Chris Hollindale is cofounder and CTO of seed-funded stealth startup Hasty.

If you’ve ever tried out a Nike+ FuelBand, a Jawbone UP, or apps like RunKeeper or Strava for runners and cyclists, the chances are that you’ve seen the powerful effects that gamification can have.

Gamification is an effective mechanism that taps into our naturally competitive instinct to help change our behavior. And in the case of health and fitness apps, this change of behavior means real lifestyle changes, enabling us to be fitter and healthier.

But is this gamification being applied to the right health metrics? Could it be applied to areas that have even more of a positive health impact?

In the health and fitness space, the best examples of gamification are those employed by the likes of Nike+, Jawbone and FitBit’s tracking devices. Statistical and anecdotal evidence shows how effective the gamification is here – FitBit reports that its users take 43 percent more steps. But is tracking your steps  – which is ultimately what these devices do — actually all that good for you?

I’d argue that there are many more important metrics when it comes to living better and healthier, and this is where the future of health gamification will lie.

An interesting possibility is applying gamification to real health metrics. Services like WellnessFX now allow consumers to evaluate all manner of data points about themselves, from nutrient levels to cholesterol and testosterone. Being able to measure and improve these core health metrics is a huge leap, and I can see exciting applications of gamification applying here in the future. It could be that you’re able to create and compete with your own personal wellness score based on a variety of health metrics.

Or … even try to beat your mate’s level of testosterone – the ultimate “who’s the bigger man?” competition.

Of the metrics that people currently track, the one that has the most overall impact is food. Gamification has the potential to have a huge impact on the way we eat and the choices we make when it comes to food, and this can make a monumental impact in terms of our collective health.

If I earned a badge for eating well during the day, or was competing with a friend to see who could stick to a diet the longest, I would be way more incentivized to persevere and eat well. The problem standing in the way is that currently, tracking is hard: it’s simply not automatic enough.

But if that were to be resolved, the applications of gamification to food tracking become really interesting. Fooducate is a good example of gamification already being applied to food – by scanning barcodes, it grades the groceries that you buy to encourage you to eat better.

And Google Glass has the potential to fundamentally change the way we track and gamify health.

Imagine being able to track and gamify your statistics for any sport – like what your shot accuracy was in your latest tennis game – or having Google Glass automatically read the stats off your bike machine at the gym. And how about creating a proper augmented reality experience for exercise – extending the idea created by the Zombies, Run! smartphone app, your morning run could be turned into all manner of videogame-style scenarios, from escaping zombie hoards to chasing down one of your friends.

And its tracking applications will go way beyond physical health – it could even be used to track and gamify the number of words you spoke during the day, or the number of social interactions you had.

There are many opportunities for new applications of gamification in these areas. As a final thought, suppose Google Glass could record all the food you ate, the portion sizes and how much food you left on your plate. Suddenly, you’d have cracked the food-tracking problem and you’d have a massive opportunity to gamify and fix our increasing battle with preventable, diet-related health problems.

Photo credit: Chris Chabot/Google

MapMyFitness offers a suite of fitness apps that support an active lifestyle with tools to map routes, track activity, log food intake and connect with others for motivation. The company was founded in 2007 and has since grown to 15 million users, five distinct products (MapMyRun, MapMyRide etc…) and an MVP premium membership with advanced features. Over 300,000 thousand workouts are logged everyday.

The new look includes improved functionality that makes it easier to navigate around the app and access various features, a greater emphasis on social sharing, and a fresh design that unifies the various products. CEO and founder Robin Thurston said that the updates are the result of six months of research and analysis of user behavior and is the most extensive design update in the last three years.

“The biggest trend we have seen thus far is the amount of our community accessing our site through their mobile phones and tablets,” he said in a Q&A. “This was critical in our design process. Having a unified brand and design for is really important because users want a seamless experience when they work out. From day one, we recognized the importance of having an open platform where people can house all of their workout data, no matter what device they are using.”

The new navigation tool bar has three main components. There is Home, where your personal activity is documented; Improve, which has training plans and device integration; and Discover, which is the first phase of the Local pages which will help people find fitness options around them. These features are all easily accessible from the dashboard. Furthermore, MapMyFitness integrates with ‘hundreds’ of fitness devices and sensors and the sharing tools are enhanced so people can more easily engage their friends in their workouts.

Thurston said that MapMyFitness has made a strategic shift towards design over the last 18 months and hired a new creative team to build out the new look. The greatest challenge, he said, was finding the right team, but it paid off in a “cleaner,” “simpler,” and “more beautiful” site.

Quantified self devices, mobile technology, and activity trackers have had a powerful impact on people’s fitness habits. MapMyFitness is one of many in the fitness tracking space, including Runkeeper, Skimble, and Endomondo, and  Thurston said that in the next five years, he expects this space will see “rapid change and disruption.” By listening to user feedback and continuing to iterate, Thurston seeks to remain competitive and even dominant in the sector. His goal is not only to encourage people to be more active, but to use technology to actually change outcomes.

MapMyFitness is based in Austin, Texas and has raised $18.5 million to date.

Photo Credit: gareth 1953/Flickr

---

HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

---

If people spent as much time working out as they did on Facebook, let’s just say there would be nary a muffin top or belly bulge in sight.

But this doesn’t mean that social can’t help fitness. The Cody app launched today, taking the compelling aspects of social networking and applying it to exercise.

Cody Inc., the app’s makers, call it a “virtual fitness coach.” Its target audience is the casual exerciser, not hardcore fitness fanatic. The app serves as a digital workout partner to help you keep your motivation and have fun doing it. During an interview with VentureBeat, co-founder Pejman Pour-Moezzi said plenty of fitness apps are out there, and Cody is different because it focuses on the social element, rather than on data such as heart rate or calories burned.

“What we observed that this focus on metrics has gone so far that I think it ends up intimidating a lot of people,” he said. “The social aspect of fitness is what fascinated us — how much motivation, or how compelling fitness gets when you have a workout buddy. It’s a social-first fitness app, so it’s all about connecting and sharing with other people.”

Pour-Moezzi and his cofounder, Paul Javid, formerly worked as product managers at Microsoft and left to create a product to help people achieve their goals. The obvious application was fitness, and they wanted fitness with Cody to feel like sharing a photo on Instagram or posting a Facebook update. The app is highly visual, making it easy to discover, share, and discuss content about health and exercise. Cody will also bring up relevant information based on stated fitness goals. Over time, Pour-Moezzi and Javid hope to integrate location service; for instance, someone wanting to find a kickboxing gym could look at community reviews to find a place that suits their needs.

Cody is free Apple App Store, and the founders aren’t focusing on monetization. Right now, they want to expand adoption and engagement for the app and are considering premium features, such as in-app purchases of yoga videos down the road.

---

HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

---

As the owner of a heart rate monitor, I have just one problem with the devices: They’re really, really boring.

But they have bigger problems. Not only are heart rate monitors really dull, but they aren’t particularly helpful either. “We’ve been using heart rate monitors as if they’re telling us anything useful,” says Dustin Freckleton, the president of sports tech company BSX Athletics. (In case it isn’t clear, BSX = “basics.”)

The problem with heart rate monitors, Freckleton says, is that they’re easily thrown off by things that have nothing to do with fitness. Hot day out? Just had a cup of coffee? Stressed? All of these things can spike your heart rate and render monitor readings useless.

Researchers have been pointing out the inadequacies of heart-rate measurements for years now. “The heart rate is probably the least important variable in comparing athletes,” exercise physiologist Fritz Hagerman told The New York Times in 2011.

Athletes are an important factor here. If anyone needs an accurate and useful way to measure their performance, it’s them.

That’s a reality not lost on BSX Athletics, which is working on a sensor that goes beyond the heart rate to measure potentially more useful metabolic parameters like “lactate threshold” and “VO2 max” (whatever those things are). More, that data plugs into apps like BSX Athletics’s runBSX, which tracks and measures users’ information to solve another problem with athletic sensors: their lack of interpretation and relevant recommendations.

One of the problems with smart sensors these days is that while they’re getting really good at measuring raw data like steps and sleep habits, they’re significantly less good at telling you what to do with that data. This is a problem whose fix BSX Athletics has baked into its apps.

“We’re like a doctor reading your x-rays: We take your data, interpret it, and recommend things from it,” says Freckleton.

But those recommendations aren’t coming from an algorithm. Instead of apps like runBSX tap into the knowledge of real coaches, who are able to take an athlete’s data in real-time and create workouts and recommendations around it. This not only solves the relevancy problem (those workouts are, after all, custom) but also it’s the type of thing most coach-less athletes would love to have.

It all sounds really promising – except for the fact that none of it’s available quite yet. While the runBSX app should hit the iTunes Store within the next few weeks, Freckleton says that he doesn’t see the actual sensor component hitting until later this year or early 2014.”We’re releasing the app in advance because we wanted to get people used to the idea of training the right way even without sensors,” Freckleton said. (Without the sensor the app uses a combination of  GPS and accelerometers to measure performance.)

Basically, the idea is to get athletes so addicted to runBSX that they can’t help but buy the sensor when the time comes. Will it work? We’ll know soon enough.

Photo: Running Man/Shutterstock

---

HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

---

Android owners now have one less excuse against getting healthy.

Jawbone has finally released an Android app for its Up health wristband, which has so far remained an iPhone-exclusive device.

Jawbone recently re-released its Up wristband ($129) after a disastrous debut in 2011. Just like the previous model, the device tracks your daily activity and sleep patterns — but its far better built, so it shouldn’t die off as easily as the first Up. The Android app allows you to synchronize with the Up, log your food, and keep track of your moods, among several other features.

