Low Friction Personal Data Collection @aaronpk • aaronparecki.com Quantified Self • San Francisco • October 2013
Low Friction Personal Data Collection - Quantified Self Global Conference 2013
Jan 15, 2015
Location, sleep and weight are the three things Aaron has managed to track consistently. Combining these data sources helped him learn new things about himself.
Presented at http://quantifiedself.com/conference/San-Francisco-2013/
Presented at http://quantifiedself.com/conference/San-Francisco-2013/
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Low FrictionPersonal
Data Collection
@aaronpk • aaronparecki.com
Quantified Self • San Francisco • October 2013
Things I track inconsistently
One photo every day – off and on since 2007
Bike Rides – Usually rides only > 1 mile – Strava
Heart Rate – During bike rides or other activities – Strava
Food I Eat – Aug 19-present – text file on my phone
Things I track consistently
Location: GPS (since 2008) iPhone
Location: Checkins (since 2009) Foursquare
Sleep (since November 2011) Jawbone UP
Weight (since October 2011) Withings Scale
@aaronpk
One decimal point of precision (about 5km)
City name
Local time and timezone
aaronparecki.com
Tracking My Location
Four decimal points of precision (within a block)
City name
Local time and timezone
Automatic reply to an SMS
Tracking My Location
Hardware GPS Logger (2007)
@aaronpk
Tracking My Location
GPS-Enabled Phone (2008-2009)
Tracking My Location
@aaronpk
Geoloqi for iPhone (2010-Present)
@aaronpk
Tracking My Location
@aaronpk
Stored in PostGIS
Queryable by timestamp or by area
Tracking My Location
Timezone API
Created with github.com/esri/Terraformer
curl http://api.example.com/?lat=45.5118&lng=-122.6433
{ status: "ok", timezone: "America/Los_Angeles"}
Tracking My Location
SMS Interface
Your Phone
Google Voice
Gmailnotification
of SMS
aaronparecki.com
You send me an SMS
Google Voice sends me an
email with the SMS
A Gmail filter catches it and
forwards it to my web server
then sends an email reply to the “from” address of
the SMS notification
Google Voice sends you an SMS
from my phone number
My web server retrieves my location data
* it would also be simpler to use Twilio for this, but I like that the SMSs are to and from my own number, hence the Google Voice round trip** if you have an Android, you can just use Tasker
Tracking My Location
@aaronpk
Publishing My Weight
aaronparecki.com/metrics
Tracking My Weight
Withings Wireless Scale – 2011-Present
@aaronpk
Tracking My Weight
Weight Data Flow
Withings Scale IFTTT
Gmailnotification
aaronparecki.com
Withings API reports to
IFTTT
IFTTT sends me an email with all the
data
A Gmail filter catches it and forwards it to my
web server and creates a new post
* the Withings API was too difficult to use directly, so I had to go through IFTTT as a proxy. I would love to find a simple Ruby/Sinatra or PHP app that someone else has written as a template!
Tracking My Weight
@aaronpk
Tracking My Weight
Withings Wireless Scale
Withings Wireless Scale
@aaronpk
GeoloqiAcquired
Tracking My Weight
Publishing My Sleep
Local time based on the timezone of my location
Includes city I slept in from my GPS data
aaronparecki.com/metrics
Tracking My Weight
Sleep Cycle App
Place your phone on your bed
Requires your phone to be plugged in
@aaronpk
Tracking My Weight
Original Fitbit
To track sleep, requires you wear it around your wrist
I was not able to sustain this because of the extra effort of using the wrist strap
Long button press to put into “Sleep” mode, gives visual feedback but no vibration (timer starts running)
@aaronpk
Tracking My Weight
Jawbone UP – 2011-Present
Always on my wrist, so I never forget about it
Battery lasts 8-10 days
Long button press to put into “Sleep” mode, gives visual and tactile feedback
@aaronpk
Tracking My Sleep
Sleep Logs
@aaronpk
Times are localized using location data
Timezone is found using Terraformer
Using a reverse geocoder to add City, State, Country
Tracking My Sleep
Sleep Logs by City
Tracking My Sleep
Sleep Logs by CityJetlag
SXSW
Tracking My Sleep
Sleep LogsNov 2011 – September 2013
Tracking My Sleep
Tracking My Sleep
Sleep LogsNov 2011 – September 2013
PrivateDatabase aaronparecki.comPublic
@aaronpk
Some patterns are only visible after looking at a
long-term dataset.
@aaronpk
I set up systems to passively collect data so that I have lots to work
with later!
@aaronpk
collect passively
analyze actively
@aaronpk • aaronparecki.com
Low Friction:
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