Chuck, Sarah and Maggie discuss the current state of health trackers. From the Fitbits to the modern Apple watch, they examine who is using these tools and how they influence our behaviors. Key Takeaways - What the current state of wellness tech is - The type of individual who is using wellness tech - Nutrition trackers vs fitness trackers and who uses what - The current state of trackers and how they have evolved
Chuck, Sarah and Maggie discuss the current state of health trackers. From the Fitbits to the modern Apple watch, they examine who is using these tools and how they influence our behaviors.
Key Takeaways
Maggie Bright00:00
Welcome to key takeaways. I'm Maggie bright, and I'm joined by Chuck Murphy and Sarah Marion today, and we're going to talk about wellness tech, where we are now where we were in 2018. And where we think we're going to go in the future quick show of hands here, or maybe a number, I think I have owned five trackers, a peloton, a mirror, trying to go through the rest of these numerous food tracking apps. So I feel, you know, heavily engaged in the category. Sara and Chuck, do you want to give your litany of, of products owned?
Chuck Murphy00:45
I buy all this stuff. I had, I had the Nike shoes that had the hole in the soul that you would stick the little thing in, right and it would go to the like I was trying to think about like I obviously did the Fitbit. Yeah, I've had the Garmin watches I've had the Apple watches. I'm a less of a tinker with the apps. Although I think I use a lot
Maggie Bright01:10
more we can see your peloton and your total in the background. The total
Chuck Murphy01:14
life I spend money on this kind of stuff. I'm a I'm a good consumer.
Sarah Marion01:25
Well, you you do are my early adopters. I'm on the lower tech. And I guess, although we have a peloton and we have a smart treadmill, I had a Fitbit a long time ago, early Fitbit. But otherwise, just apps. I used, I stopped even like tracking my runs. Now I just run.
Maggie Bright01:53
They don't count if you don't track them. Well. There's only one.
Sarah Marion01:59
So there's really only one place to run near my house, if I'm going outside. And I just however far I get that means I was faster that day.
Maggie Bright02:07
Nice. Nice. Well, the reason I ask and I think we've already highlighted how vast this category is, in terms of wellness tech and how many different entry points there are and sort of strategies or levels of engagement. And we wanted to talk about this today because our q4 2022. state of our health report is coming out in the next couple of weeks. And it is all about wellness tech, and you know what consumers are using and why they're using it. And if there's a big difference between those who are engaged in the category, and those aren't. And so this is kind of a bit of a sneak peek of some of that data. And the other thing we wanted to do is we we really did a little deep dive into this in 2018. Just to kind of see where the market was. And we wanted to talk about sort of changes, and really what that story is lack of changes from the 2018 data to the 2022 data. And so, Sarah, I'm gonna like pitch up a big softball that you could probably talk about for 45 minutes. And I'm going to ask you to like give me the two minute answer. But kind of what is the state of wellness tech right now, among us consumers?
Sarah Marion03:22
Well, it has grown since we last visited in 2018. That's for sure. And I think some of that is natural growth, people coming to the category but also posting a lot, especially qualitatively a lot of people got Apple Watches, I think between now and then which make and those have come a long way in terms of tracking fitness. And we've seen a lot, even things like Fitbit. And there's this wealth of other wearables that have become a little bit more mainstream, they've gotten a lot more sophisticated in what they can do. For for a nice, reasonable price point. So the category has definitely grown in popularity. And it's also really like this is a really vast world. I think that's important to remember where I think we first consumers when you ask them what they think of her wearables and apps. But this can encompass all kinds of recovery products like theragun that can encompass high end services like cryotherapy, like all float tanks, like anything that relies on technology you could include in this category, but again, I think for consumers that stuff feels a little bit far fetched. So back to your original question has grown but who uses it is basically the same. So there's a strong kind of younger skew, but not down into the teen years. It's really younger adults. And when you break it down by gender, it's not 5050 In terms of tracking but if you get a little bit more granular what you see is that millennial and Gen X Men and are really the kind of leaders in this category, they're more likely to do all of the activities, they're more likely to own wearables and smart gym equipment. And they're more likely to track more often compared to their female counterparts. And we can talk about that also for 45 minutes, but we weren't for now. So back in 2018, what we found was that the kind of person who had a wearable was very passionate about being healthy, but also had all of these other kind of conflicting attitudes, they were more stressed. They also said that like taking care of my health feels like a chore. Again, this is compared to people who didn't track. And so one of our questions back then was, is this contributing to their stress? Does it make people feel worse about themselves? And I, just based on this last round of research, I think that the answer is no. But if there's a type of personality that really gravitates toward things that can track their metrics, and their bio stats, and what they do every day, and it's an A type personality that is naturally kind of more stressed than others that likes ticking boxes that likes accomplishing goals, and that is the same. So in terms of attitudes, like none of those things have changed a whole lot since 2018.