It offers all of the features currently on the iPhone app, except for the recent ability to share your updates to Twitter and Facebook, according to Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s vice president of product management and strategy.

“Right now we’re focusing on supporting Android well,” Bogard said. “There’s a lot of variety out there, this is why many people in this space have either declared they won’t support Android [referring to Nike's Fuelband], or will only support one or two Android devices.”

Specifically, Bogard tells me that the Jawbone Up now supports more than 26 different Android smartphones, which includes most of the popular models you’d expect. The company has spent the past year developing the application in parallel with the iOS version, but it took a while to test it on a decent amount of Android phones.

Additionally, Jawbone is releasing an updating iPhone application today which includes support for more international languages. Basically, plenty of people who’ve wanted to get their hands on the Up will finally have a reason to do so.

“What’s cool is that people who have friends in the [Up] system move around 10 more miles per month and have 20 percent longer workouts,” Bogard said. “Being able to touch more people really helps create that encouragement and support.”

I’m a huge fan of the revamped Jawbone Up (so much so that I prefer it over the Fitbit One in my dual review), so it’s nice to see it finally reach Android. Unfortunately, you still have to plug in the Up device to synchronize it with your phone (that won’t be fixed until an entirely new model is released), but at least Android users now have the option to use it.

San Francisco-based Jawbone has raised $202 million in funding so far from Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz, and others.

MapMyFitness rolled out an update today for its MVP premium subscribers that’s full of new and enhanced features.

MapMyFitness powers a suite of health and fitness tracking apps. Its flagship products, MapMyRun and MapMyRide, use built-in GPS technology so you can record your workout as well as search for new routes and monitor data like duration, pace, speed, elicitation, and calories burned. It saves all of this information so you can view your activity progress over time. Social elements provide motivation to stick to regimens and can make exercise more fun.

The business is based on a “freemium” model. The core set of features are free, but fitness enthusiasts can pay a monthly or annual fee for a more comprehensive experience. The MVP membership is $30 a year and comes without ads as well as tools like a Route Recommender, Customs Splits, Advanced Heart Rate, Training Plans, and Power Analytics.

“The new MVP is just a cleaner experience,” said CEO Robin Thurston in an interview. “People are gaining a fitness aptitude for data. They want content and analytics, and they are willing to pay for it if it will change their health outcomes and improve daily health.”

The Route Recommender is based on an algorithm that factors in desired length, travel mode, direction, rotations, and such and will autogenerate a customized route. For those trying to craft their own course, the app has a library of tools and icons to map it out. The heart rate tracking features are useful for people with target heart rate goals or restrictions, and the live tracking means friends can view each others’ activity. Thurston said that these product updates are a direct result of feedback from consumers about their needs.

MapMyFitness currently has 13 million users and hopes to grow to 20 million this year. Further updates are in the pipeline, including challenge/gamification features and more integrations with quantified self devices.

“There are encouraging trends around technology,” Thurston said. “People are adopting activity trackers and using mobile technology to be more active. This is a step in the right direction, but the next step is helping people change outcomes. The next five years in this space specifically is probably going to be one of the most exciting industries to be in, because of rapid change and disruption that is coming.”

MapMyFitness is headquartered in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 2007 by Thurston, who used to be a professional cyclist, and has raised $18.5 million to date. Competitors include Runkeeper, Skimble, and Endomondo. Read the press release.

---

HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

---

Science, the L.A.-based incubator, has just launched Ellie, its latest portfolio company.

Much like its Science siblings, Ellie is a subscription commerce site; its particular niche is women’s workout wear. Think of it as a Lululemon of the Month Club. (It also offers a la carte purchase options, but where’s the fun in that?)

Ellie is also announcing today that it raised $2 million in first-round funding from from Trinity Ventures, Rustic Canyon Partners, and Blumberg Capital.

Ellie, like fellow Science companies Wittlebee and Fourth and Grand, is focused on apparel; however, Ellie’s lineup of workout clothing takes advantage of the incubator’s Los Angeles location at the heart of the garment industry.

All Ellie items are designed and manufactured in the United States; in fact, an Ellie spokesperson told VentureBeat that Ellie is running out of a very large warehouse and was one of the first Science companies to get its own space as quickly as it did.

Every month, Ellie will feature 24 new styles in its lineup. The items are shopped around Facebook to gauge consumer reactions and are then manufactured immediately. All this means Ellie workout gear is likely to be spot-on trends.

“With an onsite pattern maker, they can showcase designs they are testing across social media to get users/fans to decide if they like them, and if it’s popular, the outfit is manufactured within four days and available for mass market retail,” a rep told VentureBeat via email. “That’s lightening speed for clothing manufacturing.”

The lack of highly sophisticated tech is becoming part of the Science blueprint. Rather than churning out developer-founded companies with intricate technological components and services that rely on cutting-edge stacks, this incubator is focused on the business side: consumer demand, access to product, ability to create a marketplace.

And each business takes money from its users. You won’t find any wishful thinking, ad-based business plans here, aiming for big traffic numbers and hoping money from brands will follow suit.

Ellie’s monthly subscription plan brings members two items for $50 per month. Here’s a quick look at the 16 launch items, as well as the Ellie site:

“Making time and funds available for a superior gym and workout experience is hard enough for most of us,” said Marcus Greinke, co-founder and CEO of Ellie, in a statement on the launch.

“Why should you pay $130 or more for workout clothes like yoga pants? “A healthy lifestyle should be attainable for everyone, and Ellie wants to make sure you look and feel good whether you begin or end your day with a trip to the gym.”

Top image credit: Shutterstock

Popular exercise app GAIN Fitness today launched its “digital trainer store” to provide professionally-designed, customizable workouts to people exercising at home. The company is taking an “iTunes for Fitness” approach by offering separate workout packs within the platform. Today, it features 8 options and plans to release a new one each month.

Always eager to test products that can mix up my usual regimen, I headed over to the GAIN Fitness office for a demo. They told me to wear my gym clothes and come ready to sweat. I initially thought that we would start off with an introductory chat, but CEO Gammell was ready to go. He opened GAIN on his iPhone and handed me the device.

I was prompted by a questions about my personal physical fitness and goals. I indicated that I wanted a 15 minute workout geared towards health & longevity, had no equipment, and wanted to focus on my core. The app then pulls up exercise plans that fit those criteria and the user can mix and match to build their own workout. Nick and I chose to start out with an intense “Road Warrior” set, followed by a core-strengthening pilates circuit, and ending with a yoga routine.

I like to think I am physically fit. I exercise almost every day and do a range of activities. However, 2 minutes into road warrior, I was already feeling the burn. I couldn’t meet my initial target of 20 push-ups, but I entered that into the system to adapt accordingly. For the next round of push-ups, the app cued me to do a more feasible, but still challenging, 15. GAIN provides tracking and analytics so people can see their work units, calories burned, and progress over time.

Data is a big focus for Gammell. After growing up as a tri-sport athlete, he struggled to maintain a regular workout schedule while working as a management consultant for Deloitte. He worked nights and weekends to build a product that leveraged exercise science, mobile technology, and data analytics to help people achieve their fitness goals. The app combines content created by technology experts with proprietary algorithms that pull up exercises that match your criteria. For free, users can access 350 different exercises that are able to build hundreds of thousands of different workouts and access data about their efforts.

“I wanted to build technology that takes away pen-and-paper aspect of planning a fitness routine,” he said, during our water break. “I wanted a fitness routine customized to my real time situation that considered what I did two days ago, what my overall goal is, and what I like to do. You can get a super efficient workout in a short period of time, as long as you know what to do.”

Today with the launch of the store, users can buy apps specifically developed and produced for GAIN with content that includes weight-lifting, bodyweight training, yoga, cross-training, sport-specific training, pilates, and even ‘circus arts.’ The app has audio cues, so you know when to stop, and includes useful features like scheduling and social sharing.

“Every fitness program out there wants to claim to be the end-all-be-all, but in reality, it is important to understand your own body, your goals, your lifestyle, and get a workout program tailored to that. How to do this is beyond the fitness understanding of a majority of people.”

Gammell said that technology is one of the contributors to America’s obesity epidemic because it encourages people to live sedentary lifestyles. He wants to turn that around and use technology to encourage healthy habits. With the popularity of the Quantified Self movement, consumers are taking an interest in their body’s mechanics and using that as a guiding force.

Devices like the FuelBand, Jawbone UP, and Fitbit monitor your physical activity, while apps like RunKeeper and MapMyFitness track your performance over time. Services like Wello link exercisers to personal trainers via live video feeds, and then there are apps closer to GAIN’s option like iPersonalTrainer and Skimble.

Needless to say it is a crowded space, but the first trainer apps were well-received by GAIN’s users. The company has seen significant growth and Gammell believes these partnerships with top trainers and fitness brands will help the company grow even more.

GAIN Fitness is based in San Francisco and raised $1 million in 2012 from Keith Rabois, Ben Ling, and InterWest partners.

---

HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

---

And you thought all those baby pics on Facebook were annoying.

The Withings Smart Baby Scale — the first-ever Internet-connected baby and toddler scale — comes armed with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and the must-have accoutrement of every “smart” gadget these days: a companion app. Parents place the baby on the scale, and all the normal vitals show up automagically on the iOS app, or alternatively on a website.

Once digital, baby’s stats can be sent to doctors, pediatricians, or family members. And, reminiscent of Facebook’s frictionless sharing, the scale can be set to automatically update Facebook or Twitter with every last detail of how many ounces Junior gained this past week.

