What are /r/QuantifiedSelf's favorite Products & Services?

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RescueTime can do that. You can pull data from the API for use in other projects. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rescuetime.android

There are several others that also can do that. SmarterTime is another one that's involved in QS, and I'd assume would also be easy to get data out of. I'm biased because I work for RescueTime. :)

I've bought into AmpStrip for continuous heart/sleep tracking. It's set to be released in June, and I'm pretty stoked for it.

I used to use the Basis B1, but stopped using it because it's bulky, provides mediocre data during activity, and all of the data is locked into the Basis ecosystem (ie no third party integration).

You sound like you're looking for a smart watch, which is cool, and totally different than what the AmpStrip is going to provide, but keep one thing in mind--wrist band based heart rate monitors suck at reporting accurate heart rate data. This doesn't include the Basis Peak as it wasn't released when this came out, but you should probably stay away from Basis as a whole for ignoring their customer base (myself included) for the past several years when asking about third-party integration, as well as blocking out user-coded attempts to get their own data with platform updates. They're just after your data, and it seems really dodgy to me.

Trakt has a lot of integrations that might let you track movies and shows watched, but won't work if you channel-surf as it doesn't capture the actual time spent watching, just the length of each movie/show.

Yeah, step-wise GLM would probably be the most meaningful way to see what influences any given dependent (outcome) variable. R stats is great (get ggplot for visualization), but Plot.ly is also really nice (especially if you know python).

At the level of the individual, and as someone without a background in experimental design, anything that looks statistically significant probably isn't. However, recognize that anecdotal and suggestive results can still be useful to you if they help you refine and test hypotheses. You will not be able to "prove" anything, but you can still use it to improve.

Have fun ;)

I've worn the Fitbit Force, Jawbone UP original and 24, Withings Pulse, and Misfit Shine. The best was the Fitbit Force, so I'd recommend waiting for the Fitbit Charge to arrive, which is basically an updated Force.

I've also collected a bunch of reviews and comparisons of trackers that might be useful to you: https://exist.io/blog/fitness-tracker-reviews/

I'm the developer of ActivityWatch and we store the intervals between every app/activity change (the vast majority of similar apps don't since it's more detail than most would want).

I'm not sure how well our export functionality works on Android yet (it's in an early stage of development, edit: it works fine), but give it a try! It's on the Play Store.

Time tracking works for me. I think about everything I do in 15 or 30 minute intervals.

I use www.everyhour.xyz but there is a huge amount of them here: https://www.notion.so/d3f534e55c2b4c9eba33f2026eb52f69?v=6bc1de79e5a54630abce8f0344c90460

I tried it with Apple Watch 6. I found it to be giving too much information. The feed that you get based on you day is not very actionable. You can try it for free and see for yourself.

You can check out https://exist.io/ it might be more suitable (and less expensive) for what you are looking for.

I've accidentally (was looking for a way to use my 4+ years of Jawbone data) found exist.io two weeks ago. Do far, I'm enjoying all integration they offer. Using this shameless referral link you can try it for free for 2 months:

https://exist.io/?referred_by=fitlipe

I like the simplicity. It would be good to see which tracker you use (I am not sure if you kept it ambiguous on purpose). Have you heard of https://exist.io/ ? Any thoughts on which features will differentiate your platform?

I'm not sure if our mood tracking would be a good replacement for Daylio, but my app Exist includes custom tags so you can add a tag for every day you're menstruating (or separate tags for spotting, cramps, period, etc.) and we can help you correlate that to your mood. In future we'd like to sync menstruation data from other services like Apple Health so you don't have to rely on tags but we don't have an ETA on that yet.

Exist.io is very nicely done (though I'm not a big fan of the correlate all the things approach). It's also worth mentioning that they added an API not too long ago--a must for an "analytics platform" (even if it's just read-only for now).

Try Exist and Gyroscope - the former gives you a weekly collage of the media you've consumed (with correlations too if you're interested), while the latter lets you build reports on them too.

I'm thinking something like https://exist.io, or https://gyrosco.pe, that I would run on my own machine, that collates the data, and maybe provides some built in reports.

What spreadsheet do you use, and how are you providing data to it?

Are you interested in just tracklogs (like the ones you get from apps like Endomondo), or do you also want place names associated with your locations (like you get from Moves)?

Google Timeline is a good option, but isn't more accurate then Moves. It is a bit smarter as it makes use of appointments (if you use Google Calendar) and searches (if you use Google Maps). You can edit not just incorrect locations (like with Moves), but also incorrect begin and end times. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be an official way to export all of the data (neither Google Fit nor Google Takeout appear to include place names).