Maggie Bright06:18
Yeah, I think that makes I was talking to a friend about this this weekend. And she's like, why do you need all that information? And I'm like, Well, I just need to know, and I need to know what everyone else is doing. And she's like, that's just ridiculous. And I'm like, Well, there it is. There's the difference, like some personalities. And some don't. And I mean, I'm definitely in the I want all of this information type a category, but I can see, some people probably don't want this. And it is a lot of information. Sometimes.
Chuck Murphy06:47
It's interesting, too, because there's I think there's a couple different buckets of why some people don't want this, like what you just have some people that are very what's the right word for just relaxed and
Maggie Bright06:58
serene, there's this serene group of people who don't need to track everything.
Chuck Murphy07:03
You know, and they, but there's also like, a group of people that like, here's a little bit of denial there, right? Like, it's kind of like a very, you're saying like, Oh, yeah, like, I get my 10,000 steps, I don't even measure it, but it's like D like, is that, like, if you do want to change something, if you don't measure it, it's really hard to make sure you're actually changed it. Because I do think that is one of the I mean, obviously, I became a researcher. So feedback is way more more important to me than 99% of population probably so probably an outlier. But it is interesting to me how even some of these basic behaviors like I would be way off sometimes on what I would have said Had I not measured it and so it's interesting, but then the other thing too on this that Maggie I know you and I have talked about a little bit is if you are a type A person, the measurement can cause like, you know, you just spend a little bit and go too deep in this which is often not really healthy. Right? And, and we see a big cultural backlash with some of that stuff. That definitely close to people, people get really upset about it. Which is really good. I ask you one question. I know we haven't we have a tendency to ask too many questions. Like she's memorized all this data because she's a genius.
Sarah Marion08:25
Answer. Why do you like to opine? So
Chuck Murphy08:31
I know that you've looked at the that the state of our health at a lot from the perspective of gyms and that's a big part of this. When you describe the audience who these it that sounds similar to me that the gyms other than the maybe you've skewed more towards type A but but younger males would What do you see these two audiences the same? Or do you think that like, there's, there's a, there's a divergence there where the tracker people are a little bit different than the gym, people
Sarah Marion08:57
know, I think there is a lot of overlap, especially now that it's through the pandemic, the gym population got a lot younger, too. So, there's a lot of in that way, you become more, you know, because you're younger people are more likely to track and if they're also more likely to go to the gym, you're gonna see that overlap, but this is also a very engaged population. Those kinds of people tend to be more likely to have gym memberships. Now, I will say, there is an interesting little pocket of older folks who are really motivated by trackers to which Maggie and I were discussing this offline. Things like a Fitbit or an Apple Watch can be a really effective health care people call it an intervention for for older folks, I'm talking like age 55 Plus, because it really slots in neatly with their approach to fitness, which is just active through the day, primarily relying on walking. And so what we see is that when you look boomers, Boomer women are much more likely to have trackers than Boomer men. They're like the tech adopters. Yeah, in their households by much I mean, it's, it's a significant number. It's we're still not talking sky high numbers, but and because they like to get in there step spiritual like still the same personality goal oriented. A lot of times the goal is really high, like we interviewed one woman whose goal was 16,000 steps, at least, in addition to all these other things that she did, but for boomers in particular, the just the step tracking is very motivating to them, because it gives them the benchmark that you talk about, and because they're not, they're less likely than younger folks to have these dedicated exercise periods, like an hour where I go to the gym, the tracker becomes the main, basically the main metric of how much exercise they do.
