- <item>
- <title>A bit more on privacy respecting health monitor / fitness tracker</title>
- <link>http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_bit_more_on_privacy_respecting_health_monitor___fitness_tracker.html</link>
- <guid isPermaLink="true">http://people.skolelinux.org/pere/blog/A_bit_more_on_privacy_respecting_health_monitor___fitness_tracker.html</guid>
- <pubDate>Mon, 13 Aug 2018 09:00:00 +0200</pubDate>
- <description><p>A few days ago, I wondered if there are any privacy respecting
-health monitors and/or fitness trackers available for sale these days.
-I would like to buy one, but do not want to share my personal data
-with strangers, nor be forced to have a mobile phone to get data out
-of the unit. I've received some ideas, and would like to share them
-with you.
-
-One interesting data point was a pointer to a Free Software app for
-Android named
-<a href="https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/">Gadgetbridge</a>.
-It provide cloudless collection and storing of data from a variety of
-trackers. Its
-<a href="https://github.com/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge/#supported-devices">list
-of supported devices</a> is a good indicator for units where the
-protocol is fairly open, as it is obviously being handled by Free
-Software. Other units are reportedly encrypting the collected
-information with their own public key, making sure only the vendor
-cloud service is able to extract data from the unit. The people
-contacting me about Gadgetbirde said they were using
-<a href="https://us.amazfit.com/shop/bip?variant=336750">Amazfit
-Bip</a> and
-<a href="http://www.xiaomimi6phone.com/xiaomi-mi-band-3-features-release-date-rumors/">Xiaomi
-Band 3</a>.</p>
-
-<p>I also got a suggestion to look at some of the units from Garmin.
-I was told their GPS watches can be connected via USB and show up as a
-USB storage device with
-<a href="https://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-development/fmt_garmin_fit.html">Garmin
-FIT files</a> containing the collected measurements. While
-proprietary, FIT files apparently can be read at least by
-<a href="https://www.gpsbabel.org">GPSBabel</a> and the
-<a href="https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/gpxpod">GpxPod</a> Nextcloud
-app. It is unclear to me if they can read step count and heart rate
-data. The person I talked to was using a
-<a href="https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/564291">Garmin Forerunner
-935</a>, which is a fairly expensive unit. I doubt it is worth it for
-a unit where the vendor clearly is trying its best to move from open
-to closed systems. I still remember when Garmin dropped NMEA support
-in its GPSes.</p>
-
-<p>A final idea was to build ones own unit, perhaps by basing it on a
-wearable hardware platforms like
-<a href="https://learn.adafruit.com/flora-geo-watch">the Flora Geo
-Watch</a>. Sound like fun, but I had more money than time to spend on
-the topic, so I suspect it will have to wait for another time.</p>
-
-<p>While I was working on tracking down links, I came across an
-inspiring TED talk by Dave Debronkart about
-<a href="https://archive.org/details/DavedeBronkart_2010X">being a
-e-patient</a>, and discovered the web site
-<a href="https://participatorymedicine.org/epatients/">Participatory
-Medicine</a>. If you too want to track your own health and fitness
-without having information about your private life floating around on
-computers owned by others, I recommend checking it out.</p>
-
-<p>As usual, if you use Bitcoin and want to show your support of my
-activities, please send Bitcoin donations to my address
-<b><a href="bitcoin:15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b">15oWEoG9dUPovwmUL9KWAnYRtNJEkP1u1b</a></b>.</p>
-</description>
- </item>
-