Sleep, stress and calories: Here's what people want to track automatically

CCS Insight's new findings give us hints of what to expect in 2017
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The top three metrics people want to be able to track automatically are sleep quality, stress levels and calories consumed and burned. Hey, I'm writing this after a bad night's sleep and I can totally relate.

The results come from CCS Insight which surveyed 2,000 people in the US and the UK, aged 16 - 65, and the aim of the study was to find out how wearable tech owners are actually using their devices.

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As wearable and health tech companies focus more and more on overall wellbeing, over just fitness, it looks like they are on the right track to bigger sales.

Sure, calories consumed and burned - which 44% of participants were interested in tracking - no doubt relates to weight loss/training which will come as no surprise. But with 49% of people naming 'how well I sleep' as an aspect they would like to measure automatically and 45% choosing stress tracking, it's clear that we're more and more interested in getting data to make meaningful lifestyle changes.

CCS Insight shared the graph below with us, ahead of its next report on wearable tech and VR, where you can see that other popular answers included distance for walking, running and cycling, hydration levels (another trend for 2017) and, of course, weight.

Sleep, stress and calories: Here's what people want to track automatically

"I continue to believe that next year Fitbit and other major players in the wearables space will start expanding the capabilities of their device by adding additional sensors," CCS Insight analyst George Jijiashvili told us. "It has been suggested that by using galvanic skin response technology, a user's stress levels can be determined. Jawbone and Basis have previously used GSR technology in their wearables to determine perspiration levels and heart rate, but I believe that its potential hasn't been fully explored yet."

The question here was specific to tracking so the results differ slightly from previous studies into how wearables can make themselves useful. In June, 32% of Ericsson ConsumerLab respondents chose a wearable panic button as their most wanted wearable, higher than smartwatches and GPS trackers.

Sleep, stress and calories: Here's what people want to track automatically



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Sophie was Wareable's associate editor. She joined the team from Stuff magazine where she was an in-house reviewer. For three and a half years, she tested every smartphone, tablet, and robot vacuum that mattered. 

A fan of thoughtful design, innovative apps, and that Spike Jonze film, she is currently wondering how many fitness tracker reviews it will take to get her fit. Current bet: 19.

Sophie has also written for a host of sites, including Metro, the Evening Standard, the Times, the Telegraph, Little White Lies, the Press Association and the Debrief.

She now works for Wired.


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