Smarter Time could be another option, haven't looked at it much yet.

There is...sort of.

https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Halo-Fitness-And-Health-Band/dp/B07QK955LS

It will tell you if your tone of voice is angry.

I have had good experience with memento database:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.luckydroid.droidbase

Highly customizable, from tracking simple timestamps of days where different events occurred to entering any additional data

For Android, Trackthisforme and TapLog are two apps that let you put widgets for logging sneezes etc on your home screen.

You might be able to use https://ifttt.com/ for some of this.

If they have public APIs for downloading the data, you can write a set of python or ruby scripts to call the API, download the CSV, and then merge all the CSVs together.

This looks really promising. Two questions:

1.) Do you have plans to have integrated weather tracking based on location similar to how exist.io does it?

2.) Why the name Metriport? (Just curious)

bearable app, trakt.tv, last.fm, myfitnesspal, goodreads, logg, sleepcycle, dayone, clue, backpack health, a plethora of google spreadsheets for the things i can't track in apps.

i also use pawprint to track my dog's stuff.

Calendars:

• Weather (Google Calendar)
• Plank (Nomie)
• Pull-up (Nomie + Google Assistant)
• Squat (Nomie + Google Assistant)
• Push-up (Nomie + Google Assistant)
• Sit-up (Nomie + Google Assistant)
• Pooped (Nomie + NFC tags)
• Peed (Nomie + NFC tags)
• Flossed (Nomie + NFC tags)
• Brushed teeth (Nomie + NFC tags)
• Sleeping (Google Fit)
• Walking (Google Fit)
• Running (Google Fit)
• In vehicle (Google Fit)
• Steps (Google Fit)
• Kitchen (ESP32)
• Living room (ESP32)
• Away (ESP32)
• Bathroom (Wyze Sense)
• Shower (Wyze Sense)
• ThinkPad T420 (ActivityWatch)
• Teclast F5 (ActivityWatch)
• Nokia 6.1 (ActivityWatch)
• Nokia 6.1 apps (ActivityWatch)
• Programming (ActivityWatch)
• Virtual meetup (ActivityWatch)
• Social (ActivityWatch)
• Calls (ActivityWatch, Google Duo manual export)
• Workout (Nomie's exercises session aggregation)
• Music (Last.fm, ActivityWatch)
• Movies (Trakt.tv, Chromecast, ActivityWatch)

Not a problem! Those integrations will definitely be a premium feature, as we will have to pay monthly for access to weather APIs. We will make sure to keep you posted on the development, and we really appreciate the support!

Also, hell yeah, we actually use Obsidian ourselves! We will consider a Discord for sure, however we were also thinking about using Element as it is more geared towards privacy (end-to-end encryption and the works). We will make sure to keep you posted on this as well.

AMAZING thanks for the reply. Hopefully the integrations are a premium feature so I have a reason to upgrade to premium. Would love to support the app.

Reddit is great but it would be really great if you'd start a discord server. If you want some inspiration for what a thriving community looks like for an app in development, there's none better than the Obsidian MD server. Incredible community. Check it out and let me know if you ever make one!

I use Obsidian, but not for quantified self stuff. I don't really see any connection there.

You could definitely use Obsidian for writing a daily journal. There are built-in "Daily Note" and "Zettelkasten prefixer" in the Core Plugins.

What kind of data do you have, and what do you intend to do with it? Open mHealth has some open source code for dealing with Quantified Self data if you want to build something from scratch. If on the other hand you're looking for an existing solution that lets you feed in additional data through an API, check out Zenobase.

Maybe, I think you haver to experiment.

The tags I'm familiar with are the size of a quarter: https://www.amazon.ca/Ntag215-Enabled-Phones-Compatible-Amiibo/dp/B08FTM1138/

I guess there's no reason you couldn't put on a strap, might not look the greatest though. You'd also have to make sure there's enough space between them so they don't interfere with each other.

It's not pretty but you can get the data via XML. Aerobic exercise is non strength training. So, it's things I log into MFP as "Exercise Minutes." Zenobase looks cool.

As this isn't my target (want to keep my location data private), I'm a big fan of Arc (iOS only). It's free and private, combines it with health data and allows to export the collected data.

It shouldn't be very hard then to import this exported data into a Google Earth project.

23andMe has an option to "email me when new health discoveries are made about my DNA", though I don't recall ever seeing such an email.

Not sure how openSNP handles new information.

But check out Nomie for a flexible all-in-one active tracking solution. It also does some basic correlations between sets of variables. I've used it for 4+ years now. https://nomie.app/

I highly recommend you Nomie.

It's a great tool, all your data stays private and it's open source.

