Automatic Activity Logger

I carry my phone around in my pocket most of the time. If I could log data from my phone constantly (probably from the accelerometer), is there something out there that would let me analyse the data to work out what I was doing during the day? Eg. walking, running?

Does anyone already do this?

Check out the Sense OS stuff, it does automatic classification based on accelerometer data: http://www.sense-os.nl/home

This is an interesting platform. It seems like they’ve got a lot of features, but it’s not very good at activity classification. The only thing it tells me is whether I am sitting or standing.

I can see it being used for logging other data though, do you find it useful?

Beau, thanks for the tip. I just signed up and downloaded their iOS app. I noticed their app had no reviews, I wonder if this is a relatively new offering?

I’d be curious to see any tracking projects others have done with this.

@ratelimited

We at QS shanghai are having a project right now aimed at automatic activity logging 24/7.
our first stage is to utilize the GPS data to help recognize our daily location pattern.
We’ll test it with several users and add other sensor/metrics into it.

Myself had been doing 24/7 timelogging for the past 600 days or so.
basicly using apps like atimelogger2, whenever switch task I’ll checkin with
the app. the benefit is that I can look at my time spent data and make appropriate
ajustments. the problem is it’s way too hard! I am quite strong in form habits while
this take me years to form. That’s the reason I’m determined to make this kind of logging
automatic, I know it’s a long way to go given current technology, but we’ll keep doing it until our vision can be reached.

any suggestions are welcomed.

BTW, we are looking for UI designer to help on the project.

Regards,
Twinsen

Hi Twinsen

Gary Wolf here, QS Founder. I think these kinds of projects are really interesting and important. I would love to know more about how it goes - do consider posting updates and beta invitations here.

As for a UX designer, I think it would help if you made a web page for the project and described your plan, with a little bit about who is involved. Then if this thread creates interest potential collaborators will have something to look at.

Good luck at QS Shanghai, don’t forget to keep us updated on your meetings and talks.

Gary

For those with Android you may want to also check out the Funf framework.

Sense-os app is no longer available in the Apple app store.

I emailed Jan Peter Larsen of Sense-OS; here’s his reply:

Ok, I thought we managed to solve this issue. We had a problem recently when we made some minor change on the iPhone app, and it wasn’t available in Germany as well. I will ask the technical guys tomorrow asap. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for the feedback!

Hi there! We just launched an iPhone app that does some (if not most) of the things you talked about in your post. It’s called WHIB (Where Have I Been) and we’d love your thoughts and feedback on the app if you have a chance to check it out.

Thanks!
Mayank


Hello!

Awesome work w/ the 24/7 timelogging for 600 days! That’s really fantastic to be able to have that kind of data. Would love to learn from you what has been useful and meaningful to take away from this data to influence your life/lifestyle.

We just launched an app (WHIB) in the AppStore. WHIB (Where Have I Been) automatically logs your activity as well as travel so long as there is data - no manual checkins required. Would love your feedback and thoughts given your expertise in the area.

Thank you!

Best,
Mayank


Here are some screenshots from WHIB App that should give folks an idea of what we track and how we present it.

Data from about ~120 days.

Has anybody tried this keylogger for the Mac? (Found via Victor Pascual’s twitter feed.)

I could offer some UX help if you’d like

For activity logging, including phone-based sensors, social communication, self-annotation and much more, we have developed the AIRS platform (available in the Android Playstore). You can configure what to record and configure many settings. The logging can be started through a shortcut on the launcher screen and is visible in the notification bar. It constantly records (what you specified) and you can also use ‘templates’ to switch recording profiles (e.g., recording different data in different situations). All data is stored in an internal SQlite database. There is an external desktop Java app that can read the text-based sync files of AIRS and writes them into a desktop mySQL database for any further processing.

As a companion app, we have also released Storica in the Playstore. Storica mines the SQlite database and visualises the data. Apart from timelines and tag clouds, we have developed ‘digital stories’ as a concept to focus on ‘key events’ throughout the day, such as social communication or the self-annotations you provided yourself. Each story event includes a panel with context information, abstracted through simple icons (behind each icon, you can retrieve the data by clicking on it, opening a detailed visualisation).

We are also working on a desktop-based companion app that can also include more data (e.g., from your desktop itself) in addition to the mobile data that you sync. This software will soon be launched as a kickstarter (crowd-funded) project - so more about this then.

It would be great if you could give AIRS and Storica a shot. We are particularly interested in improving the visualisations, both at the detailed level (e.g., adding more than timelines and tag clouds) but also at the higher level (e.g., providing more flexible story creation). Any suggestion is very welcome.

Hi Mayank,

Nice work done! I’ve used WHIB for a while, it’s good for logging physical activity , however during my time-event logging (1200+ day now),
I found the automatic function is very tricky to implement , since many activity is only recognizable by the owner himself, like reading a book,
Writing a book , making plan, brain storm an idea, etc. I believe a physical tag based system could be the way to go , but haven’t have the bandwidth
To explore that.

Cheers,
Twinsen