraldo’s words, we live during an obesity epidemic. An epidemic! And as some astute readers might have noticed, consumer electronics manufacturers are jumping at the opportunity to help you combat the cheese cakes and fried chicken with a bevy of gadgets. We personally took a look at the FitBit, a small plastic device which tracks your every step and reports online. It was a great little device, but it was only able to tell you how much you walked and how many steps you took. Now, thinking heads at the University of Pittsburgh claim to have developed a similar gadget, but one that one-ups all the others by being able to automatically record what you eat, where you’ve been, how long you sat your bum in front of the TV or a computer, how long you were outside, which restaurants you visited and what you ordered. It’s called the eButton and represents the end of the era of self-accountability. We’re not entirely sure just how it goes about determining your calorie intake automatically, but Mingui Sun, lead investigator and Pitt professor of neurosurgery and electrical and computer engineering, says the eButton uses “cameras, GPS and an array of other sensors” for the task. We bet they’re using Mechanical Turk.

In any case, the eButton is not ready for prime-time as it’s in the middle of a study to determine if it actually, you know, works properly.

[ Press Release ] VIA [ Medgadget ]

By David Ponce

It goes without saying that getting fit and leading a healthy lifestyle is hard, not only physically but also psychologically. Staying motivated is probably the most difficult aspect of it, so every little bit of help counts. For us geeks, something like the Fitbit Ultra is great since it gives us an easy way to track and graph how we’re doing. It’s a tiny device that you attach to your clothing and which logs your every movement: how many steps you take, how many floors you climb, even how soundly you sleep. It then beams all this information to a server and packages the data in ways that make it fun and interesting and more importantly, useful.

I’ve been using the device for the past week or so and have come away fairly impressed. For all the details, hit the jump.

The Device
The Fitbit is appropriately small: about the size of an average thumb but flatter. It’s in the shape of a “U” so that it can clip onto your clothing but it also comes with a separate holster should your belt be too thick, etc. It is very light (11.34 grams) and it’s easy to forget you’re even wearing it. Battery life is excellent as it appears to be able to work for about 3 days without a charge. There is only one button on it, and the display dims when not in use. The one button is used for cycling through the various things it tracks, namely: number of steps taken that day, number of floors climbed, number of calories burned, distance traveled and overall activity level (displayed as a plant of varying length). It contains a precision 3-axis accelerometer and altimeter.

The base station connects to your computer via USB and consists of a hidden Bluetooth receptor and a small plastic tab that the Fitbit clips onto for charging. The uploading of data is done automatically, wirelessly, whenever you’re in range; it’s not necessary to dock the Fitbit for this purpose. If you are away from your computer for an extended period of time, it will store up to 7 days of data in its memory.

The Service
When you start using the Fitbit, you have to do an initial setup. It’s a straightforward process where you enter your gender, age and weight and create an account. Once this is done you will have access to a tremendous amount of things that you can do with the data the Fitbit gathers. For one, it will graph your activity daily and provide you with incredible granularity when manipulating the ways in which you view it. For instance you can pick any particular day and see a breakdown of calories burned, steps taken and floors climbed every 5 minutes! In the picture above you can see that I burned 37 calories between 5:00pm and 5:05pm on Friday October 14 (click to enlarge).

You are also awarded badges as a way to help you stay motivated. This is similar to what Foursquare and other services do, turning a mundane activity into a game of sorts. Badges I’ve earned so far include walking 20,000 steps in a day, climbing 25 floors in a day and walking 50 miles since tracking began. What’s more, you can compare your progress to your friend’s and that of the entire Fitbit community. This introduces a competitive aspect to staying fit and helps make the tedious a little more fun.

The Fitbit service is quite comprehensive and immensely useful. But it can also be time consuming. You are provided with the ability to enter all the foods you eat and track calorie intake. You can also track your weight, your mood, your heart rate, blood pressure, glucose levels, and keep a journal. Of course entering all this data is done manually as the only automatic entry is the one from the Fitbit device itself. This takes time and quite frankly, I never used it.

Finally, you can keep an eye on how well you sleep. There’s a soft wristband included with a pouch for the Fitbit. Put it into “sleep mode” and it will tell you how often you were awake and how long you slept.