Check it out at https://nomie.app and if you have more questions the founder it's on this sub (/r/nomie) and he is very involved with the community.

I've found that it doesn't need to be so rigorous! Even with the 80 metrics I track, it takes me 5 minutes a night (and that's almost a mindfulness check-in for myself).

However, tracking metrics doesn't have to be in such large quantities either! Even tracking 1 metric can be helpful for achieving certain goals, and after a month of tracking several metrics, you have enough data to draw meaningful statistically significant conclusions with correlation analysis.

Yes, I've tried Exist.io. I'm very impressed with their integrations and their company values. I think their data vis + insights could be a bit better, but nonetheless, it's an incredibly valuable tool for those that have a lot of QS data.

Would love to see your app! Really curious to see how environmental sustainability is a part of it, I haven't seen that in many other quantified-self aggregators.

Amazing post! I wish this process was more easily palpable and standardizable for everyone. Rigorous life-logging and tracking can be very difficult and I think very few have the luxury and patience for it. Kudos to you for paving the way! Have you heard of Exist.io - they aim to combine comprehensive and varied metrics similar to you and also provide correlations! I'm also working on a self-improvement app myself. It is not as comprehensive for lifelogging though and I would think of it as a Fitbit for general goals, improving yourself, and also the planet. Ping me if you're interested in using it! Cheers.

Its been going for a while and its great from binary tracking (ie did alcohol effect my sleep). It doesnt currently have the ability to track custom numerical data (so you cant answer the question 'does 2 drinks effect my sleep more than 1 drink?'. They have said they plan to add this sometime in 2020, if they do then exist.io would become a solid recommend.

Lookup Start Here on this forum. Try Smarter Time and some app like toggl.com. that is for recording and basic lookup. If you want analysis lookup exist.io on this forum.

I mean it'll depend on how accurate you want your dataset to be for your specific use case. For people who want the "broad strokes" of some of the relationships between aspects of their lifestyle, I'm sure a dataset that isn't perfectly clean is acceptable.

For me, a dashboard on its own isn't useful unless it can either 1) overlay the different sources of data on top of each other for visual inference; or 2) make the statistical correlations on its own, with a reasonable degree of certainty and an acceptable margin of error. Otherwise, I could just open up each separate app one at a time and wrack my brain trying to keep everything straight. Not time I'm willing to invest, unfortunately.

I'm just surprised that besides Exist.io, no dashboards seem to broadly advertise the ability to run simple correlations. It baffles me, considering we're gathering discrete data points related to very specific lifestyle areas using each of the different apps.

I checked out your post and it's something I wish that an app did!

In a dashboard app, I should be able to select two variables (ex: wake up time vs mood) and compare them for a given day or week or month. A tracking app should help you spot trends, not just function as a data repository, right? What's the point in digitizing the information if you can't then use the information to compare the variables you're interested in?

Exist.io has this select-two-variables function so I think I'm going to just see how it does over the month but I'm still on the hunt for other solutions.

We don't support HRV yet but we pull lots of other stats from Apple Health into Exist, which you can compare to your mood and you can use our custom tags for habit tracking. This blog post explains how custom tags can be used for habit tracking and gives some examples of correlations I've found in my own habit data alongside mood, activity, and productivity data. And if you look at this page and click on Apple Health, you'll see all the data attributes we support syncing for.

There is Google Fit but it's not comparable to Apple HealthKit in its capabilities from what I've read/seen. Eg it doesn't integrate with Oura directly and when I tried syncing it with fitnesssyncer it didn't work that well. This could be reason enough to look at an iPhone for my next phone (I'm indifferent between the two platforms otherwise) but until then I might try exist.io and write my own integrations using their API + oura's API (hopefully not too tough?)

If your data is supported, Exist.io does a good job of looking for arbitrary correlations in your data. Personally, I've had better luck coming up with hypotheses first, and then using my existing data (or new data from a somewhat controlled experiment) to sort out what factors are significant, and which aren't.

To me, a big downside is availability of APIs. This isn't exist.io's fault, but it is a technical limitation that any webservice would have.

As a more concrete example, I want to track my location. I always have my phone's location on, and Google is really good at guessing where I've been. However, there's no public API for location history: It's only something you can manually download.

>exist.io

yeah damn exist.io seems like the perfect solution that already exists. as in, there's no need for any other productivity software ever. what are some of its downsides?

