Izwan Ismail finds out what it takes to design the fitness elements in the Apple Watch
SINCE its launch in 2015, the Apple Watch has become a “personal” motivator and trainer to many people who want to stay healthy and fit, making a healthier lifestyle easier.
Today, the watch, already in its fourth generation, tracks dozens of exercises, including new ones that people never thought could be measured, like yoga.
It goes beyond counting steps and tracking calories; instead it focuses on overall health.
STAYING HEALTHY AND BEYOND
Jay Blahnik, Apple senior director of fitness and health technologies, says users are gravitating towards three areas that they find the most useful in the watch — staying connected, healthy and active.
In the first area, the watch has become more independent of the phone. Users can take the calls and get messages without the phone nearby.
“Now you can monitor the most important things that you need to do without having to access your phone.”
For the elderly, the Apple Watch Series 4 has become a sort of guardian to them.
The watch is able to alert their loved ones if they experience a fall.
“If your watch detects that you have been immobile for a minute, it will make the call automatically. After the call ends, your watch sends a message— with your location — to your emergency contacts and dials emergency services.”
BEHAVIOURAL CHANGE
Developing a watch that is able to motivate users throughout the day and is a highly intelligent and smart sport watch takes a lot of research and experiments.
“We recognise that some people do workouts and some do sports but most don’t do them and they want to be healthier by moving throughout the day,” says Blahnik, adding that how one measures his day is not the same as how he measures his run.
“So it’s very clear that we could not just throw some metrics to the consumers and expect them to be motivated for a behavioural change.
“But it’s quite hard to design because most people focus on the metrics and to really change behaviour it has to be almost emotional, it can’t just be numbers, it has to be an experience.”
SENSORS
While there are a lot of delightful things the watch can do, one of the expectations is that it will help users get healthier and be more active.
“We knew from the very beginning that it is our most personal device ever because it has the opportunity to learn about you and measure you with its sensors close to your body,” says Blahnik.
He adds that the watch, unlike the phone, monitors even when one is sitting or standing.”
WORKOUTS
Features unique to the Apple Watch are GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer and heart rate monitor.
The sensors allow users to look at different activities in different ways and measure more things. For example, if you’re running or walking, the GPS measures speed. But if you walk in an area where the GPS gets blocked, the watch relies on the accelerometer to monitor you.
Blahnik says the heart rate is just as important.
“If you’re wearing the watch for a bike ride, you can use the GPS to measure speed but when you’re riding downhill and going really fast, you may get more calorie credit then you deserve.
“The watch is able to fuse the sensors together and look at the heart rate as well as speed.”
The same goes for swimming. A freestyle stroke and a breast stroke burn different amount of calories.
“The accelerometer and gyroscope detect those nuances and provide the most accurate calorie reading for the activity.”
MOTIVATING FACTOR
Measurements can be a motivation.
If you’re a beginner or not into working out, the ability to see that you went a little further today than yesterday can be a great motivation.
“A 10-minute walk, a few extra steps or flight of stairs makes a huge difference across your lifetime,” says Blahnik.
As the watch can connect you to your family with its activity-sharing feature, it may motivate you to exercise more.
“It used to be that people work out with their buddies, but people are busy nowadays and the fact that we can get connected digitally is great.”
POPULAR APPS
Of the many apps on the Apple Watch, the Activity App seems to be the most popular as “it’s automatic and it’s easy”.
Apple has added features like coaching, badges, celebration, activity-sharing as well as competition.
THREE RINGS
The three colourful rings have come a long way.
“Before we ever thought about the design we asked ourselves what should we measure, because the paradigm that everyone expected was to measure steps.
However, from a science standpoint, steps are a measure of quantity, and while quantity is important in an activity, we should also measure intensity and frequency,” says Blahnik.
For example, someone may be able to achieve a number of steps in a day, but none of those steps are equivalent to a brisk walk. So even though they move enough, they don’t move briskly enough to get that health benefits.
“We don’t want measurements to be complicated, we want it to be delightful, almost like a game. It’s very important that it should be easy to note measurements on the wrist. The idea is not to focus on a single metric but on completion of a goal.
“The rings are the perfect analogy because you can see where you’re at in a day, and you can see how much far you have to go and you can get credit by going round again. It is almost imperative — closing your rings is like a metaphor on how you should treat your active day.”
People can still get illness or disease, but being active is the least they can do to improve their health.
“Many doctors tell us that if being more active is the best prescription, it would be the most prescribed medicine in the world,” he concludes.
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