[hunvreus]

The best interface is no interface. Don't get me wrong, I find the work you do stunning and well thought through. But I fail to see any actionable value in it.

I could see down the line how measuring continuously vital signs and blood work could help us detect or prevent illnesses or risky behaviors, but the complexity of its analysis will demand something a lot more intuitive than a dashboard. As of now though, these are all vanity metrics, just as useful as tracking the number of visitors landing on your front page.

I appreciate the car analogy, but if you car were as well designed as your body, you would not need a dashboard. Getting more sleep, controlling your food intake, getting more exercise, drinking less... It doesn't take a dashboard to know when you should act on it; your body let you know naturally. You get fat, tire easily, yawn, feel like your overate.

Knowing what to do isn't the hard part, your mom probably told you everything you should be doing since you were able to take your own decisions ("Don't stay up late", "Go play outside", "Eat your greens"). But as pretty as our tool is, I see this as useful as the tons of gadgets and fancy sport gears I see people wearing at the gym: a palliative which distracts us from the real hard work.

[mahyarm]

During a stressful 4-6 months of college, a girlfriend who took up baking, moving countries and getting a new job I gained 40 lbs. Part of the reason why I gained so much so fast is because my scale was lost, I wore loose clothing and I was too busy to buy another scale. It took a year or two of on and off dieting to lose it all.

That is why you want these kinds of metrics, because shit like this can sneak up on you. And losing weight is way more work than gaining weight, at least for me.

[refik]

You still have to not lose your scale.

[sickrumbear]

I don't quite understand why you're being so dismissive of this. By this logic, a scale doesn't have much actionable value because its just telling you your weight, its not getting you to lose any. Of course all the 'real hard work' still needs to get done, but a dashboard like this gives you a tool to visualize state and progress to help direct your 'real hard work' effectively. Personally, I think there's a lot of value in that.

[losteric]

I agree that this isn't terribly useful as-is, but I think it's part of a grander vision. It's a step towards the actionable product, following the trend of other analytic tools:

1.) Show the data - This is all about selling people on collecting data and using the tool. Example: this product, or any other plain dashboard.

2.) Push actionable data - This is about training people to delegate decisions to the tool. Example: Reminding you to sleep earlier if you chronically undersleep, suggesting an evening jog to wind down from too-much-caffeine.

3.) Act on the data - Customers completely delegate the problem space to your product. Example: Placing Prime orders for food based on your fitness goals, proactively buying melatonin if you take too long to fall asleep, etc.

I don't know what the owner's vision is, but right now it's a very "Dribbble-pretty" product... from the experience and utility perspective, it's still a classic dashboard.

There's nothing wrong with that though! I really like the tool and hope to see it when it hits the more advanced features. But for now... Kibana is my persona-data dashboard.

[purpled_haze]

Where the value comes in is when everyone is using it, then you can do analysis on the massive amounts of data produced.

I enjoy seeing projects like this though, because it means people are analyzing data. Without that, we aren't learning much.

Good job, Anand!

[edelans]

You are talking about the value for the app owner, but the debate seems to be about the value created for the user !

[jlgaddis]

Ok, so this tool isn't for you. That's fine. It's not for me, either, so I closed the tab and moved on. Maybe you don't see the point but obviously it scratches an itch for the author.