Chuck Murphy10:56
Yeah, that's anecdotally that is very much my experience, like I, you know, we live very close, you know, to, to older family, and it's, it's a good daily goal to have the steps like, and the a lot of people I know, that are in that over, you know, especially over 70 bracket, like they have a plan to get there, right, like, I'm gonna go I'm gonna do that 2000 steps in the morning, like with the dog, and then I'm gonna take like, they and it's very structured and it's the same way and walking is a big part of it. Right? They might add in like, yoga or something else. But it's, that's it's a very effective behavioral intervention use that way. Right? Like, I think it's, like, even go back to just the Fitbits focus on one thing like that really works well for a lot of people. Yeah. Because it's a harder that's the thing about the feedback that I kind of like is that you know, if you focus on this 10,000 Steps number it's a good it's not an easy goal for a lot of people like they it's more than they realize when they actually set about to do it consistently, right. It's like there are some days when you go over it, and I'm going to completely ignore Maggie's overstatement of her steps for this podcast. We'll get back to that YouTube video one day.
Maggie Bright12:13
I don't know. They are correctly counted. And that just because I just stipulate a lot doesn't mean that like I'm still burning calories, even if it's not you arm locking I just got 300 steps right there.
Chuck Murphy12:30
Apple or Fitbit studies study the the arm talkers and the how that skews their scalp. We need like a waiting for ARM talkers like steps by 20%
Maggie Bright12:42
Oh, man. Uh huh. No, no, it still counts, I'm moving. Anyway, like, I have like 17 different directions I want to go I feel like maybe I should throw a couple out let you choose your own adventure. You're the topics I'm I'm intrigued by in this one. I would love to talk a little bit about the difference in what's out there on the fitness side of the equation versus the nutrition or food side of the equation. So that's one thing I want to talk about. And then I think you brought up a really great point earlier, when Chuck was asking you about sort of the overlap of the gym member and the wellness, tech engaged either fitness or nutrition person. And I, I feel like there's this group of people that just keep popping up. Every time we talk about these little niches, whether it be online fitness, or gym memberships are, you know, even within the space of formal diet plans and things like that there's this core group, and a lot of times it's this younger millennial or, you know, the younger side of the Gen X cohort that just keeps and it's male that just keeps popping in everything we're doing. So we can we can table that for another conversation. But I do think that that's important that it keeps coming up over and over again, that there's this, this group of consumers that's really driving the adaptation of a lot of these behaviors within the fitness and nutrition space. And they are definitely present in this wearable tech space. And so I'll let you choose which path we pursue. Are we going to start with the nutrition versus fitness? Or do we want to talk about kind of this super user that keeps popping up?
Sarah Marion14:27
Let's do nutrition versus fitness. That's a really interesting contrast partly and who uses them but and then partly in function to one of the things we found which is not a surprise if you've ever used any of these apps and I have used nutrition trackers is that fitness has come a lot further than the food trackers have. Because you can do it passively. So and that makes it very easy. So that's part of the reason why use has picked up so much just in the past, you know, three or four years, it's because especially as that technology has gotten better, it's gotten easier, it's gotten cheaper, you can just look at it on your phone, it might not be the most accurate, but you can get a sense of how you're moving each day, more people have started tracking their fitness. And we see that in the data too. It's like far and away the main type of behavior. But um, nutrition, it's just so difficult to track nutrition in the same kind of objective way. Because it requires a lot of input on the part of the consumer. And so there's a lot of interest in nutrition tracking, but a lot less uptake. And I think a lot more overstatement in how often people do it. Because it's just so difficult to keep up with every day. And then it also, you know, fitness. The downside of all of this tracking is that people say I get addicted to it, I get obsessed with the numbers, I'm in my phone all the time I become that person I don't really want to be because I can't concentrate on anything else, but making sure that I put in my food. And that's much more of the case with food than with fitness. Because again, it's you have to take actual action to track your food intake. And it's also a lot easier if you've ever used any of those trackers, it's really difficult to tell if what you're putting in is even correct. And so it's easier to over understate what you're eating, and you it's up to you to decide how much it is whether you're measuring or not which most people are not onerous for people, even those who really want to do it
Maggie Bright16:50
well, and the healthier you eat, the harder it is right? Because it doesn't, it doesn't come in a package with a barcode. And that that's what simplifies a lot of the process is being able to scan the barcode and having a pop up in the app, if you physically have to type in recipes, or, you know, a food that's not in a box or a bag. It's hard. And then the other thing that promotes a lot of times it's like, well, I'll just eat the same thing again. And again, because it's already, you know, it's already in my tracker.
