There seems to be a recent explosion in startups related to bringing mobile -based health solutions to a public that is both increasingly more comfortable exchanging personal data on devices, as well as more health conscious. One at the forefront, Azumio, announced yesterday that it has raised $2.5 million from a variety of investors and will use the money to expand its product line which currently includes Instant Heart Rate, Stress Check, and Stress Doctor.
Instant Heart Rate was the first app from the company and it uses a smartphone’s camera to measure a user’s heart rate. The app has been hugely successful – 8 million downloads on both the iPhone and Android in nine months – and has helped pave the way for others to follow suit in realizing the opportunity that lies in using devices as biofeedback mechanisms.
For instance, RunKeeper which started out as a way for users to track their runs announced in June the release of a Health Graph API to allow developers and device makers to tap into its community and their data. With 6 million active users, the possibilities to track a wide array of other fitness data and other health information, are vast. From their press release:
“Imagine a system that can identify correlations between a user’s eating habits, workout schedule, social interactions and more, to deliver an ecosystem of health and fitness apps, websites, and sensor devices that really work, based on a user’s own historical health and fitness data.”
Others are in the mix too including Massive Health, a San Francisco-based startup with ambitions to develop mobile apps that help users treat chronic diseases, Fitbit that automatically tracks your fitness and sleep, and Philips’ DirectLife, a holistic program that uses an Activity Monitor to build customized 12 week activity plans for users.
Where will this all lead? Only time will tell. But as devices become more ubiquitous and more powerful, and as more and more companies successfully dip their toes in the water, it can’t be long before some bigger fish as well as some more intensive ways of using mobile data, come to bear.