Conclusion
There’s no question the Fitbit adds a geeky, and useful dimension to staying fit. To be able to get feedback on ones activity level in such a compelling and engaging way goes a long way towards keeping you moving. You might take the stairs instead of the elevator, or walk the three blocks to the convenience store instead of taking the car. It’s easy to become complacent and not notice how little you actually move. Fitbit however will gladly show you your activity flatline and push you to outdo yourself. It goes without saying that there needs to be a desire to get fit in the first place, but given that, this little gadget gives you a new array of tools to help you in that quest.

The Fitbit’s strength is that it’s completely automated: wear it and forget it. But the data entry in the dashboard, aside from that directly related to wearing the device, is not. This is a small weakness with the whole thing. I would have liked, for example, to see integration with the Withings scale which also automates the process of logging and tracking your weight.

But for $99, you get plenty of features and access to a great service that will undeniably make your efforts at staying fit a little bit more fun.

PROS
+ Small and lightweight
+ Good battery life
+ Wear it and forget it
+ Extensive activity and lifestyle tracking dashboard

CONS
- Data entry is time consuming
- Not integrated with other products

If you have questions, have at it in the comments.

[ Fitbit ]

With a device called a PowerWheel attached to my bike I’d expect to be easily pedalling my way up steep mountain courses, or even towing cars out of ditches. But instead of making your ride easy, the PowerWheel is designed to do just the opposite. It’s a complete wheel designed to replace the standard one on your bike while you train. And thanks to a specially engineered hub, pedalling, even at slower speeds on a level road, becomes far more strenuous.

As to how strenuous is up to you, since the PowerWheel can be adjusted between 7 different levels of resistance, or completely disengaged when you’ve had enough. It’s even clever enough to automatically disengage when you’re riding slower than 6mph so the bike is easier to handle at slower speeds. And the same happens above 30mph, to prevent the resistance mechanism from overheating. Pricing and availability are still TBA, though, a simpler version known as the SlowWheel will also be available. While it only has 3 resistance settings, it’s also designed to be more affordable for those not training for the next Ironman race.

[ PowerWheel ] VIA [ Gizmag ]

I’m just as un-keen on exercise and work as the next… well… everybody. So picking off these two birds with one stone is always the dream. Our desk-based work days have been blamed for their fair share of our oft-lamented ‘sedentary lifestyles’, and solutions like those office-chair-bouncy-ball-thingys don’t suit everyone’s tastes. (*Rubs tailbone*) We’ve probably also all seen other uber-fit solutions like working at a computer while walking on a treadmill. But doing that for 8 hours straight can be grueling at best, and a safety hazard at worst.

Enter the FitDesk. It’s an exercise bike with a usable desk attached where you’d normally find the handlebars. You’re technically still sitting and working while using it, but you’re also pedaling, building muscle and burning calories throughout the day. With a treadmill workstation, when you decide to stop walking you’re either left standing and working for hours at a time, or risk admitting that you’ve abandoned yet another exercise endeavor. But when you take a break with the FitDesk, you’re still comfortably seated, leaving you plenty of endurance to keep exercising and building up the strength to eventually win the rat race. (Or at least place respectfully.)

The resistance of the pedaling can be adjusted for a more intense workout as desired, and the whole unit folds up so it can be stashed away in a closet if used at home. Unfortunately I don’t see a way to secure the laptop, which is a little worrisome given it sits perched pretty high, and an untimely fall from your sweaty hands could easily be its demise. I guess that’s where duct tape and bungee cords come in. It’s also $229, which is kind of expensive for a pretty basic exercise bike. Even with a built-in ‘desk’.

[ FitDesk ] VIA [ 7Gadgets ]

Bikes designed for off-road trail riding feature thick tires and robust suspension systems to cushion the rider from all the bumps and vibrations they encounter. But road bikes, which are designed to be low-profile and light, are lacking such amenities. And unless you exclusively ride on a perfectly smooth track in a velodrome, you’re still going to encounter pot holes and other bumps on a road. The traditional bike design we all know and love features a triangular rear frame, which unfortunately is quite effective at transferring vibrations and bumps from the road to the rider. Which can lead to fatigue and soreness. So inventor Lou Tortola (who hails from my hometown) started to rethink the traditional road bike design.