The French company, which also makes a “Smart Baby Monitor” that shows you live video of your child on your iPhone or Android smartphone, won a CES Innovation Award last week in Las Vegas for design and engineering.

Pricing was not announced, but the product will be available in the second quarter of 2013. If you have Facebook friends with newborns, get ready for the onslaught.

Finally, Fitbit has an activity tracking wristband of its own, the Fitbit Flex.

While Fitbit pioneered the fitness gadget industry with its tiny fitness tracking device, it has recently been overshadowed by the arrival of fitness wristbands from Nike and Jawbone. With the Flex, Fitbit has a wearable option that can track your steps, distance traveled, and sleep patterns, just like its past gadgets. (Unfortunately, it can’t track steps you’ve climbed, unlike some of the company’s latest devices.)

For Fitbit fans, the wait may have been worth it. Fitbit claims the Flex is the first health wristband to fully take advantage of Bluetooth 4.0, allowing it to synchronize wirelessly with your smartphone and computer while maintaining strong battery life. Nike’s FuelBand was touted as a Bluetooth 4.0 device, but in a teardown by Fitbit, the company found only Bluetooth 2.1 hardware (though there’s a chance that hardware could also be Bluetooth 4.0 compatible).  The Jawbone Up doesn’t offer any wireless syncing.

The Flex is also cheaper than the competition. At $99, it’s a better value than Jawbone’s $130 Up, and Nike’s $150 Fuelband. It’s the same price as the Fitbit One, the company’s latest flagship fitness tracker that clips onto your clothing.  Fitbit also offers a cheaper $60 device, the Fitbit Zip, for those who just want the basics of step counting.

When I reviewed the Jawbone Up and Fitbit One in December,  I ultimately favored the Up. Even though the One offered a superior online interface for tracking your health data, I found it easier to wear a futuristic wristband than to keep track of a tiny pedometer. (Also, I liked the Up’s geek chic.) With the Flex, Fitbit has a compelling alternative that may have me switching fitness camps.

I haven’t had a chance to see the Fitbit Flex in person yet, but I’m hoping to get some time with it later this week at CES. The Flex is available for pre-order starting today and will ship in the spring.

San Francisco-based Fitbit has raised a total of $23.4 million from Foundry Group, True Ventures, and others.

This month, digital notebook service Springpad has launched a standalone site in honor of National Organization Month. Each day of the month features a notebook designed by tastemakers on topics like exercise, diet, budgeting, personal organization, productivity, travel, and party planning. Each notebook contains a comprehensive collection of advice, lists, and tools to help people achieve their goals.

The initiative is part of Springpad’s own New Year’s resolution to reach a wider audience. The company recently surpassed 4 million users, primarily made up of the tech early adopter market, and is trying to tap into the mainstream. The National Organization Month site features notebooks that people can not only use as a resource, but also as an example to create their own notebooks.

“We want people to use Springpad in a way that relates to their life,” said cofounder Jeff Janer in a recent interview with VentureBeat. “A lot of early adopters don’t like being told what to do, but our research has shown that with a more mainstream audience, they do not know where to start and want templates. The other thing that we have seen from the early adopter market is that it is skewed more male and business professional. There is a big audience out there that is more female-oriented, and these themes will appeal to them.”

Today’s featured notebook is titled “Organize Workouts with Lacey Stone,” a celebrity fitness guru. It includes links to her bootcamp videos, a gym-bag packing list, six challenging treadmill drills, at-home workout moves, a music “power playlist” and tips on staying motivated. Other health and fitness themed notebooks include “organize your juice cleanse” and vegan chef Jesse Brune’s healthy-eating meal plan.

For those intending to make 2013 a neat and tidy year, it has guides to organize your workspace, messy kitchen, cluttered garage, disastrous closet, pantry, and messy bedroom. Aspiring hosts can find guidance for wine parties, Super Bowl bashes, weddings, garden parties, and cocktail soirees. Users can follow specific tastemakers and receive notifications when they make additions. The goal is to make digital organization as useful and painless as possible.

“On the one hand, organizing things is like going to the dentist, you have to do it but you don’t want to do it,” said Janer. “It doesn’t have to be painful. It can be fun and it can be social. We want to be the last organizer you will ever need. It is a very non-tech message and where we are looking to go in 2013.”

Springpad primarily competes with Evernote, a popular digital notebook that has 45 million users and recently raised $85 million, bringing its total to a massive $251 million. While Springpad-the-company is a fraction of the size, many users prefer its Pinterest-style visual layout.

You can also use Pinterest to help you stay on top of your resolutions, as guest writer Danielle Small recently wrote.

Springpad is based in Boston and was founded in 2008.

This is the time of year when we all look toward the future rather than the past and decide how we want to grow and change in the year to come. Whether you have a formal list of resolutions or just a general taking-stock moment, you probably do have a couple of big goals for 2013.

Me, I’ve decided that in 2013, I want to dress more professionally, write more in-depth long-form pieces, crochet blankets for Project Linus instead of playing Pocket Frogs during my winding-down-before-bed-time, and pray the rosary every day. And I’m counting on a couple of different apps, sites, and services to help me make it happen.

For your own goal-fulfillment needs and wants, here’s a great list of apps, websites, and cool services to help you become healthier, wealthier, and wiser in the new year.

Eating better

Farmigo for better food ingredients

Farmigo is a cool new service that will get local, farm-fresh produce and dairy products to you and a group of your friends and neighbors. Your group has to be at least 30 people strong, so think about pooling together with co-workers, PTA members, or any faith-based community members in your life.

Urban Remedy for juice cleanses

Urban Remedy won’t just cure your New Year’s Day hangover. This juice-as-a-service subscription will keep you healthy, energized, and fit throughout the year, no shopping or chopping required.

Fresh Dish and Hello Fresh for home cooking

Fresh Dish and Hello Fresh both meet the same need: our desire to cook at home and eat with our loved ones. These startups will help you by delivering fresh ingredients and recipes to your door. Each meal takes 30 minutes or less to prepare, plus you don’t have to do all the shopping and prep work.

Better relationships

Pair for your current relationship

Pair is your go-to app for building a stronger, sweeter bond with someone you already love (or double-plus-like). It will help you stay connected by sharing intimate moments and just-between-us messages throughout the day.

Seekly to find new romance

Seekly is a video speed dating app perfect for helping you find someone to spend your time — or even your life — with. Created by two professional, busy women, the site focuses on taking the creepy, time-wasting elements out of online dating.

At the Pool to make new friends

At the Pool isn’t about dating; rather, this startup wants to help the terminally shy among us to get out into the world and make new friends who share some of our interests.

Improving health and fitness

Noom for weight loss coaching

Noom is your personal fitness coach. This app will help you set goals, identify tasks, and track your progress.

Lumoback for better posture

Lumoback‘s premise is simple: We’re happier and healthier when we sit up straight. Its teensy, Band-Aid-like hardware and mobile app will keep your spine straight and better aligned. You mom would’ve loved this about 20 years ago.

Yog for jogging with buddies

Yog connects joggers and runners around the world in real time. Schedule the time and place for your jaunt, and get others to join you virtually. Yog provides audio and visual cues to connect you to your workout partners.

Striiv for step-by-step fitness

Striiv is an iPhone app that gives your fitness plans a big dose of metrics. This social pedometer tracks the steps you take and the calories you burn, then it can sync that data with your Facebook friends and other Striiv users to keep you competitive.

Learning new skills

Treehouse and Codecademy for coding

If you want to learn more about the web in 2013, look no further than Codecademy and Treehouse. Each of these services will teach you how to code. Codecademy does it for free from an interactive text entry box in the browser. Treehouse charges you and gives you a full library of video instruction from top-shelf teachers.

MindSnacks for languages

For learning other kinds of languages, there’s MindSnacks, a startup making iPad games for educational purposes. The bite-sized lessons come in cute packages with real educational value; it’s more than just a brush-up or crash course.

Coursera for college-level learning

Coursera isn’t some skeevy online degree mill. This startup offers “massive open online courses” in partnership with some of the top U.S. universities. You can study genetics with a Duke scientist, data computation from a Johns Hopkins data scientist, or world history from a Princeton professor.

Udemy for your downtime

Got a few minutes to kill? Want to do something more productive than Angry Birds? Try Udemy. Its iPad app will help you turn those few idle moments into learning opportunities.

Fixing your style

Fourth & Grand for gentlemen’s fashion & styling

One of my husband’s resolutions is to dress better in the new year. As a SOMA-dwelling tech founder, he’s surrounded by hoodies and jeans. So how to up the professionalism a notch, especially when styling outfits is a foreign language? Try L.A.-based subscription startup Fourth & Grand. They’ll send outfits and accessories and give you detailed advice on how to wear them.

Le Tote for ladies’ clothes

For the ladies, Le Tote helps you mix it up, sartorially speaking, without adding more clutter to your closet. This “Netflix for clothes” will outfit your new, infinite closet with outfits and accessories. It’s like living with a stylish roommate who has no personal budget and is exactly your size.

Birchbox for shine & polish

If personal grooming is high on your to-do list for 2013, try Birchbox, the startup that sends you sample-size beauty and lifestyle products and tips on how to use them. Gents, they’ve got manly boxes for you, too. You can try everything and buy what really works for you.

Dollar Shave Club for ‘f*cking great’ razors

We San Francisco women know why shaving is a New Year’s resolution-level goal: Between the pervasive chill and the pervasive leggings, we’d never do it if we didn’t force ourselves to. And a shiny, new box of razors from Dollar Shave Club just might be the motivation you need to get the job done.

