7 ms·

To me this is an incredible milestone. Biometric feedback for health is a simple but effective way to extend lifespans and make people happier. A couple things

To me this is an incredible milestone. Biometric feedback for health is a simple but effective way to extend lifespans and make people happier. A couple things I predict are coming in the not too distant future: - Continuous feedback and monitoring of blood nutrition and glucose levels. - Continuous feedback of mood - A real life mood ring, if you will. - Mood data being correlated with your real life activity, guiding you towards things that make you genuinely happy and away from "empty calories" (Like mindlessly scrolling).

blakesterz 6y ago
- Continuous feedback and monitoring of blood nutrition and glucose levels. Is this currently possible without drawing blood? I know little about stuff in this area, but it does seem super useful if a watch was able to do stuff like this especially.
- skohan 6y ago
  Possibly with an implant?
- brentjanderson 6y ago
  Continuous glucose monitoring doesn't require a blood draw, but it isn't in a form that would work in a watch to my knowledge. I expect that Apple and others are heavily invested in cracking glucose monitoring on a watch like this. That unlocks a lot of possibilities for diabetics and non-diabetics alike. Levels is probably the closest thing to this right now: https://www.levelshealth.com/ https://www.levelshealth.com/ - There are other continuous glucose monitors, but the "smart" integrations with fitness tracking, etc. seem novel to me.
  - Shivetya 6y ago
    Freestyle Libre is a device you attach and replace every seven days. It can be read by a hand held patients get but there are apps for some features. Even it can be off and living with one you get used to where its going to be relative your actual level. So I doubt they will get far from that any time soon. The first company that can do it without puncturing the skin is going to have one helluva a market. How that is done, if that can be done, is still to be seen. Perhaps there is some other measurement not yet considered which can offer numbers.
- xnx 6y ago
  Verily (Google) tried contact lenses, but couldn't get it to work: https://blog.verily.com/2018/11/update-on-our-smart-lens-program-with.html https://blog.verily.com/2018/11/update-on-our-smart-lens-pro...
- theptip 6y ago
  There are teams/companies working on this and I believe the sensor patches are available, not aware of anyone making a wearable computer out of it (yet): https://sciencebeta.com/transdermal-glucose-measurement-patch/ https://sciencebeta.com/transdermal-glucose-measurement-patc...
mhh__ 6y ago
> Continuous feedback of mood That's very black mirror. Also, didn't facebook get busted basically manipulating feeds to see how they affect people emotionally?
- dfxm12 6y ago
  Busted has a few meanings. They were caught, yes, but faced no apparent penalty, either legal or user backlash.
- KukiAirani 6y ago
  Yeah these ideas always sound great in theory, but the privacy issues are immense. Apple however does seem like a company fully committed to privacy. Of course this is much easier for them as their business model is selling hardware and doesn't rely on selling your data to advertisers at all.
  - mhh__ 6y ago
    > Apple however does seem like a company fully committed to privacy. Trust but verify
- thelean12 6y ago
  I never understood why those in the tech industry were upset about that. They were doing A/B tests and were tracking sentiment. So what? How is that different than running an A/B test and tracking any other dimension? People were asking questions like "how many people died because facebook was manipulating their emotions?". What? Why can't we say that about any change ever? It seemed to only matter to people when they started looking at sentiment.
  - tmpz22 6y ago
    Think about it, they did experiments knowing negative sentiments like anger, fear, anxiety, sadness, despair were likely potential outcomes. They were so prepared for those negative outcomes to occur that they went out of their way to measure it. They did these experiments against thousands (millions?) of users.
Privacy846 6y ago
High-level feedback has already been invented, it’s called The News and most people are not helped by it. I could use some feedback about my sleep. Other than that though it sounds like a real nag.
- KukiAirani 6y ago
  There is an axis of high-level to low-level feedback in the sense of society (news) to individual (sleep). And there is another axis of high to low feedback in the sense of abstract (happiness) to concrete (heartrate). I believe you might be conflating these two axes, but you made me think about it and I think it's very interesting to consider.
skohan 6y ago
I am with you on glucose. I think real-time continuous blood oxygen would be another one.
- KukiAirani 6y ago
  Interesting, I hadn't thought about this one. I just looked it up and didn't realize that they already have an app for blood oxygen, though it isn't continuous: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211027 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211027
- nradov 6y ago
  Garmin smart watches have had continuous blood oxygen monitoring for some time now. But measuring at the wrist can never be as accurate as fingertip.
  - elric 6y ago
    Take their readings with a serious grain of salt. Even with the admonition "not as accurate as fingertip". Their readings are garbage. A random number generator does a better job of reading my SpO2. And I'm particularly pale. It's even worse on people with dark skin. I see absolutely no benefit in the pulox feature on my garmin watch.
    - nradov 6y ago
      Mine usually reads about 97%, which is probably close to right. But I haven't been able to test it at high altitude yet.
mcintyre1994 6y ago
Amazon’s creepy Halo wearable has what I think is constant mood detection through examination of your voice and machine learning. Search for Tone here: https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/introducing-amazon-halo-and-amazon-halo-band-new-service-helps https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-det...
- KukiAirani 6y ago
  Oh wow. Fascinating. These things always seem incredibly rosy in theory, but immediately take on dark undertones when you realize it's the big bad tech companies (/s - kind of) actually building it. I'll definitely check it out though, thanks for sharing.
  - Privacy846 6y ago
    > These things always seem incredibly rosy in theory, No, just dark in the beginning, the middle, and the end.
germinalphrase 6y ago
I would love to see constant hydration level monitoring.
- nradov 6y ago
  That has been tried. So far it doesn't work. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/11/lvls-hydration-sensor-rises-from-the-dead-gets-acquired.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/11/lvls-hydration-sensor-ri...
  - germinalphrase 6y ago
    Nevertheless, it would be a good goal. Hydration is critical in so many health and medical concerns.
maxerickson 6y ago
Wait, how does it measure genuine happiness?
throwaway2245 6y ago
> Biometric feedback for health is a simple but effective way to extend lifespans and make people happier. There's a current TikTok meme which approximates to: people linking Wii Fit calling them obese on a daily basis to their disordered eating and disordered relationship with exercise. It's not sure that notifying people that they have low cardio health will have any meaningful benefit to them.
- nradov 6y ago
  It really depends on the individual. Some people are highly motivated by a hard dose of reality. Others just get discouraged. I suspect that difference is due to having an internal versus external locus of control.