What he came up with was a pretty simple, but radical improvement on their design. Instead of keeping the bike’s overall diamond geometry, he replaced the rear part of the frame with a set of circular rings. It changes nearly nothing about how the bike goes together or how it operates, but has a dramatic effect on how it rides. With the RoundTail frame, vibrations and shocks from the road are transferred to the two metal circles, where the energy follows along their circumference until dissipated. Instead of traveling up to the rider. In tests, the RoundTail frame has been found to absorb 60 times more vibrations from the road than a standard frame, allowing riders to spend more time riding before they start feeling any discomfort.

[ Tortola RoundTail Bike Frame ] VIA [ Popular Science ]

Typically, the only way to get an accurate measurement of your pulse while exercising was to have a monitor strapped to your chest, which was then connected to some kind of display for monitoring your performance. But Scosche’s new myTREK does away with the chest strap, instead moving it to your forearm where it’s more comfortable to wear. It’s also completely wireless, connecting to your iPhone or iPod over Bluetooth (with a range of ~30 feet) feeding information about your pulse and motion to an accompanying free myTREK app.

And it’s that app that will probably make the myTREK system appealing to persons who are very serious about their physical fitness. Besides displaying your pulse, the app also tracks everything from calories burned, distance run, speed and pace (when used with a GPS-equipped iPhone) over time. So you can go back and compare your results and stats to previous workouts to see how you’ve improved. And while exercising, the app even lets you set specific workout goals, like a target heart rate, complete with voice prompts letting you know how close you are to reaching it. Available now for $129.99.

[ Scosche myTREK ]

If netbook designers applied their miniaturization skills to bathroom scales, you’d end up with exactly this. An ultra portable digital scale for people who are worried about their weight, even when traveling or away on vacation. It’s got the smallest footprint of any step-on scale I’ve ever seen, though it makes me wonder if users have to stand on their toes for it to provide an accurate measurement. It has a maximum capacity of up to 330lbs, and your actual weight is displayed on a pop-out LCD screen. It’s just $29.99 from Infmetry too, who, like Sony with their original Vaio P Lifestyle PC, are trying to convince us that it’s easy to carry around in your back pocket.

[ Ultra Portable Digital Bathroom Scale ]

Exercise is an important part of being physically fit, and step counters are a useful way to ensure you’re getting enough physical activity in your life. But eating healthy is just as important, so two researchers from Clemson University have created a bite counter, which basically works like a pedometer for eating. Since there’s no impact when eating with utensils, the bite counter, which looks like a fairly mundane digital wristwatch, tracks the wrist-roll motion of someone eating with a fork or spoon to keep track of every bite they take.

The device, which can be easily started and stopped at the beginning and end of a meal, has been found to be more than 90% accurate when it comes to counting bites. But, the researchers still aren’t sure how it can be used to help with weight loss, given there’s currently no way to determine how many calories or what amount of food has been consumed in each bite. So the device will continue to be tested and used in additional research as to how this collected data can be used to benefit the eater. And if you’d like to help out, you can actually purchase one here for just $799.

[ PR - Clemson University researchers are making every bite count ] VIA [ CNET ]

Apparently just lifting dumbbells isn’t good enough any more. Like those crazy exercise belt-driven fitness contraptions of yesteryear, these BodyVib weights actually vibrate at 36Hz (or 2,160 vibrations/min) with an amplitude of 1.2mm, which is apparently more than enough to ‘intensify’ your training by up to 50%. The idea behind the vibrations is that it causes the muscles in your hands and arms to quickly contract and relax in response, burning more energy in a shorter period of time, and resulting in a longer afterburn time.

After a 30 to 50 minute charge (yep, it’s one more thing vying for power bar access) the dumbbells will vibrate for up to 2 1/2 hours. And to prolong the battery life they use a sensor to only start the vibration motor once you grab the handle. If it works as they claim I don’t see why everyone shouldn’t upgrade to vibrating weights… except for the price. Available in 3.3, 6 and 10 pound pairs, the BodyVib dumbbells sell for a whopping ~$1,060 (£649) to ~$1,190 (£729) on Pro-Idee.

[ BodyVib Vibrating Dumbbells ]