Productive and professional

Asana and 24me to get things done

If you’re looking forward to a 2013 in which you get things done like a mofo, look to these two apps: Asana, a task-management godsend, and 24me, which will automate your entire life. Both of these apps eliminate work-about-work: meetings to plan meetings, hours spent making to-do lists and checklists. Instead, they help you focus on actually completing tasks and getting on with the fun parts of your life.

LinkedIn to stay connected & informed

LinkedIn had itself a big old redesign orgy this year. The result: An iPad app that’s both beautiful and useful, a suite of mobile apps that will help you stay in-the-know, and a new look and feel for its website that focuses on news in your industry. Spend a few minutes a day with LinkedIn, and you’ll probably look smarter, more connected, and more confident in the workplace.

Nutmeg to spice up your finances

Nutmeg is a simple solution for getting your financial life on track. This app will help you build and manage your personal investment portfolio, all while keeping your personal and financial goals in focus.

Pathbrite to kickstart your new career

Is 2013 the year you finally land your dream job? If a change would do you good, check out Pathbrite, which switches out your boring old resume for an interactive portfolio of your accomplishments. Show off a lifetime of education, special projects, promotions, and advances in a gorgeous micro-website you can show your potential employers.

Image credits: All via Flickr, creepyed, Edsel L, Shutter Daddy, kharied, besighyawn, evocateur, kristaguenin

Additional reporting by Christina Farr.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

One of the best times to launch a fitness app is right after the holidays. In the aftermath of cookie exchanges, egg nog by the fire, Christmas feasts, and the constant snacking on festive treats such as chocolate-dipped caramel-popcorn-nut balls (that really happened), people are eager, nay desperate, for exercise.

Today, a startup from the snowy climes of Waterloo, Ontario has launched a personalized fitness app called PumpUp. Gluttons seeking redemption, or anyone looking for a work out, enter information about their goals, current fitness level, and preferred equipment and activities. The app then generates a custom plan with instructions, animated exercises, target rep and weight assignments, and break times. The workout adapts to the user every session, keeping goals purposeful yet realistic.

The app store is full of personal training programs like Fitness Buddy, iFitness Pro, iPersonal Trainer that make customized fitness regimens accessible and affordable. PumpUp is currently available in the AppStore, and the Android version is coming soon. It emerged out of VeloCity Garage, The University of Waterloo’s startup incubator that also bred Y Combinator startups BufferBox (just acquired by Google) and Pair. The founding team has a combination of technical, business, and fitness expertise, as well as a mascot named PumpUp Pat.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance you’re still stuffing your face with leftovers, preparing to do so, or regretting that fifth helping of turkey with all the fixins. Even diligent weight watchers let themselves go during holiday feasts — so what better time to look at the next generation of fitness tech?

Over the past week, I’ve had a chance to test out Fitbit’s One, its third-generation activity tracker, and Jawbone’s redesigned Up health wristband. I went from not tracking my activity at all to constantly wearing two of the most advanced health tracking devices available. The result: Lots of data … and constantly feeling like a lazy bum.

Sure, I’ve dreamed of living a healthier life, but you know how it goes — work, chores, and sheer laziness inevitably get in the way. The promise of these fitness gadgets is that they’ll point out just how terrible your daily habits are, and with the power of data, they’ll force you to be move more, eat better, and get more sleep.

Both the Up and One can track your steps, sleep habits, and give you an estimate of calories you’ve burned. The One clips onto your clothes, just like its predecessors, while the Up is meant to be worn all day on your wrist.

No matter how you do it, simply tracking your activity has health benefits: People who do so generally increase their activity by 26 percent, according to the American Medical Association. Even if you don’t have a strict diet plan and a trainer at the gym, fitness data can make you healthier.

In comparing the Jawbone Up and Fitbit One, I definitely settled on a favorite. But I also learned that these devices are extremely personal — what works best for me may not end up working for you. But at least you now have a number of mature fitness gadgets to choose from.

Jawbone’s Up: You can trust it this time

Let’s not mince words. The original Jawbone Up was a failure. Released in November, 2011, the Up sported a slick Yves Behar design and came from one of the most trusted names in gadgets. But a month after launch, Jawbone was forced to suspend production of the Up and offer full refunds due to issues with its electronics.

Instead of giving up, Jawbone went back to the drawing board to figure out exactly what went wrong. It turns out building a flexible, wearable computer was harder than Jawbone anticipated. Now, after 2.9 million hours of user testing and the development of 28 new manufacturing processes, Jawbone has relaunched the Up. And even though it looks the same as the old Up, this new Up is a completely different beast internally.

Source: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

The old Jawbone up (left) alongside the newer, more well-built model (right), both without their rubber coatings.

One quick glance at the two Up models laid bare is enough to tell you which one is better built. The new model features a strong coating around the Up’s internal electronics, and it also seals together with the Up’s rubber exterior to keep water out.

According to Travis Bogard, Jawbone’s vice president of product management and strategy, water damage was one of the biggest problems the company faced with the first Up. Jawbone went through all of the usual industry standards for testing, but once the Up failures started rolling in, the company quickly realized it needed to come up with rigorous new testing standards of its own.

Now Jawbone is confident the Up will withstand whatever consumers throw at it. But you’ll have to pay a bit more for this model: It’s retailing for $130, instead of the $100 last year’s model cost. For now, the Up is only compatible with iOS devices. The company says it’s working on an Android app but hasn’t said when it will be available.

I’ve been using the new Up wristband almost non-stop over the past week. It’s survived showers, pouring rain, and several instances where I forgot to take it off before messy cooking situations. Perhaps due to its more solid internal construction, it also feels more flexible and comfortable than last year’s model. That’s particularly important, since it’s meant to be a device you never take off — even while sleeping.

The Up is a bit too thick to hide completely, but with its bright color options you may not want to hide it. And it’s light enough that you can easily forget you’re wearing it. Jawbone claims the Up has 10 days of battery life, and it’s performance over the last seven days I’ve been wearing it seems to confirm that figure.

The good: Strong design, revamped app

Design still holds up: I immediately lusted after last year’s Up model the moment I saw it — chalk that up to a simple, yet elegant design that makes it seem like a piece of cyberpunk jewelry, not just a gadget. Jawbone didn’t change anything with the new model’s design, and I can’t blame it. One year later, I’m still drawn to the Up in a visceral way.

Vastly improved mobile app: The original Up iPhone app released last year was fairly basic — it showed the number of steps you took and your sleep performance and offered you a way to track what you ate. But there wasn’t much of a social component, and the food tracking was mostly manual.

This time around, Jawbone’s Up app finally feels complete. You can track what you eat (using the device’s matching iPhone app) more easily with a massive database of foods and their nutritional information, and you can add friends to your “Team” to compare their performance. You can also track your mood through the app and log additional exercises like yoga and cardio workouts.

Best of all, the Up app now uses all the data it collects to generate useful insights about your behavior. If you don’t get enough sleep while travelling, or if you tend to eat unhealthy lunches at work, Up will nudge you to be better.

Sleep tracking and silent alarm works wonders: Not much has changed when it comes to the way the new Up handles sleep, but its ability to track the quality of your sleep and wake you up gently is still worth mentioning. The wristband can figure out how much light and deep sleep you’ve had, as well as how long it took you to fall asleep once getting to bed.

And since it knows how well you’re sleeping, Up’s silent alarm can pick the best time to wake you, so you get up feeling refreshed. It’s the perfect solution for anyone who hates waking up to a blaring alarm in the morning.

The bad: Syncing is a pain

For all of the Up’s whiz-bang technology, you still have to plug it into your phone’s headphone jack to synchronize it, even though the FitBit One and Nike’s FuelBand both offer wireless BlueTooth syncing. According to Jawbone’s Bogard, the company still thinks wireless syncing has a ways to go. That’s ironic, given that Jawbone made its name with its wireless Bluetooth headsets and wireless Jambox speakers.

Synchronizing the Up is a simple process, but it feels like an imperfection in an otherwise quality product. It’s also a pain when it comes to making simple changes to the Up, like changing the time of its silent alarm or tweaking its activity reminder (which buzzes to keep you from sitting down for too long). It’s not tough to get into the habit of syncing the Up twice a day, but plugging it in just to make a simple alarm clock change seriously diminishes its futuristic veneer.

You can be sure Jawbone is working to get wireless synchronization in future versions of the Up, but for now your only option is decidedly old-school. For some people, this may be reason enough to opt for another fitness gadget. But I’ve gotten used to the inconvenience — and it’s also somewhat fun to see the stares from strangers when I plug my unassuming bracelet into my iPhone.

Fitbit’s One: The pedometer, evolved

While Jawbone is a relative newcomer to fitness gadgets, Fitbit has been at this for a while now — and it shows. The company first showed off the Fitbit Classic in 2008. The Classic was widely praised for its compact clip-on design and its ability to track your steps and sleep. The Fitbit Ultra, released last year, added stair tracking, among many other new features.

With the Fitbit One, the company took all of its experience in this arena and crafted it into its most compelling device yet. It can synchronize wirelessly with your smartphone and has a smoother, pebble-like design. Instead of building the clip directly into the device, the One includes a small, removable clip “jacket” — a helpful addition, since it prevents the device itself from getting damaged if the clip gets caught in your clothing.

There’s nothing truly revolutionary about the Fitbit One, but that’s mainly because the company has done such a good job of establishing itself as a fitness leader with its past few devices. It’s hard to blame Fitbit for not pushing the envelope a bit more when it’s already done so pretty significantly several times. With wireless syncing and a strong ecosystem, the Fitbit One could be the ideal device for fitness gadget newcomers and addicts alike.

