Low Friction Personal
Data Collection
@aaronpk • aaronparecki.com Open Source Bridge • June 2013
Things I track consistently
¡ Location: GPS (since 2008)
¡ Location: Checkins (since 2009)
¡ Sleep (since November 2011)
¡ Weight (since October 2011)
¡ Car Gas Fillups (2008-2011)
¡ Bike Rides (since 2013)
¡ Steps / Activity (since November 2011)
@aaronpk
Things I track consistently
¡ Location: GPS (since 2008) Geoloqi iPhone app
¡ Location: Checkins (since 2009) Foursquare
¡ Sleep (since November 2011) Jawbone Up
¡ Weight (since October 2011) Withings Scale
¡ Car Gas Fillups (2008-2011) Homegrown DB via SMS
¡ Bike Rides (since 2013) Strava + Wahoo Bike & Heart Rate
¡ Steps / Activity (since November 2011) Jawbone, Fitbit
@aaronpk
Things I track inconsistently ¡ One photo every day – off and on since 2007
¡ Heart Rate – During bike rides or other activities
¡ Food I Eat – Usually only for 3-4 days at a time
Location: GPS 2008 - Present
@aaronpk
Hardware GPS Logger (2007)
@aaronpk
GPS-Enabled Phone (2008)
@aaronpk
Geoloqi on an iPhone
@aaronpk
@aaronpk
Why do I keep using it? ¡ Requires very little effort to maintain
¡ I use the raw location to add context to other types of records (e.g. sleep) ¡ I can turn any timestamp into a location
Location: Checkins 2009 - Present
@aaronpk
Foursquare Checkins
@aaronpk
Checkie: One-click Checkins
@aaronpk
Checkin History
@aaronpk
Why do I keep using it? ¡ Requires little effort to maintain
¡ The tidbits from Foursquare are fun to see! ¡ “It’s been 6 months since you’ve last checked in
here”
¡ “11 weeks in a row at the Portland Airport!”
¡ “Six weeks since you last checked in with Turoczy!”
¡ To get accurate venue data, need a manual step. Can’t be done reliably automatically.
Gas Fillups 2008 - 2011
@aaronpk
Simple SMS Interface
@aaronpk
Simple SMS Interface
@aaronpk
odometer
gallons
dollars
Fillups
Why was this successful? ¡ Minimal & forgiving interface
¡ SMS from my phone
¡ numbers could be sent in any order (mileage, gallons, price) and it would figure out which is which
Sleep Nov 2011 - Present
@aaronpk
Sleep Cycle App
¡ Place your phone on your bed
¡ Requires your phone to be plugged in
¡ Can wake you up at an appropriate time
@aaronpk
Fitbit
¡ Tracks steps, activity, and sleep
¡ To track sleep, requires you wear it around your wrist
¡ I was not able to sustain this because of the extra effort of using the wrist strap
¡ Button tap to put into “Sleep” mode, gives visual feedback (timer starts running)
@aaronpk
Jawbone UP
¡ Always on my wrist, so I never forget about it
¡ Battery lasts 8-10 days
¡ Alarm wakes up only me since it buzzes my arm silently
¡ Button tap to put into “Sleep” mode, gives visual and audio feedback
@aaronpk
Sleep Logs
@aaronpk
¡ Times are localized using location data from Geoloqi
¡ Timezone is found using Terraformer github.com/Esri/Terraformer
¡ Using a reverse geocoder to add City, State, Country
Publishing Sleep Logs
With
Mic
rofo
rma
ts!
http://aaronparecki.com/metrics/2013/06/19/072804/
http://aaronparecki.com/metrics/2013/06/19/072804.json
Sleep Logs Nov 2011 – June 2013
Sleep Logs Nov 2011 – June 2013
Sleep Logs by City
Sleep Logs by City Jetlag
SXSW
Weight Oct 2011 - Present
@aaronpk
@aaronpk
Withings Wireless Scale
@aaronpk
Withings Wireless Scale
@aaronpk
Withings Wireless Scale Geoloqi
Acquired
Bike Rides Since June 2013
@aaronpk
Experimental
Wahoo Blue SC
¡ Attaches to bike frame and wheel
¡ Measures speed and cadence @aaronpk
Wahoo Blue HR
Strava iPhone App
¡ GPS, Bike Speed, Heart Rate @aaronpk
Steps / Activity Since November 2011
@aaronpk
Experimental
Fitbit
¡ Tracks steps, activity, and sleep
¡ Step count
¡ Pro: syncs wirelessly when near base station
¡ Con: not immediately visible since it’s on my hip, not my wrist
@aaronpk
Jawbone UP
¡ Always on my wrist, so I never forget about it
¡ Battery lasts 8-10 days
¡ Pro: simple and light
¡ Con: no display, must sync by plugging in to phone
@aaronpk
Nike FuelBand
¡ Battery lasts 8-10 days
¡ Pro: Bright LED display, syncs via Bluetooth LE
¡ Con: Fuel number is opaque
@aaronpk
Step Count Comparison
836 Steps 941 Steps 790 Steps
@aaronpk
Why experimental? I have not yet found a good way to:
¡ normalize and store the data
¡ share the data on my website
@aaronpk
SmartThings Since June 2013
@aaronpk
Experimental
SmartThings
¡ Dead simple home automation
¡ Presence, motion, door locks, more @aaronpk
SmartThings
¡ Get alerts when ¡ a door is opened
¡ there is motion in a room
¡ Turn on and off lights
¡ Set up rules to do combinations of things
¡ Temperature logging
@aaronpk
Where does it go?
@aaronpk
Currently: PESOS
¡ indiewebcamp.com/PESOS
¡ Content is created in third-party services
¡ Using feeds, webhooks, content is pulled into my own database
¡ Content is then normalized, correlated, and published on my site
Publish Elsewhere, Syndicate to your Own Site
@aaronpk
Database .md files in Git
aaronparecki.com
Public
Ideal: POSSE
¡ indiewebcamp.com/POSSE
¡ Content is created in my own infrastructure
¡ Syndicate to third-party services for the benefits they provide (social sharing, analytics, etc)
Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere
@aaronpk
Database .md files in Git
aaronparecki.com
Public
iPhone
Home Sensors
Personal Server
Body Sensors
@aaronpk
Things I Want to Track But have not yet been able to for various reasons
@aaronpk
Food and drink I consume
@aaronpk
Stress level
@aaronpk
What people I am with at any given time
@aaronpk
Who I've communicated with
each day
@aaronpk
General noise level around me at all times
@aaronpk
Ambient sound recordings with transcriptions
@aaronpk
Ambient photo/video recording
@aaronpk
Other Low Friction Tools
@aaronpk
Sheet-fed Scanner
@aaronpk
One-button scan to Dropbox
@aaronpk
Eye-Fi Camera Card
@aaronpk
Photos uploaded automatically to Flickr from wifi connections
Nest Thermostat
¡ Simple Interface (turn right, left, press down)
¡ Can be controlled from your phone @aaronpk
Pebble Smart Watch
Displays text messages so I can avoid looking at my phone except to respond
@aaronpk
Low Friction:
If I can’t use it, then probably nobody else will either
@aaronpk
Thanks
Aaron Parecki
@aaronpk
aaronparecki.com
indiewebcamp.com
June 22-23, 2013