Exist co-founder here. Just wanted to mention that we just launched custom tracking, which might help fill the gaps in the data you want included. It lets you track as a binary anything you can think of, just by tagging your day with tags you create yourself. There's some more info on use-cases and how it works here: https://exist.io/blog/introducing-custom-tracking/

We just launched a new feature in Exist (https://exist.io) that might solve this for you. It's called custom tracking: https://exist.io/blog/introducing-custom-tracking/

Exist is designed to find correlations and trends for you in your data. We have a daily mood rating feature that lets you add a short note and rate your day from 1-5, and we connect to lots of other apps via APIs. But with custom tracking you can now create tags to track anything you want, and you just add those tags on the days they apply. The app will find correlations for you without you doing anything after you've got enough data in your account.

I suggest making a modular system of spreadsheets—each one (different tabs?) tracking some specific aspect of one's life, and informing other sheets where the data might be relevant. This would allow users to choose which sheets to activate, and what data show up in their main/"ultimate" sheet. I'd honestly be happy to collaborate/brainstorm together, because I too believe that until Exist.io and gyrosco.pe and such apps (which I'm trying this month) become more robust it's worthwhile to at least aggregate data which can be put in CSV form and easily imported to other apps/analysed using Excel/Tableau/etc. Good luck!

Hmm... I was recently thinking about how it would be nice to have something like a cross between gyrosco.pe and home assistant. An open source dashboard that accumulates data from different sources and allows lots of self configuration. It would be hosted locally on a raspberry pi or network or something with a lot of options for configuring what kinds of data it would be loading and what kinds of analysis it would be doing on it. Does anyone know if anything like this has been started?

I use gyroscope and I am obsessed! It's given me the much needed motivation to work out every day since downloading it. I am a pro user now. Again, totally obsessed!

https://gyrosco.pe

Haven't tested the Basis myself (because no official API), but many people have reported issues with the accuracy of the heart rate sensor (and therefore the calculated energy expenditure) when moving around, see e.g. this comparison.

Depends on how technical you are. If you need a repeatable process for turning your aggregating your spreadsheets into custom visualizations, you might look into Jupyter Notebooks or Observable

If you want it to be extremely user friendly and interactive, you might be best off building an entirely custom solution for your device/platform of choice.

Source: Personal data.

Tool: Self-reporting via Apple Watch using the Strides App. Data visualization in Excel.

Anxiety Levels: A subjective self-reported value on a scale of 1-10. I collect around 8-10 samples a day. Points on chart are daily averages.

Burps: A direct count of how many times I have burped each day.

Commentary: I am into the quantified self movement, so I track a lot of data about my life. This past week got me thinking about how my data probably would show an interesting visualization of the crazy times we’re living in. I’ll probably be posting a more in-depth writeup to my blog later.

Only HabitBull is supported directly; other habit-tracking apps you'd have to reformat the CSV first. That's assuming you can even export any data...

On Android I used Automate and Tasker. I recommend Automate because it's free and has a much better design.

I published a Automate flow if you want to give it a try: https://llamalab.com/automate/community/flows/33417

I'm using Tasker (paid) right now, but I also had success with Automate (free). You can find my Nomie NFC flow for Automate: https://llamalab.com/automate/community/flows/33417

QR codes might work, especially if there's enough light and your camera has quick focus. However, you'll need to start an app first, unlike with NFC where you just need the phone to be unlocked.

I'm investigating Bluetooth Low Energy beacons which wouldn't require unlocking the phone at all. Wireless buttons also exist, but they're generally 50-200x more expensive than NFC tags.

These Estimate Nearable Stickers look awesome, and I'm surprised nobody talks about them online.

I like any.do as my short term todo list.

When I end up pressing "remind me tomorrow" on 10 items each morning, I tend to feel like it's time to work them down, and live my life less procrastinatingly.

Reminders are set to 7:20 which for me is when I arrive at work, wait for the coffe machine, and am first able to actually process what I'm clicking "remind me tomorrow" on.

Thanks for sharing this! You can easily build a mindmap and brainstorm using Taskade and create a second brain for your team. here are some more helpful resources: https://www.taskade.com/blog/hierarchical-thinking-tree-structure-checklist/

Oh, great, I actually saw your post from about a year ago, but didn't get to reply back then! Cool job! Yep, I understand pain about not having rich fields. To be fair, it's a tradeoff: even if you are a coder, in certain circumstances using visual tables (e.g. airtable/spreadsheets) and workflows (e.g. zapier or huginn) is super convenient for understanding and messing with data. But on the other hand if the tool misses some basic features, you can't do anything about it.

This is the first thing that made me seriously want to implement a keylogger watcher for ActivityWatch.

Did you do anything about the obvious security risk of collecting such sensitive info? (passwords, credit card info, etc.)

Gotcha, thanks!