The Good: Almost everything

Secretly geeky: The Fitbit One may not be as flashy as Jawbone’s Up, but it’s perfect for people who don’t want to flaunt their fitness tracking. In my week using the One, I appreciated how unobtrusive it was — you can clip it onto your jeans and easily forget it’s there.

Data strong: It was nice to get access to my Fitbit data from the company’s extensive online dashboard (Jawbone’s Up relies entirely on its mobile app, for now). The site gives you many more ways to look at your data without fishing through a mobile app.

Easy synchronization: Where the Jawbone Up is annoying to sync, the Fitbit One is a dream. The device can wirelessly synchronize with Bluetooth 4.0-compatible iPhones and Android smartphones, as well as with computers through Bluetooth. Fitbit includes a Bluetooth USB receiver, just in case you have an ancient computer.

Useful ecosystem: Fitbit’s $130 Aria Wi-Fi scale can help you, and seven other people in your household, easily keep track of your weight. And the $60 Fitbit Zip is a good option for keeping track of your kids’ health — it can track their steps and distance traveled, but not sleep or stairs climbed.

The Bad: Competitors are more exciting

As great as the Fitbit One is, it lacks the striking appeal of Jawbone’s Up and Nike’s FuelBand. In the end, it’s the evolution of a device that’s been around for several years, instead of something that feels new and fresh. (Just compare Fitbit’s functional, but slightly boring app, to Up’s and Fuelband’s.)

This may not mean much when assessing its quality, but when it comes to convincing lazy consumers that they need to keep track of their health, it certainly helps to appeal to them on a more visceral level.

Up vs One

After using both fitness gadgets for the past week, it’s the Up that I’m most excited to use every day. Sure, the manual syncing is annoying, but I love its gorgeous design and colorful app. Most of all, I appreciate how it makes a simple statement — the future of technology isn’t just about what we’ve got in our pockets, it’s about what’s right up against our skin.

The Up feels like the precursor to the inevitable rise of body augmentation — you don’t have to wear the Up for too long before it feels like a part of you. The up has a strange and almost ineffable pull on me as a gadget geek and someone who appreciates artistic technology.

For the pragmatic types, Fitbit’s One may be more your style. It offers better access to your fitness data, as well as a few more helpful features. It’s also the best fitness gadget option for people who just hate wearing things on their wrists (that’s a bigger group than you may think).

Summing up: A wealth of choices

Even if you vehemently disagree with my preferred fitness gadget (as a reviewer, I’m used to this), the beauty of the current marketplace is that there’s a choice for just about everyone. Beyond the Up and Fitbit’s devices, there’s Nike’s popular Fuelband, and smart pedometers like Striiv’s. And if you have a smartphone, you don’t even need an additional gadget: You can dive into fitness apps like Runkeeper and Endomondo.

When it comes to fitness gadgets, reviews may not be enough. You may have to try a few before you figure out what works best for you. But no matter what you choose, it’s hard to go wrong. I have friends who’ve lost a significant amount of weight using all of the above options.

What’s important is that you find something that helps you get off your butt — and constantly reminds you to be better.

Jawbone and Fitbit provided VentureBeat with units for review.

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

In the wake of Thanksgiving feasting, finding the motivation to exercise is as challenging as buttoning a pair of skinny jeans. It helps to have people around you who are lacing up their sneakers and encouraging you to do the same.

Just in time for the holiday (i.e. eating and drinking) season, Yog has launched its social running app that connects runners from around the world to run together in real-time.

Studies have shown that having a workout buddy, even a virtual one, dramatically bolsters exercise habits. Social pressure and competition are powerful forces. For many, working up a sweat is far more enjoyable when not done alone. But it is not always easy to find someone ready and willing to work out when you are, which is where Yog steps in.

Yog is an international community of runners brought together by an iOS app which connects them in real-time. The platform lets users schedule runs by selecting the date, time, and distance. Runners can either invite people to their run, or join other “yoggers” on theirs. During a run, audio notifications and on-screen visualizations simulate the experience of running with a friend. The app also gathers data during the run to measure and track performance.

“The majority of people don’t exercise, enough,” said founder Peter Pelberg. “We’ve seen how exercising with others positively impacts the frequency and level at which people exercise. Yog’s point of differentiation is that the app is entirely synchronous. Our community members are not tracking activities in isolation and sharing them to a stream after the fact, they’re running together, from all corners for the world, in real-time.”

The quantified self movement has been picking up steam in the technology community of late. Social fitness products like Nike+, Runkeeper, Endomondo, Strava, and MapMyRun are extremely popular amongst fitness buffs, casual exercisers, and those trying to get in shape alike. Yog strives to enhance the actual experience of running, rather than creating measuring and sharing tool for after the fact.

It was founded by two former athletes who struggled to maintain their exercise regimens in the absence of teammates to keep them on track. They began working on the app in 2011 and since then have found “yoggers” in 55 countries around the world. Distances range from one miles jaunts to half marathons, and hundreds of runs have been scheduled in the past week alone.

As for me, the only running I am doing today is between my desk and the leftover pie in the fridge. Maybe tomorrow.

Yog is based in New York, New York. The company has not received any institutional funding.

If you’ve been meaning to jump on Fitbit’s fitness tracking bandwagon, now’s a good time to start. The company announced today that its flagship Fitbit One activity tracker is now shipping and available in retail stores.

Priced at $100, the Fitbit One replaces the company’s previous Ultra model. It was first announced in September alongside the more inexpensive Fitbit Go.

This time around, Fitbit is finally bringing wireless synchronization to its devices. Both the Fitbit One and Go can sync to BlueTooth 4.0-equipped Android and iPhones with new apps. Previously, you could only synchronize your Fitbit with a computer using a custom wireless dongle.

As I wrote back in September, adding wireless synchronizing is a clear shot at one of the Nike+ Fuelband’s most useful features. But according to Fitbit cofounder and chief executive officer James Park, the two companies aren’t playing a zero-sum game. “We’re sold in very different places, and if you look at our marketing, we target very different people,” he told us. “I think the great thing about wearable activity monitors is that there’s not going to be one form factor.”

The Fitbit One also includes sleep tracking capabilities: It can chart how well you sleep at night, and it can also gently wake you up in the morning. For the true health nut, this feature has been a long time coming. Jawbone aimed for something similar with its Up wristband, and in the limited time my Up unit actually worked, it was pretty illuminating.

Check back next week for some in-depth impressions on the Fitbit One.

After raising $12 million in a third round of funding earlier this year, San Francisco-based Fitbit has raised a total of $23.4 million from Foundry Group, True Ventures, and others.

For Silicon Valley’s venture capitalists, yoga is big business.

Bessemer Venture Partners,  Institutional Venture Partners and Catalyst Ventures today invested $35 million into MindBody, a Salesforce-like technology for businesses like yoga studios and hair salons.

With this sixth-round of capital, the San Luis Obispo-based startup is plotting its international expansion — it already has satellite offices in New York and the UK, with a third opening soon in Australia.

MindBody provides a suite of marketing tools, scheduling, analytics, networking and point of sale services for health, beauty and wellness providers. It has been around since 2001, and has witnessed the explosion of competition, primarily online scheduling systems like Schedulicity, SalonBooker, Appointment Plus, and Groupon Scheduler.

To strike ahead of the competition, the company has diversified its software stack. Now, it faces heat from Salesforce, SugarCRM and other major customer relationship management (CRM) systems, which also target small businesses.

MindBody claims it is the only company that can offer the full gamut of software and specifically caters to the health and wellness space– for this reason, it is experiencing impressive growth with 900 businesses signing up per month.

“Our intent is to enable and link the 2 million beauty and wellness businesses operating worldwide with the hundreds of millions of consumers who can use their services to improve their own lives,” Rick Stollmeyer, the company’s CEO (pictured above), told VentureBeat.

Bessemer Venture Partners (BVP) participated in all the previous rounds; with this funding, the company has a total of $58 million in the bank.

---

HealthBeat 2013 is a new conference showcasing how technology is transforming health care. We'll explore how IT is driving out inefficiencies on the hospital, practice, and patient levels. Check out full event details here, and register here.

---

Mike Tinney is making jumps of a completely different kind. The former president of the online game company CCP Games North America (the makers of EVE Online) is going from leaps into hyperspace to jumping jacks with his new startup, Fitness Interactive Experience.

The Atlanta-based company plans to launch its first fitness “gamification” title, UtiliFit, in a closed beta test in December and then start an open beta in January, Tinney said in an interview with GamesBeat. This is part of a trend toward gamification, or using video game mechanics to motivate people to accomplish goals in non-game activities.

Advisers on the project include Tim Church, a national expert on exercise and preventative medicine; Reynir Hardarsson, founder of CCP; and Monte Cook, a well-known role-playing game designer (he once worked on Dungeons & Dragons).

“They’ve signed on to help the company get its product started,” said Tinney, who started the company in March. “There is a huge opportunity in digital fitness to bring more gaming into it. It’s all about creating and maintaining healthy habits. So you can control what you are eating better and increase your physical activity.”

He added, “When you align your activity against goals and do them time and time again, then you can achieve those goals. How quickly you achieve them depends on consistency and quality with which you do it. Video games have a unique intersection with that because they’re a very addictive activity. We’re trying to get people to do a mundane task again and again. Combining those two can be a game-changer.”