Chuck Murphy17:18
But the other thing is, I mean, psychologists have done this forever, right? And would you do it and put it paper, the fact that it's hard is part of the reason it works? The trade off, do I want to put this, this Doug's deck in my mouth and have to write it? Or do it? Like it's kind of funny that that's, but I do see your point that it's it is, you know, when we're all wearing Apple's AR glasses in two years, and the AI is just counting calories, you can scan
Sarah Marion17:43
it. Yeah, there's been I know that. There were at least a few years ago, there were multiple companies out there trying to develop a visual food scanning app. So like, take a picture in that. And then it can estimate how many calories or what whatever it is you want to measure. The other thing about these trackers is that like, qualitatively, you know, we heard a lot of interest, I'd love to track my food. But it's hard and the return for me, because I'm already a relatively healthy eater. I already like, you know, make sure I only eat at certain times of day are restricted in other ways the return is not very high. And so when we would ask, you know, if a friend comes to you, and wants to really upgrade their health by using technology, what would you recommend, and so all these people who say, I can't use the food trackers, there too much work, well then recommend a food tracker to somebody else, because they assume that's the first step you need to learn how to eat healthy, but once you already know, then it becomes much less worth it to do all that work. And additionally, the most popular food trackers like My Fitness Pal or lose it are all about weight loss, you can't even put a weight gain goal in there. And so if you're already a fit person, frequently, your goals are different, like I need to know how to eat so I can train for the marathon or I need to know how to eat so I can bulk up. And you know, get the six pack abs that I want. And there aren't a whole lot of nutrition trackers out there that can reliably do that. So then again, they become much less
Maggie Bright19:21
worth it. I was gonna say my biggest barrier is that there's not a way to get the six pack ab to have that recommended that is my biggest barrier to food tracking.
Chuck Murphy19:33
People like they translate that into macro goals like you know, like if you're trying to gain weight, it's like I want 240 And my fitness pal does that pretty well. Like if you break out your macros and let you go to let you set a goal towards those macros. It's actually interesting you bring that up. I've always tried to lose weight so I never thought of it that way. But you can't you can't say I want to gain 20 pounds the same way you would say what at least what he does now or I've never even occurred to me to try that to put it in that way.
Maggie Bright20:00
to go in and manipulate things, because I've, I've done this with the lucid app where you can say like, it'll if you want to maintain weight, and then you can set like a calorie goal. And then so it effectively does the same thing. So you can sort of like trick it into letting
Sarah Marion20:14
you do that. Yeah, the function is to lose weight, though. And so that's what you get rewards and badges for.
Maggie Bright20:20
I think that brings up a really interesting, broader point, though, this idea that the trackers are moving into this more holistic way of thinking about health, right? So if you think about the ones that have come out, most recently, and I'm sure there are others, but whether it be like the aura ring, or whoop, they're really a lot of them, they're focused on the sleep part of it. So on the recovery piece of that equation, and yes, they're tracking the activity part too. And, you know, you can, you know, there's a lot of metrics in there, but a lot of it is about the the sleep piece of it. And that's kind of like the foundation of some of these things. And I, I do think that maybe that suggests in our own trends are showing this too, that, you know, it's not just about tracking the fitness or the nutrition, but it's more these consumers who are engaged in this category, are more likely to be thinking holistically about health, and are looking for more nuanced ways to track that. And I don't know, Sara, if that tracks with the data set, I think it does. But you know, we talked about this idea, and your trends are coming out very soon. And you know, but there is one kind of round people are rethinking this whole idea of restriction or weight loss as a goal. And I think the trackers are trying to catch up without to some extent. So, yeah, there's that
Sarah Marion21:35
there's out in the data, if you're tracking your fitness, you're also very likely to be tracking mindfulness, and nutrition all at the same time. Like, these are what get what gets measured gets managed, right? That is kind of the the mantra of the tracker, I think, and that can extend into all parts of life. The sleep tracking is really interesting, because consumers are very interested in they want to know that information. They know that sleep is important. And so many people struggle with sleep. But what we heard, particularly qualitatively was a lot of confusion about what do I even do with this data? I look at it every day, and it gives me a score. And is that how I really slept? Or am I just like responding to the number? And then if it's bad, what do I do about it? Like, there? It's very difficult to know how to take action. You see all the sleep data in front of you.
