What to do with the data that the band has collected?

[slyronit]

Microsoft advertises on its website - actionable insights for healthier living.

Frankly, after a couple of days of gawking at my heart rate and sleep data, I am getting a bit bored now. What are these actionable insights advertised on the MS website?

It tells me what my heartrate has been throughout the day, but it doesn't tell me if that is normal (for that particular activity) or not. It doesn't tell me if the amount of restful sleep vs total sleep I am getting is normal/adequate or not.

In short, I see loads of RAW data, but don't know what to do with it. Isn't Microsoft Health supposed to show me useful things?

 

[realwarder]

They have not put the Microsoft Health website live yet which reportedly will do stuff like that.

In the meantime, your data is being collected.

Let's face it, until you have uploaded a bunch of data it's hard to correlate anything from it anyway.

 

[DroidUser42]

MS Health advertises it connects to HealthVault. From what I gather, that isn't in place yet. So maybe that's yet to come as well.

 

[dwlovell]

Almost all fitness trackers are useful only when you use them for trend analysis. There is some novelty to knowing immediately what your resting HR is or what your HR peaks are, but the really valuable insight is when you try to step up your workout regime or change things up, you can see how those changes affect what you come to know as your "default" state.

For example, your resting heart rate should generally go down the more in shape you are. So if you have a resting HR of 80, you might set a goal to get it to 70 or 60. You can tailor a cardiovascular fitness plan and monitor how that is affecting you.

The same is true for exercise intensity. Lets say you have plateaued on a given exercise and your HR doesn't go as high as you would like to maximize your workout. You might change to a different set of exercises and get confirmation that your change had the desired effect, etc.

 

[slyronit]

MS Health advertises it connects to HealthVault. From what I gather, that isn't in place yet. So maybe that's yet to come as well.

That's the strange part. I have already been using healthvault to store my family's health data and even though the app has sections for activity etc., the Microsoft health data doesn't show up there. Not to mention that the msn health and fitness app has its own data

 

[DroidUser42]

I have to admit I was thrown at first - I thought MS Health and HealtVault was the same thing. I think HeatlhVault is more like a doctor's medical record while Health is more consumer oriented. So I can see Health and HealthVault being separate but sharing aggregate data.

OTOH, it seems like MSN Health and MS Heath play in the same space, so it would make sense that they have data in common with MSN Health being the web app and MS Health being the smartphone app. At least that's how I'd do it if I were in charge.

But there might be some structural issues with MSN's past and where Health is going.