The first will be an activity-based game that helps people be less sedentary. It will encourage you to take small steps toward being more active. It will score you based on how well you do and rank you competitively against your friends, if you wish. You can also cooperate with your friends. It’s like a massively multiplayer online game meets cross-fit training, he said.

The company is targeting both gamers and nongamers. The U.S. Department of Health recommends that people exercise 30 minutes a day five days a week. Only 3 percent of Americans actually do that.

“It’s a disturbing number of people who don’t do exercise,” Tinney said. “We are making this app more accessible, and we are not limiting it to gamers. We’re seeing early traction in casual fitness and in the corporate wellness market.”

Tinney has a small team working so far, with three full-time employees and eight part-timers. He’s raising money. The game will target web browsers via HTML5, the lingua franca for the web. Rivals include Striiv, Nike, and a number of other fitness gaming and exercise-tracking companies.

“We want to keep the barrier to entry as low as possible,” he said. “We’re trying to focus a lot more on game design.”

Tinney left CCP earlier this year. Tinney has been directly involved in board and online gaming since 1993, when he was part of White Wolf Publishing. He managed White Wolf’s publishing and trading card game business. Iceland-based CCP Games (publisher of Eve Online) bought that company in 2006, and Tinney became the head of the company’s North American operations as well as some of CCP’s global operations.

[Image credits: the company]

---

GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

---

Lark, the startup that makes those nifty sleep-tracking, insomnia-curing wristbands, has just taken its product a step further. Today, the company launched a new wristband that brings diet and exercise into the biometic fold.

Called Larklife, the new product combines hardware and software to track personal health factors such as how many steps you take, how many calories you burn, and how soundly you sleep. That data is gathered automatically and passively by Larklife’s dual wristband hardware: one band for sleeping, the other for waking hours.

Food tracking has been built into a one-click process; just tap a button on your wristband, and you can enter your nutritional info on the free Larklife iPhone app at your leisure.

The system then analyzes the data and makes personalized recommendations for your health and wellness based on the input of a team of scientists and sleep, diet, and fitness experts. For example, if your Larklife nighttime wristband knows you didn’t get much real rest last night, the Larklife iPhone app will remind you to eat an extra healthy, fuel-packed breakfast to keep your energy level and concentration up.

The wristbands themselves were designed by Ammuniton, the design shop that previously designed the Beats line of headphones bearing Dr. Dre’s moniker.

Here’s what the system looks like:

In addition to providing instant recommendations for better health via iOS notifications, Larklife pulls in gamification elements to incentivize users by celebrating their accomplishments.

In some ways, it’s a bit like Nike’s FuelBand or the popular Fitbit lineup. But adding the sleep component is Lark’s secret sauce.

The original Lark product was a simple wristband that tracked your sleep, woke you with a gentle buzz from a small vibrating component, and proceeded to make recommendations to help you sleep better.

Larklife is available for $149; the company’s sleep-only coach sells for $99.

Lark was founded in 2010 by Julia Hu; the startup is based in Mountain View, Calif., and has taken a grand total of $80,000 in funding to date — not a huge amount for any startup, let alone a hardware venture, which makes the young company’s progress all the more impressive.

Childhood obesity is quickly becoming a top health concern, with one in three American kids now classified as obese. Pundits often point to technology as the problem.

But building on the mantra that what you measure, you can improve, nonprofit HopeLab and its “social enterprise” subsidiary Zamzee have introduced an activity meter for kids that, like FitBit, connects to a website to display activity, get “pointz,” and engage friends in fitness-increasing games such as “Escape from Alcatraz.”

Source: Zamzee.com

Gamifying health: Zamzee

And the research says that it works.

Today Zamzee released the results of a six-month study of 448 middle-school kids at the 2012 Obesity Society annual meeting in San Antonio, Texas. The kids using Zamzee were 59 percent more likely to engage in moderate to vigorous physical exercise. Girls showed the biggest increase — 103 percent, and even obese children increased their physical activity by 27 percent.

Oh, and if kids should be worried about cholesterol, Zamzee users showed less LDL (“bad” cholesterol).

We’re pretty used to the story that technology is bad for kids. And perhaps that’s true, if it’s just TV and Xbox and PSP. But this study shows that monitoring and gamifying health works for kids just as much as it works for adults.

Zamzee is much cheaper than a FitBit or FuelBand, costing just $30. Richard Tate, a spokesperson for Zamzee and HopeLab, told VentureBeat that was the goal from the beginning.

“When we designed Zamzee, we were really focused on our purpose … we wanted a price that would work for anyone.”

Access to the Zamzee website for tracking and competing with friends and family is free.

HopeLab was founded by Pam Omidyar and is funded by her and husband Pierre Omidyar, the founder of eBay.

photo credit: robad0b via photopin cc

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Fitness tracking pioneer Fitbit isn’t sitting still in the face of heavy competition. The company today announced two new devices: Fitbit Zip, a smart activity tracker that retails for just $59.99, and Fitbit One, a new flagship device meant to replace the popular $99.99 Fitbit Ultra.

Both devices allow you to wirelessly synchronize your Fitbit performance with a Bluetooth 4.0 compatible smartphone (like the iPhone 4S or Samsung Galaxy S III). You can even synchronize in the background now, without even opening up the Fitbit app on your phone. That’s a major improvement over the Fitbit Ultra, which can only synchronize to desktop computers with a special wireless dongle.

Fitbit’s two-pronged approach with its next generation of devices could help the company better compete against the popular Nike+ Fuelband, which is more expensive at $149. In particular, Fitbit hopes to make inroads with families that want to track their performance together with the Zip device, Fitbit cofounder and CEO James Park told VentureBeat in an interview last week. The company is also considering family bundle pricing if the Zip takes off.

The addition of wireless synchronizing is a clear shot at one of the Nike+ Fuelband’s most useful features. But according to Park, the two companies aren’t playing a zero-sum game. “We’re sold in very different places, and if you look at our marketing we target very different people,” he said. “I think the great thing about wearable activity monitors is that there’s not going to be one form factor.”

With the Fitbit Zip, available today, the company has designed a friendly activity tracker that’s somewhat reminiscent of the Tamagotchi virtual pets from the ’90s. It sports a simple black and white display which you can tap to jump through various statistics, like total steps taken every day, total distance, and the amount of calories you’ve burned. You also don’t have to worry about recharging the Fitbit Zip, since it’s powered by a single watch battery, which the company estimates will last around six months.

For its flagship Fitbit One, the company has basically refined its existing Fitbit Ultra design. The new tracker is 40 percent smaller than the Ultra, and it also adds a silent alarm clock to gently wake you up. In addition to all of the activity tracking that the Fitbit Zip covers, the Fitbit One also tracks your sleep (something that the Nike+ Fuelband doesn’t do).

Unfortunately we don’t have a firm release date for the Fitbit One just yet, but the company says it’s coming in late October.

Both new Fitbit devices let you explore your fitness data on Fitbit.com and through the Fitbit app on iOS and Android. Come October, the company will offer real-time leaderboards so you can compare your performance with friends, messaging to your friends, and you’ll also be able to get alerts on your phone as you approach your fitness goals.

In addition to Nike’s FuelBand, Fitbit also competes with Striiv’s step counter, and Jawbone’s Up wristband (which is off the market now, but is due to return soon).

I had a chance to test out the Fitbit Zip for a few days, and it works as advertised. On one busy Saturday running around New York City, I learned that I had walked more than four miles. Setting up the device for wireless syncing on Fitbit’s new iPhone app was also a cinch. At a mere $60, the Fitbit Zip’s cute personality could win the company some new fans, especially among health conscious parents.

After raising $12 million in a third round of funding earlier this year, Chicago-based Fitbit has raised a total of $23.4 million from Foundry Group, True Ventures, and others.

L.A.’s thriving tech community is not letting up on its ongoing effort to make the rest of the country more fit and healthy.

Launching today, FitKit prompts you to take a free lifestyle assessment quiz and then doles out personalized guidance from nutritionists. The quiz was designed by nutrition experts Dr. Robin Bernhoft and Dr. Nick Bitz. It asks questions about how much alcohol you consume per week, stress levels, eating habits, and more.

“America is a land of malnutrition,” said Dr. Bernhoft, who recently joined the founding team. “Practically everyone has vitamin and mineral deficiencies which make them feel less energetic, get sick easier, have less endurance.”

On the backend, cofounder Josh Haynam explained that an algorithm works to “analyze and connect user’s lifestyle patterns with nutritional deficiencies” and pairs them with appropriate nutritional supplements. It’s ideal for people who can’t afford a one-on-one session with a nutritionist but are overwhelmed by the range of products on the market that claim to improve joint pain or boost immunity.

The cofounders, Haynam, Matthew Clark, Rohit Seth, and Ethan Paulson (pictured with Dr. Bernoft), hope to use technology to make nutrition more accessible. ”Health and fitness has been jaded by outrageous claims and false advertisements,” Haynam told me.

Haynam is a 20-year-old economics student at UCLA. He founded the company in three months after a football accident in which he broke two bones in his foot. During his recovery, he was prescribed a variety of supplements by several nutritionists, setting him back thousands of dollars in medical bills. But he couldn’t find transparent advice online. It was then that he hit on the idea for FitKit.

FitKit is easy to get confused with FitBit, one of many new companies vying for dominance in the personalized health space. FitBit makes money by using data about your health to tailor a fitness plan, which will likely be the monetization strategy for this company if it succeeds in growing its user-base. The companies recently partnered so you can integrate your FitKit data into FitBit’s quiz to improve its accuracy.

You’re emailed recommendations, but as of today, you can also purchase nutritional supplements directly from the site.

