SB Quantified Self Meetup (3/13) - Basis Band B1 Review by John Gomm

1. Basis Band B1 Review
By John Gomm
Sensors:
Heart-rate (thru skin)
Steps (accelerometer)
Skin Temp (back pins)
Perspiration (back pins)
Calories (algorithm)

2. Summary
● Promising start for product
● Hardware works decently
● Feedback loop too slow
● NEED Reminders, notifications
● NEED to free data for local analysis
● No behavior changes for me
● Probably wrong timing for me (baby)
● Only three months in

3. The Good:
● Easy to wear 24/7 (minus charging times)
● Pretty comfortable
● Stylish (lots of compliments)
● Good battery life (4-5 days)
● Auto backlight mostly useful, sometimes (in
bed) mildly annoying.
● Charges fairly quickly (an hour?).
● Gamification via "achievements" style "habits"
that get you points to unlocking new habit slots.

4. The Mediocre
● General Basis Website is disorganized and
difficult to find wanted info (pdf manual etc)
● Community forums full of good suggestions and
questions, but light on feedback by company
reps.
● Data visualization site is click heavy, difficult to
use on a touch interface and offers limited
mining options.
● Company obscures how calorie data is
calculated.

5. What I learned about me:
● Burn 2500-3100 calories per day.
● Walk 5K to 8K steps weekdays
● 2K to 4K at weekends, Sunday low step day.
● Sleep is often interrupted and I get less than 8
hours if I go to bed later than 10pm.
● I count as 'active' for between 1 and 3 hours
per day, Sunday being a low activity day.
● Not really changed my behaviors in response to
Basis, partly due to baby making me tired and
busy and partly due to delayed feedback loop.

6. Shortcomings:
● Feedback loop is delayed
● Phone apps not released yet
● Bluetooth uploading is not enabled yet, even for
laptop use.
● Basic app shouldn't have been too hard, just to
get daily feedback, then work on app features
later.
● Product seems well baked, data site not so
much.

7. Gamification: Habits

8. Gamification: Habits
● Wear it - first Habit and default on.
● Don't Be A Sitter - during "work hours" (can't change timeframe)
● Move It - be active for 30 mins (total, not in one block)
● Torch More Calories - daily total calorie burn
● Get More Sleep - total sleep
● Regular Rising - points if up within 30mins(?) of target
● Step it Up - daily total steps target
● Consistent Bedtime - points if asleep within 30mins(?) of target
● Morning Lap – e.g. 2K steps before noon
● Afternoon Lap - e.g. 2K steps before 5pm
● Evening Lap - e.g. 2K steps after 5pm

9. Gamification
● Points towards a new Habit is a decent driver at the start
● Fades quite quickly.
● Points cost for next Habit increases exponentially
● Does ramp a little by starting at 2+ days then bumps up to 4+
days and 5+days when you start meeting the previous level.
● Steps Target displayed on watch is longer lasting incentive
because instant feedback.
● SUGGEST: Somehow using points to get competitive with
friends or yourself might last longer.
● SUGGEST: When you meet target regularly, prompt to
challenge yourself to increase e.g. steps by 1000, calories by
100 etc.

10. Insights
Too verbose/sprawled

11. Pattern Visualization

12. Pattern Visualization
● Colorful
● Useful?
● Scale too limited?
● Limited to two weeks, so comparing the last five
Mondays difficult.

13. Data Detail

14. Step to Calorie Correlation?

15. Data Detail
● Decent looking charts
● Compare 2 logs (out of five)
● No obvious correlation between steps and
calories. Puzzling considering tenets
● Gaps when strap comfy. Tight strap, fewer gaps
● Very active = more gaps (arm hair?)
● Long term data mining is difficult
● Data are locked in their site and display format.
● Correlation with other tracking (mood, weight,
food log) not possible or tedious.

16. Advice for Model 2
● Hardware: Vibrate to move, wake up etc.
● Hardware: Better display contrast.
● Site: Data download for local mining/correlation.
Otherwise long term data will be lost to user.
● Software: Tight smartphone feedback for short
loop - phone vibrates/notification if you need to
take a walk this evening to meet step goals etc
● Software: Widget featuring condensed report of
successes and unmet goals.

17. Website Improvements
● Trends need to extend past a week
● Sleep trends, daily activity, daily calorie burn etc
could be easily charted back to when I first
started on one screen (three months)
● I have to visit thirteen pages and manually
extract the numbers if I want that info charted.

18. Summary
● Promising start for product
● Hardware works decently
● Feedback loop too slow
● NEED Reminders, notifications
● NEED to free data for local analysis
● No behavior changes for me
● Probably wrong timing for me (baby)
● Only three months in