Chuck Murphy22:31
There are I did the super early adopters slash rich crowd is really into that Eight Sleep mattress precisely because it's not just a number, but then it's, it's making changes behind I do, I do think that that's the future of a lot of this stuff. Like where you have, you have the tracking component, which we've had for a long time, right, you could do the tracking forever, but then you have some intervention that is you know, I like the way Sarah put it, it's more passive, right, it's less like that. I've never had one of those eight sleep mattresses, but I've read different people's reviews of how they work. And you know, there's like little AI algorithm back there tinkering with I think it's all temperatures, what it's doing, I'm not sure if it changes any positions, but it's tinkering with different temperatures, it trying to keep you asleep longer, which is kind of like dystopian, but also kind of RAD,
Sarah Marion23:20
but takes it out of your hands.
Chuck Murphy23:23
It takes years. Yeah, there's I think there's gonna be like that, that kind of stuff is super interesting to me. Because I do think there is an opportunity here, there's a lot of opportunities for the interventions to get better. And I still think a lot of that stuff is very early stage.
Maggie Bright23:39
Yeah, well, I think we've moved from this idea of tracking right which is like the early Fitbits right where it just basically said like you did 10,000 Steps way to go. And now it's in the newer trackers and even the newer versions of the Fitbit or you know, the Apple Watch. It's a little bit more customized so it is responding in some way to the data that's going into it right it's it's recommending adjusted calorie outputs or it's telling you know, you should go to bed at this time or you know, you shouldn't exercise this late in the day kind of stuff so we're starting to get some feedback but it is still on the the owner are aware of that device to actually enact the change and then I think you're right check where it's headed next is it make it your devices or your you know, your tech the things that you own start to make the adjustments for you so it becomes passive behavioral changes. I don't know how that nest you know, it obviously can't exercise for you and things like that. So I don't you know, we'll see where that goes from the fitness side of the things but even if you know something like I don't own a tonal that I assume that it adjust to, you know, the stronger you get, the more likely it's to recommend different stuff or to adjust.
Chuck Murphy24:56
Yeah, it's funny. I have two products. One is that Total. And then I have this other thing that I guarantee you neither have ever heard of it's a golf thing. But both of them have the same basic thing, which I think is very interesting in that, like, they have taken the decision away from you in terms of what you're so so you have Yes, you have to commit to doing the workout, you have to start the workout, right? But like when you hit Start workout on total, you don't even if you think about peloton, right? I've got the knob on the bike, and I'm choosing there are some days when I'm really pushing myself and I'm turning that knob up. And there are other days where I've got that thing, you know, 20% off what I could be doing just because I'm just feeling a little bit lazy. But it's very interesting that the in the tonal like, it's not giving me the choice, I choose what the workout is, right? I could say, Okay, I want to do it, you know, a lower body or a core workout, but I'm not choosing the weight or the reps. And it's I think that that kind of stuff is really interesting. Um, it's what the thing about the Eight Sleep is because you know, this it's very you obviously, this is what this is why people would to personal trainers still go to personal trainers so much, right? You just tell me what to do, I don't, I'm not going to take the time to become an expert on sleep better. Tell me what to do. Tell me your ideas, some of them might work, some of them won't. And on the tonal it really it took me a while to get used to that actually, because, and it's it's still an early stage product, which is it's got some problems in the sense that it would be too aggressive sometimes, like I was I tore my rotator cuff. And I was recovering for that. I'm like, Hey, stop it, because it won't just one rep might be like 30 pounds, and then you go to the next rapid it ups it to 50 just as like a random test of you, which is a little bit like I'm like, hey, that's aggressive. Like I kind of like, you know, it's just it's there are times when it's it's still learning, but the idea that it's taking, taking over at least the recommendation of what you could always override it, you can always lower the weight. It's interesting, I think that there's a lot to be said for that. Because people tend to fall back into routines, especially with things like fitness, right. And that's, that's one of the things that personal trainers harp on right, it's like your body can get used to anything, you've got to switch it up to keep it learning. And so the fact that you've got this kind of algorithm back there switching it up and trying to figure out what's it and everybody's different, some people might respond better to X or Y. And so it's interesting is will, as we'll see more of that, I mean,