It’s early, but it is already evidence of traction — FitKit offered its beta to friends and family, but told me they have been garnering hundreds of signups per day and are spreading by word of mouth. It’s a recent graduate of StartEngine, a local tech accelerator. Through that program, it raised its first $20,000 in seed funding, and has grown to a team of seven people.

Haynam considers sites that specialize in selling nutritional supplements like VitaCost as the major competitors. However, in the long-term, FitKit may rival later-stage startups like WellnessFX that offer online health consultations and have pioneered a data-driven approach to health.

Facebook and fitness. Who knew these two seemingly disparate pursuits would blend so magically together? But fitness apps (and social competition in fitness activities) have seen huge growth since app developers got access to Facebook’s Open Graph.

Due to Open Graph integration with apps from Nike, RunKeeper, Garmin, and many others, we lowly Facebook users are starting to humblebrag (or just regular-brag) about our real-world fitness exploits.

For example, my brother and dad are both really into running and biking — the longer the distance, the faster the mileage, the better. Nowadays, I can’t log onto Facebook without seeing one or both of them posting via a third-party app a highly detailed update about their latest run or ride, including the exact route, time of day, and elevation changes.

And one of my favorite online friends has recently picked up running as a new hobby and is already making huge strides (pun intended), booking it around Virginia in high temperatures and for long distances. Her Facebook feed is full of hilarious jokes about the training experience as well as lots of support and encouragement from friends.

So, as fitness becomes one of the more popular things we’re all talking about on Facebook, fitness app-makers are seeing a lot of growth. It’s kind of a chicken-egg question: Do we talk about exercise on Facebook because we have the apps, or did devs make the apps because they realized everyone was talking about exercise on Facebook anyway?

That we may never know. What we do know, thanks to a new Facebook Developers blog post today, is that the Nike+ Running app saw a 77 percent increase in traffic after integrating Facebook Open Graph. And mobile training app Endomondo saw traffic grow more than 150 percent after plugging into the Open Graph. RunKeeper and Runtastic each saw a 25 percent traffic bump.

The best practices these early-adopting Open Graph fitness apps have to offer are simple and, one would think, obvious: Use Facebook for logins. Show a map for outdoor activity statuses. Let users tag their friends. Let users post about their achievements, not just their activities.

These apps all integrated with Open Graph back in March, when the whole idea of “actions” came into play for third-party Facebook developers. Facebook said other fitness apps, such as Livestrong, MapMyRun and MapMyRide, are still just getting started.

But one thing’s for certain: As much as Facebook wants to keep you glued to its fascinating pages for hours on end, it’s also becoming easier to leave Facebook behind and plug your other, real-world activities into Facebook while you’re on the go. Ergo, even though you’re leaving the website itself, it’s still becoming more ubiquitous by the minute.

Image courtesy of Ljupco Smokovski, Shutterstock

---

Big Data and Predictive/Real-time Analytics startups: Are you looking to jumpstart development & accelerate market traction? Sign up for the SAP Startup Focus program to receive technology, support, resources and community to help you develop new applications on SAP HANA, a cutting edge database platform. Get started here, and enter promo code “VB2013″ on the form.

---

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Bluetooth 4.0 is getting a big fitness push today.

The Bluetooth Special Interest Group (SIG)  has agreed on a new set of Bluetooth fitness standards that will fuel the next generation of Bluetooth-enabled fitness devices.

Bluetooth is seen as a great fit for devices like the Nike+ FuelBand (above), as it offers a wide range of compatibility with minimal power consumption.

The new profiles, which focus on cycling and running, enable the devices to transmit data on variables like stride length, running speed, and pedal cadence. Previously, these profiles were largely locked to specific companies, but the new standards change that, making it far easier for any company to quickly develop and release a compatible device.

This is good news for consumers, as it ensures near-universal cross-compatibility between fitness devices and the increasing number of devices that interact with them. The movie will also open up the market for far more innovation.

And it’s good as well for companies like Broadcom, CSR, and Intel, which are heavily invested in making sure their chips get into as many devices as possible.

“As [a manufacturer], if you want your product to connect with billions of products your customers likely already use on a daily basis, then Bluetooth technology is the obvious choice,”Bluetooth SIG marketing officer Suke Jawanda said in a statement.

Fitness-tracking app Runtastic is harnessing this fascination/narcissism with physical achievement by teaming up with Google Earth to provide 3D footage that can be played back and shared.

The technology collects GPS data while you traverse a marathon course, ski down a mountain, or cycle across the Golden Gate Bridge. It also works for leisurely strolls through a park (high heart rates are not required for the app to function).

After you finish working out, a 3D video will reflect your journey. If your motivation is to impress coworkers with your physical prowess, send it around the company email chain. If your goal is to remember the exquisite flower fields you biked past on vacation, save it with your trip photos.

“We saw that running, cycling, and outdoor sport activities could be more interesting than only seeing a number at the end,” said CEO Florian Gschwandtner. “You can’t share your experience with data, you need images. It becomes a memory.”

Runtastic is a popular free app that tracks sports data like elapsed time, average speed, calorie consumption, and heart rate while exercising. The collected information can be uploaded to the site, as well as shared on social networks.

There are more apps in this area than miles in a marathon — MapMyRun, Endomondo, AllSport GPS, Fitness Pro, SmartRunner, Nike + GPS, and SparkPeople to name a few. Runtastic is doing well in this particular race, however. It recently hit the 10 million download mark and became cash flow positive.

Like true athletes, the founders are fueled by competition. They strove to distinguish themselves from the pack by continuing to innovate and develop technology. This latest feature is available under the Runtastic Pro app for Android, which costs $4.

Runtastic was founded in October 2009 and has never received institutional investment.

If you haven’t started training for the next Olympics, there is no time like the present.

The website gives users access to quality workouts anytime, anywhere by connecting them with verified fitness professionals. As long as there is a computer, an internet connection, and a little bit of space, exercise is possible.

On Wello, aspiring exercisers can find training options to suit every level, preference, and schedule. You can search the database by activity type, trainer personality, time, and session length. Feel like circuit training with a drill sergeant for 25 high-intensity minutes? You got it. Or perhaps an hour of yoga with a zenned-out instructor is more your style? That’s available too. Workouts are customized and the trainers provide direct guidance, motivation, and feedback.

“It is a challenge for most people to find the time or motivation to go to the gym or on a run,” said founder Leslie Silverglide. “No one does burpees on their own. You have to have someone there to make sure you do the things you know you should do, but don’t want to.”

Silverglide and her co-founder Ann Plante met in business school at Stanford. Both women were health buffs — Plante played tennis at Dartmouth and Silverglide was a gymnast and squash player before she started health food restaurant chain MixtGreens. As busy students, the friends struggled to fit fitness into their daily schedules. They tried gym memberships, exercise groups, and home videos, but nothing provided the degree of personal interaction, motivation, or flexibility they required.

After graduating with MBAs last June, Silverglide and Plante dedicated themselves to building a company that would make exercise accessible, personalized, and pleasant under all circumstances.

“All busy people can be time crunched, and this is a convenient way to get in a workout you wouldn’t otherwise be able to,” Plante said. “We have people on our platform looking to lose 100 pounds and we have marathon runners. We make it easier for anyone to get and stay fit.”

By creating an exercise option that accommodate all schedules and needs, Wello appeals to people across the board from traveling professionals cooped up in hotel rooms to new moms looking to get back in shape.

“I am a busy mom working as a brand marketing consultant and taking care of 2 year old twins,” said client Oleysa Alferenko. “I juggle a lot of priorities. I don’t want to give up working out, but I am terrible at motivating myself to do it. Wello appeals to me because it allows me to fit highly effective workouts around my life as opposed to the other way around.”

Wello already has an impressive roster of personal trainers ready and willing to whip you into top form. Trainers create profiles detailing their credentials, areas of expertise, workout style, fees, and available appointment slots. Users search through the available options and book sessions that are right for them. Workouts last for 25, 40, or 55 minutes and there are no downloads, software, or special equipment required.

Sessions cost an average of $40, far less than most personal training sessions. Some options are as low as $5, while big name trainers charging significantly more. Wello has several celebrity spokespeople on board, including A-List trainer Michael George, who has worked with Reese Witherspoon, and Olympic Cyclist Evelyn Stevens, who conducts power yoga sessions from all over the world. The geographic flexibility appeals to trainers and users alike. Fitness professionals also appreciate that Wello allows them to adapt their work life to their personal life.

“I discovered how much more convenient Wello was than training clients in person,” said boot camp trainer Kelly Kallbrier. “You can continue training clients who moved away, pick the rate you want to charge, pick the hours you want to work, meet new clients, train from any location with internet, and save a ton of time.”

Wello is currently raising a seed round. The team is based in Palo Alto and consists of 6 people, including a trainer whose sole job it is to onboard fitness professionals. Ultimately, Silverglade and Plante would like to see Wello expand beyond exercise, connecting people via live, interactive video with experts on a wide range of health and wellness subjects, like nutrition and sports psychology.

Almost a quarter of its users are located in the United States, although clearly not enough to keep our BMIs in a reasonable range. In addition to cutting out Oreos and pizza, regular exercise is a key component of weight control, and yet it can be remarkably difficult to emerge from the coziness of a couch.

Endomondo’s Sports Tracker mobile app strives to make exercise more enticing by incorporating a social element as well as providing motivational support, workout tracking, and performance analysis. The app is currently adding more than 20,000 new users per day, which means it’s doing something right.

