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danie10@squeet.me
Danie

India, the world’s largest smartwatch market, is getting new smart rings by BoAt and Noise, similar to Oura but likely cheaper

A silver smart ring showing LED sensors on inner side, and title above, LunaRing
Tech giants such as Apple, Samsung and Huawei have long focused on the wrist. It’s not the most comfortable option for everyone, and it can be challenging to maintain precise tracking through the wrist. Ensuring that your smartwatch fits snugly to obtain accurate data is crucial. A smart ring can be the great solution, however, provided you have the right size.

A finger has access to arteries, which a smartwatch could not reach, Mohit Kumar, founder and CEO of Ultrahuman, which counts iSeed, Steadview, Nexus Venture Partners and Blume among its key investors, told TechCrunch.

“If you go to any medical grade pulse oximetry devices, you put it on your finger. You don’t put it on your wrist. That’s primarily because this is a much better source of data,” he said.

Khatri of Noise agreed with Kumar and said the data available through a finger is way higher than a device can get from a smartwatch. Launching smart rings from BoAt and Noise is expected to bring competition to this nascent space.

The products are not yet launched, but the R&D and work commenced over a year back. Another positive sign is that it is unlikely that the data will sit behind a subscription pay wall (as Oura’s latest ring has). I’ve been pretty impressed with my Oura ring, but it was very costly, and they did send me a replacement ring just after the warranty expired as the battery was suddenly giving out. So I may be keen to test one of these new Indian rings out when they are available. So I’ll be watching this space closely.

More competition in the market, especially from India, is going to be good for consumers.

See https://techcrunch.com/2023/08/13/smart-rings-india/
#Blog, #fitnesstracker, #India, #smartring, #technology

danie10@squeet.me
Danie

OpenTracks is an open source sport tracking application for Android that completely respects your privacy: Almost a Strava alternative

Phone screens against an orange background showing activity stats from different exercises, and also a screen showing stats for cycling such as speed, distance, elevation, heart rate, etc.
Value your health by keeping track on your training. It records as you go running or walking, and gives you a bike computer with a bigger screen for cycling. You can even mark interesting locations along your way with pictures. The app keeps recorded statistics in great detail for analysis.

It also has voice announcements, and supports Bluetooth LE sensors for heart rate (Polar, Wahoo Kicker/Ticker, moofit, Mi Band 3, Amazfit Neo, Garmin HRM, and more), speed and distance (running and cycling), cadence (cycling), and a power meter (cycling). It measures altitude gain/loss via the phone’s barometer sensor. You can export data without any restrictions, as tracks either as KMZ (incl. photos), KML, or GPX.

It requires no Internet access, or extra permissions, and there are no adverts nor in-app analytics. You share only the data you want others to have. It can be installed from the Google Play Store, but also from the F-Droid store, with all Google services excluded.

It is not aiming to be a direct competitor to Strava because there is no public website, and also no iOS app. Strava’s website does help create more of a social and peer pressure type motivation for many, across both Android and iOS users. But OpenTrack is focussing more on preserving privacy by not using such a service, although one can import the recording into other apps and share from there. Regarding iOS, well the app is fully open source, so maybe someone could consider compiling it for iOS if the dependencies are not an issue.

See https://opentracksapp.com/
#Blog, #fitnesstracker, #health, #opensource, #OpenTracks, #technology

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