Maggie Bright27:26
it speaks to this idea that no, there's no one size fits all for fitness or nutrition when it comes to sort of optimizing each person, which, which before we had limited tools for right, you could go to the personal trainer, and you yourself could do a ton of research and trial and error. And now our tools are getting more and more sophisticated. So it's cutting out a lot of the the thought process, which is great, because it's overwhelming all the information that's out there, and there continues to be more and more and more information. Which is to go and I was just trying to think as you said all that I'm like have I actually so I just got my aura ring, which I really like. And I will say I have literally tried every single wearable out there. With the exception of I have not tried the Garmin one and I have not tried. Actually, that's um, but so I've tried them all and I will say I think each one I think each one is like I keep you know, they keep evolving each one I by right and obviously if I went back and bought the same ones that I had early now I think they would have evolved to, but I do think some of that, like I do think I've changed my sleep behavior because of the information I've gotten from this and from the whoop I think I tried to go to bed more consistently I think, you know, there's certain things I do you know, in sort of like I have more of a like pre bed routine now than I ever had because of feedback it's given me so I do think they if you are willing to take in all the information you can very much change behaviors based on you know, passive data that isn't necessarily making direct recommendations about what you should do, but I would love it if it just put me to sleep at the time I needed to go to bed and then woke me up when I was ready.
Chuck Murphy29:15
So you want you want Michael Jackson's doctor to kind of help you know that day WC for work joke.
Maggie Bright29:24
So, by the way,
Chuck Murphy29:25
it's funny I've always been like a little bit of an Apple fanboy, but I am I kind of astounded by how much progress that Apple Watch has made in the I think it's like seven years old or whatever it is now. And I think a lot of people kind of take it for granted but it is interesting that every couple of years they're adding these kind of major things like I have a couple of friends now that have had that heart function you know really be really be a big deal to them, You know what I mean? Like and send him the room and and it's it's it's a really crazy thing and I'm I'm really interested in when they integrate the glucose monitoring, enter, because that's something else that when you get into, if you really go deep into nutrient nutrition, if, by the way we should, we should say, when we go back to these apps, nutrition is so friggin complicated, right? Like, I feel like I'm like a person that I love to go deep on things and try to learn things. And I feel like I'm decent at figuring things out. And nutrition is just such a crazy world of like, there's, there's so many factors you can't control, there's so many things to know, they interplay with each other. And it's like, you know, I could see how people just throw their hands up, because like I, you know, constantly be told something different like to do, like, most people still don't have a solid consensus on like, hey is like is, you know, a lot of protein good for your body is like, or, you know, like, there's a lot of questions out there that are still anyhow, but, but I do think it'll be fascinating if they can get like, the insulin stuff just passively on your wrist. I mean, like, Hey, by the way, you know, every time you eat the that that granola bar that you think is healthy, or you're getting an insulin spike, and it's setting you back, and it'll be it'll be kind of wild 10 years from now, like, how, how much feedback, you might be able to get just off your wrist, you know what I mean? Like,
Maggie Bright31:15
I think that has to be the next iteration, right? Because tech, or the fitness is already going there, right? By giving you this like more in the moment feedback about how the activities we do impact, you know, whether it be overall fitness level, or ability to rest and recover. And so it makes sense that we would get to a place where our nutrition is, is passively tracked in that same way. And we're getting constant, customized inputs, about the things that we eat, and how they're impacting sort of not only our long term health, but our like, moment to moment. Health, like that has to be the next step. And I would imagine everyone's working on that already. But it's harder to it's harder to do, right? I mean, it's easier to track things like your heart rate and the variability and relate that to fitness, and recovery versus glucose levels and things like that. So
Sarah Marion32:05
like continuous glucose monitor, and things like the sweat patch, which isn't exactly. You know, that's, that's a very specific purpose. But the the glucose monitor is kind of the closest, I think that we've come to that passive nutrition tracking, and it's not exactly nutrition, right, it's metabolism. The other one that one of our respondents keyed me into is called it's called lumen. I think it's a it's basically a breathalyzer is your metabolism through your co2 output?
