Newbie, trying to gather the data

Quantified Self Apps & Tools
#1

Hello, I have just found this forum so I didn’t start to explore everything yet, and feel a bit overwhelmed. (What an understatement LOL.)

For collectiong data I use various apps with their own mish mash of various dashboards (except samsung health that sadly has no web dashboard). I started exploring how to export data from each one of them with vague goal of having all of that in the same place.

Some of apps that I use (yet to be consolidated, just to give you a general idea)-
Apps that I use often:

  • Samsung health (i’m only testing the watch, don’t have mine own yet)
  • Fitbit for weight, and when Endomondo died I moved my history there (until i figure out what to do)
  • MindDoc, mood tracker and questionnaire
  • Dminder, where I started to track my d vit levels, d vit intake (and sunbathing in the future)
  • tody, list of households tasks

Apps that I used before and might use again

  • started to use Chronometer, it is promising but didn’t stick with that yet (food tracking is just too much work and i’m not measuring ketones any more)
  • used to use welltory daily before the update (didn’t try new version yet)
  • epilepsy journal, ketone levels, idea is to track meds&supplements there, along with various symptoms (customizable lists of events, triggers, symptoms)
  • silver crest (I have lidl fitness band and it actually works)
  • insight timer
  • rescue time

For the time being I’m only starting to learn how to export data and making sense of it.
What do you think about some access db free cloud tool to try to import data there for a start. And some tool to create dashboard from that, some free crystal reports alternative.
I mention those because I used to know how to use Access and Crystal Reports, and maybe Jira.

Thank you for any input, guidelines, links…

UpdateJan 2021:

  1. There are several apps (list of apps to be updated) that I am yet to figure out how to export data from, I asked support for some of them, hopefully someone will answer
  2. I tried openhuman and zenobase, the usage is not intuitive (read: don’t have a clue how to connect to my data)
  3. I don’t have ms excell etc. besides don’t want to have anly local files (what I managed to export from apps is in google drive)
  4. I can only do something with what I have (list of apps to be updated), so that is my next step - obviously for the time being I can’t start from what I want, but I can start what I can.
#2
#3

Do you already have specific questions in mind that you’d like to investigate, but can’t with your current setup?

1 Like
#4

Hi @ladybird,

I would start by giving yourself and stronger incentive to combine data from these multiple sources.

You could do this by first defining a metric that forces you to pull data from your multiple app sources into a single calculation. For example,.you define an indicator called “daily well score” and you compute it by applying some statistical function on your daily mood, work schedule, nutrition intake , exercise routine, sleep etc. The key is to first define your metric as well as the sources of data you need to enable it.

Next try to create a single aggregated dataset that allows you to compute your newly defined metric. In the “daily well score” example , you will want to create a tabular dataset that includes a column containing daily values from your data sources as well as a column to calculate your “daily well score”

Once you have defined the logic behind your metric, the sources of data to enable it, and the structure of the dataset to host the data you can now start creating that dataset from all your existing app sources . Your options here are to do it manually (error prone and time consuming ) or use software to reshape your app data exports so the data is pulled directly into your dataset. You could use Microsoft Excel with the Power Query plugin for this (it is a lot easier than it sounds ).

Finally with your dataset fully populated , you can use one of many self service analytics tools (e.g. Power BI from Microsoft ) to connect to your dataset and visualize the result.

Once you are happy with the result, you do it all over again - adding a new metric with more data from your app sources into your dataset and finally the visualization part.

Keep doing this and you will eventually get to a point of having a nice solution that lets your favorite apps continue doing what they do well, while offering a layer of insights on top of the app data that revels meaningful insight to you. Good luck!

Sergio

1 Like
#5

thank you for asking. I’m yet at initial phase of confusion. I didn’t plan to start with end result/purpose in mind (since I don’t know that yet), but to aggregate info I’m already measuring and start from there.
For the start I want to improve my energy and want to improve the basics: exercise, sleep, nutrition/supplements, hydration, mood/having fun/hobbies.

#6

Thank you! I know SQL, so that shouldn’t be an issue. I’m just searching for a freeware that let me keep my data in the cloud. Google spreadsheets look too basic, or I don’t know where to look.

#7

Thank you very much for the link. This sounds very promising unless the learning curve is too steep. I connected to 2 “projects”: fitbit history (although I use samsung health) and google location history.

  1. how can I see the data I connected and what can I do with it?
  2. how can I connect my other data sources that are not listed on projects page?