Logan Strain January 13th, 2017
The beauty of the wearable era is that you can track every fact about your life. Want to know what your heart rate was on Oct. 17 of last year? Just pull it up in an app. Curious whether your got more sleep this week or last week? The data is right there. Did your 5K time improve in the past month? You can know in seconds.
This is all nice, but it points to a deep problem: what exactly do you do with all that information? After all, all the data points in the world won’t help you if you can’t figure out what they tell you about your health and fitness.
People who develop fitness trackers sometimes call this the “signal and the noise” problem. You might be able to collect a huge amount of accurate data, but so what? That’s all noise unless you can distill into a clear, meaningful signal.
Related: The Frictionless Future Of Health And Fitness Wearables
Boltt, a fitness tracking company based in India, expects to solve that problem using their own ecosystem of wearables and software.
The Boltt system has three parts. First, users collect data through a traditional wrist-based tracker. Second, they collect additional data through sensors placed in shoes. The company will release its own line of running shoes to collect data such as stride length and cadence.
If you already have a favorite pair of sneakers, you can also slip a Boltt sensor in them.
Related: Under Armour’s MLB Partnership Could Usher In The Next Phase Of Wearables
The last component is the most intriguing, and what really sets Boltt apart from the multitude of fitness tracking options out there. All of the information you collect with the sensors is processed by an artificial intelligence called “B.” B reads your data and allegedly provides customized coaching and information about your performance. B relays this info to you through the companion app.
The app also tracks a person’s diet, helping inform the user how their food impacts their overall health. Boltt’s current database has around 8 million food items that a person can log.
“Our triple-threat fitness systems have been demonstrated at CES for the first time. Our vision is to change the regular fitness regimes and upgrade it with a combination of new-age thinking and technology,” said Arnav Kishore, CEO and founder of Boltt Sports Technologies.
While users can choose to only use the wristband to track their activity, combining the wristband with the shoe trackers provides more accurate and and sophisticated fitness intelligence.
Related: Bragi Wants To Change How You Interact With Technology
A representative for Boltt said that the company is working on providing users with more sleep data than other trackers typically provide. For example, Boltt expects the tracker to tell users exactly how long it takes them to actually fall asleep after they lie down. The software allegedly uses both movement and heart rate to distinguish between a person who is asleep and someone who is reclining, but fully conscious.
According to Boltt, it’s vital to provide customized information and coaching, since everyone has their own particular fitness obstacles and goals. That’s why the system is able to account for disability, allergy, and other factors that might shape a person’s fitness habits.
Boltt’s ambition is sky-high. The company not only wants to help fitness-minded people make better decisions about their health, but it also wants to solve lifestyle diseases caused by a sedentary lifestyle and poor diet. Boltt’s goal is to harness artificial intelligence to give everyone the customized information and guidance they need to be healthier.
While Boltt has long been in development, we’ll soon get to see if AI can give the activity tracking system an edge in a crowded fitness wearable market. The company expects to launch its wrist tracker, shoes, shoe tracker, and app in the next 30 to 45 days.
Tell Us What You Think