blakesterz 6y ago

- Continuous feedback and monitoring of blood nutrition and glucose levels. Is this currently possible without drawing blood? I know little about stuff in this area, but it does seem super useful if a watch was able to do stuff like this especially.

skohan 6y ago
Possibly with an implant?
brentjanderson 6y ago
Continuous glucose monitoring doesn't require a blood draw, but it isn't in a form that would work in a watch to my knowledge. I expect that Apple and others are heavily invested in cracking glucose monitoring on a watch like this. That unlocks a lot of possibilities for diabetics and non-diabetics alike. Levels is probably the closest thing to this right now: https://www.levelshealth.com/ https://www.levelshealth.com/ - There are other continuous glucose monitors, but the "smart" integrations with fitness tracking, etc. seem novel to me.
- Shivetya 6y ago
  Freestyle Libre is a device you attach and replace every seven days. It can be read by a hand held patients get but there are apps for some features. Even it can be off and living with one you get used to where its going to be relative your actual level. So I doubt they will get far from that any time soon. The first company that can do it without puncturing the skin is going to have one helluva a market. How that is done, if that can be done, is still to be seen. Perhaps there is some other measurement not yet considered which can offer numbers.
xnx 6y ago
Verily (Google) tried contact lenses, but couldn't get it to work: https://blog.verily.com/2018/11/update-on-our-smart-lens-program-with.html https://blog.verily.com/2018/11/update-on-our-smart-lens-pro...
theptip 6y ago
There are teams/companies working on this and I believe the sensor patches are available, not aware of anyone making a wearable computer out of it (yet): https://sciencebeta.com/transdermal-glucose-measurement-patch/ https://sciencebeta.com/transdermal-glucose-measurement-patc...

