Designs are sacrificing accuracy. Be skeptical of new devices

Quantified Self Design
1

Sleeker designs in some of the new QS devices is see being promoted, especially those on sites like Kickstarter, lead one to be highly skeptical of their accuracy.

Some people think accuracy is not that big a deal, but it will become more important as QS devices look deeper into what is going on inside our bodies. You need good algos for that.

I posted a simple thought experiment with lots of pretty graphs on my blog that illustrates this.

Be skeptical of some of these new devices, and lets take accuracy seriously.

2

The link in Robert’s comment is to his excellent blog post on his site “biotinker,” and I’m relinking with different link text to be a bit more transparent and also more easily searchable: QUANTIFIED SELF ALGORITHMS ARE NOT EASY: A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT.

Thanks Robert for posting here.

3

Reporting some kind of score rather than a verifiable measurement (like a step count, or even the number of calories burned) does seem like a cop out, but “as long as the number is higher for more activity and lower for less activity, I’m happy”. I think that’s actually quite a high bar to set :slight_smile:

Kickstarter projects don’t get funding by setting realistic expectations; I hope that won’t lead to a backlash.

5

I’m not sure that we have to be more skeptical as far as accuracy goes when it comes to new designs. Understanding accuracy an issue for every device