“Our mission is to make fitness fun by making it more social and engaging,” said cofounder Mette Lykke. “Most of our users find it motivating to connect with friends, family, and coworkers around fitness. Users can give pep talks to one another, comment on each other’s workouts, and challenge each other.”

In fact, since launching Facebook Timeline capability earlier this year, Endomondo has seen traffic from Facebook increase more than 150 %, and around 50,000 workouts per day are shared on Facebook. The workouts are focused on distance-based activities, like running, cycling, and walking. The collected data shows a strong correlation between workout activity and the number of friends a user has. Apparently, when people are watching, we are less prone to laziness. Now if only there was an app to yell at you for pulling out that pint of Ben & Jerry’s after that 4 mile run.

Boot camp image via AN HONORABLE GERMAN/Flickr

I just wrote a book called Fitness for Geeks, so as you can imagine, I get a lot of health and exercise questions from people who want highly technical answers. For example, I was recently asked, “What’s the best form of exercise for losing weight?”

The question itself is a little misleading because, despite the popular wisdom, you can’t really lose weight via the “burning off of calories by exercising as much as you possibly can.” This is because the vast majority of people simply put the calories back on after long workouts. It’s not their fault or a sign of a lack of willpower — the body is simply a smart system that is very efficient at retaining and replacing stored calories.

Let’s do the math. You’re a hardcore runner who jogs 30 miles a week, five six-mile runs on average. You finish a six-mile run in a little less than an hour, less than 10 minutes per mile.

Based on my vast experience as a runner geek, I’d say you’d expend roughly 500 calories during this training session (running all-out for an hour will expend about 700 kcal).

However, this calorie amount includes your basal metabolic rate (BMR) — what you would have expended by remaining stationary for that period. For me, the BMR for a 55-minute period is about 65 calories. So the run actually only burned off an extra 435 calories. This still sounds like a lot, huh?

But you’re hungry afterwards, right? Running for almost an hour? Possibly not at the moment, but certainly an hour from then. So you slam a banana (a healthy treat to replace the lost potassium, but fructose-packed and calorie-rich) and an energy bar.

One medium banana (105 cals) and the bar (about 220 cals) means you’ve just replaced 75 percent of the expended calories, and that doesn’t include anything eaten before or during the run. You also might leap onto the weight scale after the run to ogle the pounds you just lost, but the scale is probably sending more of a message about dehydration than anything else.

There are other things going on . Most of what you burned off during the run was probably glycogen, a form of starch that’s stored in the liver and skeletal muscles, and the body preferentially replaces that with carbs or glucose eaten after endurance-type exercise. You might have also tapped into the fat stores inside the muscle itself.

These are two places (glycogen and the fats the muscles use for energy) where you don’t really mind having energy depots. In fact, they represent essential energy sources for the body.

Getting back to the original question, how does exercise contribute to weight loss? By improving your metabolism in the long run. A person won’t lose weight until they move into a healthy metabolic realm. This means they want to retain sensitivity to their own insulin, and not develop insulin resistance.

When you embark on high-intensity type exercise session, such as sprinting and lifting heavy weights, you use the more powerful Type II muscles (e.g., the quads and the hamstrings). The glycogen in those muscles cells is expended (as it generally isn’t completely by jogging), and the muscles retain their insulin sensitivity at the same time as they pull glucose out of the bloodstream to replace the lost glycogen.

That’s a simplified description for a very complex and efficient mechanism in our bodies. With better insulin sensitivity you will develop lower-fasting insulin levels, and your body is less likely to be in fat-storage mode all the time. The actual calories you burn off during the sprint or weight-lift are almost beside the point.

As a person with healthy low-fasting insulin and glucose levels, you will also not experience the constant hunger pangs throughout the day, which are so familiar to many of us. You will only eat when you are experiencing actual hunger (admittedly, an elusive concept) and are in need of calories to fuel your brain, for instance. Intermittent fasting also helps promote a fitter metabolism.

The book goes into greater depth on all these issues, and I will expand upon them here in the near future. However, a sprint session once a week and a high-intensity weight bout once or twice a week represents more than a good beginning.

Imagine that you want to optimize the gas mileage you’re getting in your car. The typical strategy that you would use is maintaining the efficiency of the engine and the physics of burning as little gasoline as possible, and this is an apt metaphor for helping optimize your body’s metabolism.

Bruce W. Perry played college soccer in New York, then amidst a varied career in journalism and software engineering finished literally (ask his knees!) hundreds of road races and multisport events. He’s since moved on to family life and recreational alpine hiking, skiing, and resistance training. He wrote two recent software books for O’Reilly Media. After an unguided youth, the author hangs out weightlifting in gyms again, and climbs with guides now, recently Piz Palu in the Swiss Alps, Mt. Whitney’s Mountaineer’s Route, and Mt. Rainier. The Jungfrau in Switzerland is next up.

The problem with most diets is that nobody is really watching you all the time. But with a monitoring device and new remote software to go with it, BodyMedia has proposed a way for a coach or fitness trainer to keep track of your vital signs, including your calorie burn and food intake.

BodyMedia’s Fit Armband System can be strapped to your arm or legs. It keeps track of your activity and, via the new BodyMedia ProConnect software, can relay your data to a doctor, coach, or fitness trainer. With permission, your coach can log onto your BodyMedia Fit Activity Manager account to monitor your activity and send comments directly to you.

Pittsburgh-based BodyMedia unveiled the ProConnect system today at the DEMO Spring 2012 conference in Santa Clara, Calif. The armband monitors daily calories burned, steps taken, level of physical activity, and sleep patterns. You can also enter your daily food intake into online food logs and see how well you are meeting your goals. Of course, you have to be honest about entering the food intake. But if you are, then your coach can get visibility into your regimen 24 hours a day.

“One of the challenges health and fitness advisors face in driving behavioral change is an inability to know exactly how much clients and patients are eating, exercising, and sleeping on a daily basis,” said Christine Robins, chief executive of BodyMedia. “Our wearable body monitors have been collecting that information for over a decade, and now we have taken it a step further” by allowing advisors to view that data remotely and send messages from the same screen.

The body monitors capture more than 5,000 data points per minute. BodyMedia claims that its system can enhance a user’s weight loss by three times.

Gregory Welk (pictured below), director of clinical research and community outreach at Iowa State University’s Nutrition and Wellness Research Center, said his clients have been using the BodyMedia armbands for years and recently began testing ProConnect.

BodyMedia ProConnect is available now for $49 a year for an individual subscription or $399 a year for a corporate subscription.

BodyMedia was founded in 1999 and has been making wearable body monitors for years. So far, it has collected more than 10 billion minutes of Armband data and has recorded more than 170 billion steps. The company has 58 employees and competes with FitBit, Nike Fuel, Jawbone, Basis Science, Striiv, and others. BodyMedia has raised $2.7 million to date.

The founders — all alumni of Carnegie Mellon University — are Astro Teller, John (Ivo) Stivoric, Chris Pacione, and Chris Kasabach.

BodyMedia is one of 80 companies chosen by VentureBeat to launch at the DEMO Spring 2012 event taking place this week in Silicon Valley. After we make our selections, the chosen companies pay a fee to present. Our coverage of them remains objective.

Striiv has taken the humble step counter and turned it into a “personal trainer in your pocket.” The Redwood City, Calif.-based company says that in the two months since its release, the company’s step-counting gadget has inspired people to walk a lot more frequently and farther.

The results show that it is possible to change the behavior of sedentary people and make them more fit. As such, the company has begun to validate its belief that “gamifying” fitness with positive feedback could create a more healthy population.

Striiv counts the number of steps you walk in a day. If you swipe across the screen, you can see how many miles you’ve walked, how many stairs you’ve climbed, the number of minutes you’ve spent being active, and the number of calories burned. You are prompted to do more with rewards and achievements, such as energy to build things in a fantasy world.

After 12 weeks, the majority of Striiv users check their results about 29 times every day to see how many steps they walked. That’s nearly as frequently as they look at email on their smartphones (34 times). The more people use Striiv, the more they walk. Users who unlock the Striiv gadget (pictured) 34 times a day walk about 69 percent more than users who unlock Striiv just five times a day.

“There is a handful of gadgets geared to health, like Nike’s FuelBand which claims ‘life’s a sport,’” said David Wang, chief executive of Striiv. “But we are for everyday, busy people, who may not have time for the gym, or aren’t avid athletes. Striiv fits into any schedule; making it fun and meaningful is the key.”

Wong said that the longer people have the product, the more they use Striiv. And the more they interact with it, the more they walk. Striiv charts your progress and tracks your records, such as how much you walk in a day on average. I’ve used Striiv for about a month and it tells me I walk 8,622 steps on average, or 4.1 miles a day. My personal best was 7.8 miles walk during the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Knowing that makes me want to beat those records.

Striiv also has a “walkathon” feature where the company donates toward causes such as clean water, polio vaccines or saving the rainforest. The more you walk, the more it donates.

On average, Striiv users are walking nearly 60 minutes per day. They log about 3 miles per day and walk up eight flights of stairs per day. The Striiv device costs $99 and is available on the Home Shopping Network, HSN.com, Amazon, and Striiv.com.

The company was founded in 2010 and it has raised $7.5 million to date. Investors include Ronald Chwang of iD Ventures; Colin Angle, founder of iRobot; Dado Banatao of Tallwood Ventures (a private investment); along with other angel investors.

Rival technologies include Basis, which makes a wrist band that you wear so that it can measure both your movement, heart rate, and perspiration. Other rivals are FitBit, Jawbone, and Nike.

[Image credits: Striiv]