Zurich, Switzerland-based OptimizeMe, a life logging app that wants to interpret the wellness data that users are collecting through apps and devices, is launching this week.

While OptimizeMe allows users to manually enter data into its app, it also integrates with Moves and uses the Foursquare database of locations to record where users are going and what kind of activity they are doing. From there, the app uses correlations to show the user what their data means.

Correlations can be as simple as what exercises work better for weight loss or they can help users understand which friends affect their mood and, from there, which changes users could make to their social life.

“What was an interesting finding was when I quit my job and started working more for OptimizeMe, I started to get some correlations, which weren’t that nice,” CEO Bogdan Gerya told MobiHealthNews. “So basically I started to sleep a bit longer hours, and go to bed later, and I also started to exercise less and suddenly I got this correlation between work for OptimizeMe and negative connection to my sport activity and to how I feel about myself. Basically that, to me, is a clear indication that I have to change something.”

For now, the app is free, but this year Gerya plans to add in-app purchases for users who want additional features, such as a way to analyze the data further and offer users suggestions for how to make healthier decisions. Gerya anticipates that these messages will be sent via a robot figure within the app named Ari, which he hopes will provide users with a more personal connection while interacting with the app. Ari is also used in the free version to notify users of correlations that the app finds.

“You can imagine that there are really a lot of possibilities for how to analyze [data] in a sense that it would be possible at some point to say it’s Saturday morning and the app knows that you regularly go on a hike and regularly meet some friends,” Gerya said. “So it just gives you advice in the sense of ‘Hey, why don’t you go out for a hike with Tomas, because you haven’t seen him in a long time and it’s nice weather’. So this kind of complex interpretation would probably be available in addition to the current functionality.”

The app was initially supposed to come out earlier this year, but the process was delayed, first, when Gerya chose to integrate with Moves, which took more time than expected, and again when approval in the Apple app store took three and a half weeks.

“Moves provides the largest amount of data that you can have on the market, because all the individual trackers focus on individual parts like steps or sleep and so on, and what Moves provides is a kind of context because it gives you information about activities and about the locations,” Gerya said. “Like with Foursquare — that’s really important to us because now we can make connections between things like how much time you spend at work or your daily steps or how much time you spend exercising…This place-related context is really important to us and there’s no other app, which would be able to provide this.”

This year, OptimizeMe plans to integrate with other trackers on the market and add Android compatibility.

See on mobihealthnews.com