mhh__ 6y ago

> Continuous feedback of mood That's very black mirror. Also, didn't facebook get busted basically manipulating feeds to see how they affect people emotionally?

dfxm12 6y ago
Busted has a few meanings. They were caught, yes, but faced no apparent penalty, either legal or user backlash.
KukiAirani 6y ago
Yeah these ideas always sound great in theory, but the privacy issues are immense. Apple however does seem like a company fully committed to privacy. Of course this is much easier for them as their business model is selling hardware and doesn't rely on selling your data to advertisers at all.
- mhh__ 6y ago
  > Apple however does seem like a company fully committed to privacy. Trust but verify
thelean12 6y ago
I never understood why those in the tech industry were upset about that. They were doing A/B tests and were tracking sentiment. So what? How is that different than running an A/B test and tracking any other dimension? People were asking questions like "how many people died because facebook was manipulating their emotions?". What? Why can't we say that about any change ever? It seemed to only matter to people when they started looking at sentiment.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  Think about it, they did experiments knowing negative sentiments like anger, fear, anxiety, sadness, despair were likely potential outcomes. They were so prepared for those negative outcomes to occur that they went out of their way to measure it. They did these experiments against thousands (millions?) of users.

Privacy846 6y ago

High-level feedback has already been invented, it’s called The News and most people are not helped by it. I could use some feedback about my sleep. Other than that though it sounds like a real nag.

KukiAirani 6y ago
There is an axis of high-level to low-level feedback in the sense of society (news) to individual (sleep). And there is another axis of high to low feedback in the sense of abstract (happiness) to concrete (heartrate). I believe you might be conflating these two axes, but you made me think about it and I think it's very interesting to consider.

skohan 6y ago

I am with you on glucose. I think real-time continuous blood oxygen would be another one.

KukiAirani 6y ago
Interesting, I hadn't thought about this one. I just looked it up and didn't realize that they already have an app for blood oxygen, though it isn't continuous: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211027 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211027
nradov 6y ago
Garmin smart watches have had continuous blood oxygen monitoring for some time now. But measuring at the wrist can never be as accurate as fingertip.
- elric 6y ago
  Take their readings with a serious grain of salt. Even with the admonition "not as accurate as fingertip". Their readings are garbage. A random number generator does a better job of reading my SpO2. And I'm particularly pale. It's even worse on people with dark skin. I see absolutely no benefit in the pulox feature on my garmin watch.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Mine usually reads about 97%, which is probably close to right. But I haven't been able to test it at high altitude yet.

mcintyre1994 6y ago

Amazon’s creepy Halo wearable has what I think is constant mood detection through examination of your voice and machine learning. Search for Tone here: https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-details/introducing-amazon-halo-and-amazon-halo-band-new-service-helps https://press.aboutamazon.com/news-releases/news-release-det...

KukiAirani 6y ago
Oh wow. Fascinating. These things always seem incredibly rosy in theory, but immediately take on dark undertones when you realize it's the big bad tech companies (/s - kind of) actually building it. I'll definitely check it out though, thanks for sharing.
- Privacy846 6y ago
  > These things always seem incredibly rosy in theory, No, just dark in the beginning, the middle, and the end.

germinalphrase 6y ago

I would love to see constant hydration level monitoring.

nradov 6y ago
That has been tried. So far it doesn't work. https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/11/lvls-hydration-sensor-rises-from-the-dead-gets-acquired.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/11/lvls-hydration-sensor-ri...
- germinalphrase 6y ago
  Nevertheless, it would be a good goal. Hydration is critical in so many health and medical concerns.

maxerickson 6y ago

Wait, how does it measure genuine happiness?

throwaway2245 6y ago

> Biometric feedback for health is a simple but effective way to extend lifespans and make people happier. There's a current TikTok meme which approximates to: people linking Wii Fit calling them obese on a daily basis to their disordered eating and disordered relationship with exercise. It's not sure that notifying people that they have low cardio health will have any meaningful benefit to them.

nradov 6y ago
It really depends on the individual. Some people are highly motivated by a hard dose of reality. Others just get discouraged. I suspect that difference is due to having an internal versus external locus of control.