A week with Moves

I saw a post from Robert Scoble, mentioning Moves and I was interested to give it a try.

First off, this app is super easy to get started with. You don't need a user account, you literally just download the app and it does the rest.

It became nearly addictive to monitor my movement during the day, and I took more than one walk, just to increase the number of steps and try and reach a new achievement or best day.

I did however find that my battery, was simply not lasting at all. They rate battery usage to be around charging once a day, and they're pretty close. The problem for me, is I rely on my phone and need it to have charge for more than a standard day, as I use mine for calls and email. Battery life is probably the main reason that I decided to uninstall.

What I have learnt from the experience, besides the obvious that I am not active enough, is that there are some really interesting gadgets out their that offer a lot deeper analysis of your over all activity and have better battery life. The other benefit of dedicated hardware is that even if it does die, it does not mean your phone is flat.

Some of my favourites include Lark, Nike+ and Fitbit.

The one big downside is that none of the current solutions offer the ability to measure intensity of a workout and I guess that is a big challenge as no-one is doing it yet.

I have a polar heart rate monitor and it does a great job of telling me what I've done and how hard I have done it, but it is a pain to synchronise with a PC or Mac and it requires me to wear a belt around my chest in order for it to work. I think, if Polar got their act together, they could be launching the killer fitness device-app combo, I really hope that they do.

So for now, I'll be pacing the hallways increasing my steps, without getting to watch the stats and my battery will last a little longer.