I'm building https://activitywatch.net/ and we're always looking to help researchers. It's not directly related to sleep (except for the fact that staring at your screen is likely to keep you awake) but if you do have an interest in that type of data, do let me know!

I'm a statistician (well epidemiologist) and I approve this message. This book is great , but probably more advanced that you need. Even just any intro to stats book should really help teach you probability and statistical fundamentals to analyze your data

I use mysymptoms https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhs.mysymptoms&hl=en_US&gl=US . Its very flexible. Just ignore the recommendations. And bitesnap for food cause those two really should be separate apps.

I use an app called Tap Log to easily enter some data for custom addable variables. It lets you export csv as well, for easy analysing.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.waterbear.taglog&hl=nl&gl=US

I’ve been using (and happy with) the Withing Sleep Mat for a couple years now. I got tired of forgetting to charge my Fitbit and losing data, where as the sleep mat is always waiting.

My only beef: it takes 12 hours for the tracked data to hit IFTTT.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078Z1B34S

I've been working with a few others on an Android app that specifically does self-experiments, and would love if you or the OP would try it. It does randomization, which is needed to make causal inference, and does Thompson Sampling for the calculations so that you can get a running calculation of the confidence and effect.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.brown.selfe&hl=en_US

Heads up health is very good, but it may be overkill for what you wish to discover. They integrate with Oura, Keto-Mojo, Biostrap, Apple Health, Elite HRV and other premium digital health devices and apps. This allows you to go beyond the basic metrics and track HRV, ketones, deep sleep, fasting intervals.

It sounds like you want to do a bit of n=1 with subjective variables. In that case, look at https://bioloopsleep.com in their productivity section. Their platform is very good for the premade experiments. If they don't have anything that appeals to you, my last recommendation would be Self-E: quantified self experimentation. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=edu.brown.selfe&hl=en_CA&referrer=utm_source%3Dgoogle%26utm_medium%3Dorganic%26utm_term%3D"self-e"+app

Self-E already had a few experiments premade that are right up your alley. * Food and drink impact on energy levels * Food and drink impact on mood In addition, this app also had the ability to create your own experiment based on your own criteria.

> GPSLogger

There are two GPSLogger apps:

• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=eu.basicairdata.graziano.gpslogger&hl=en_US
• https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mendhak.gpslogger&hl=en_US

Read here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/RENPHO-Bluetooth-Bathroom-Composition-Smartphone/dp/B01N1UX8RW/ref=mp_s_a_1_1_sspa?dchild=1&keywords=renpho&qid=1599384810&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUEzSlZKSkFHUVIwSTJHJmVuY3J5cHR...

This issue has been fixed and the Android app is up and running.

Also once you create an account, you can download all your data in JSON form here.

Edit: If you're still having issues, double check that you're on version 1.7. The app store can take a while to update everywhere sometimes.

(On Android) I've using Trackendar and I recently discovered KeepTrack. They let you define the type of the variable (numerical, categorical, etc.) and export your data.

Do you have this one? Withings / Nokia | Body - Smart Weight & BMI Wi-Fi Digital Scale with smartphone app, Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0728K4371/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_kNoRCbM0WH54Y

The Wirecutter says the app is bad now but if I don't use that as my dashboard and instead use Apple Health or Gyroscope I don't see a problem.

I had a DXA recently but I can find body fat percentage on the report.

The nutrition data. It's definitely an issue with Gyroscope and not MyFitnessPal because when the data in Apple Health is correct (no duplicates, etc) it's off by about 1,000 calories. It only happens every once in a while.

For the fat percentage, I use a tool like this one:
https://www.amazon.com/Measurement-Percentage-Measure-Measuring-Skinfold/dp/B07C39XY34
Then, Muscle % is a lie because I do the BodyMass*(1-fat), so I'm assuming Muscle = whatever is not fat, but it's a simplification that I'm comfortable working with.

You are right, I am using pinboard as the intermediate step before storing a json in the DB.

//Individual recording in couchDB { "_id": "08cb0557e67a9d89ada74cc3a511d173", "_rev": "3-bdd0b2f38d0c4db02919fc10ad04213f", "extended": "", "description": "20: Matt Cutts, Head of Web Spam Team at Google by Cool Tools | Free Listening on SoundCloud", "tags": [ "listeningnow", "len=20", "pod=cooltools" ], "period": 20, "href": "http://tracking.feedpress.it/link/7810/529589", "meta": "7ad135033cb7100adf5f149ab3e0e32d", "time": "2018-01-08T17:39:30Z", "shared": "yes", "podcast": "cooltools", "toread": "no" }

But something like Simple Last.fm Scrobbler for podcasts will be awesome.

I trying to setup tasker. I will let you know how it goes.