Chuck Murphy32:39
Yeah, there's also levels to which levels IO or whatever which bin it's the crowd, the early adopter kind of crazy slash rich people that buy needs Sleep mattress are all doing those those patches do that obviously started as a clinical tool for diabetics, but people kind of it it's very, I've read a lot of reviews of this stuff, just because I think it's that is one thing that like, a couple years ago, I didn't understand at all, like I was like, oh, like that's really interesting that the order that you eat things in, get it back to your body processes. I'm like, it's it's a really wild, this reduces computer, but it is that stuff is really interesting. And a lot of people are coming at it. Do you think that that, that it's I, some of this I've gotten, I've looked into this a little too much, but it's hard to get it. It's a little bit like what Apple went through the heart rate, right? It's very easy to measure heart rate, and it'd be 85 90% accurate, that last 10 or 50% where it's working correctly. You Keisha can't give a bad read, right? So they're I feel like that's kind of where they are right now with the glucose stuff is like, they can get it for most people most of the time. But they're trying to make it more reliable and safe to put put out there on millions people's wrists. Which it's a fascinating area, though.
Maggie Bright33:54
Yeah, I feel like that is you know, next on our purchase list, Chuck, whenever it comes out,
Chuck Murphy34:02
myself that I'm never in the early adopter crowd. I try to wait. But I've usually probably Robin,
Maggie Bright34:08
I feel like I'm in the the late end of the early adopter, on wearables. But on everything else, no, I'm definitely not an early adopter.
Sarah Marion34:16
I feel there's thought about this a lot. Because I think about health and wellness a lot. There's, there's these like three competing approaches that most people combine in some way. There's this intuitive approach, which is about how I feel and like listening to my body and my mood. And then there's the rational approach, which is the measurement. And the people who track are like very firmly in this rational camp, they want to measure everything. But a lot of people are very interested in the combine the intuitive and the rational, right? Because the sweet spot is to be kind of in the middle and then there. The third approach is to back away from it completely. Like kind of, it's not exactly rejecter but there are times when you could call it rest and recover. worry. But there's times when it you don't want to measure or, you know, be intuitive necessarily, you need to back away and take care of yourself in a different way. Having you could call it having fun. There's pathologies related with all three of those areas, right. But ideally, you're somewhere in the middle, where you're kind of rational about when you're being intuitive. And you're rational about when you're backing away and taking a rest. And you're not too far into the rational. So you're getting crazy about it. It's just so hard to stay in that place with all of these things. Because much like, you know, you can go deep in any of these areas. But as wellness also expands to encompass like, Oh, now I have to think about my sleep, you know, now I have to think about how often I'm resting and recovering and what that looks like, and is it active? And is it passive? And does this count it like nutrition, it becomes really overwhelming. And I think the tracking is a way to get a handle on all of that stuff. But at the same time, the more inputs that you're, you know, putting in, the more you have to think about and make decisions about and manage, and to get our stressed out trackers.
Maggie Bright36:12
Right. I love it. I mean, I don't love it, but I agree with it. I do think that's why some of the trackers that don't have displays are like that allows you to balance a little bit more the rational and the intuitive approach, right. So if you have, you know, like the Apple Watch, you can look at what's going on all the time, like you you see your rings on your wrist and you know what's happening and I think but with something like the whoop or the aura ring like you you actively have to go look in the app 15 on your phone, look in the app to see what's happening. And so like that, that's how I balanced the in the rational, right? Because if I were constantly looking at what my scores were all the time, and you know, I did with my Apple Watch for years, and I loved my Apple watch, I you know, I still rotated through my wearable rotation. But I even get I get even more fixated on it when I can like see it on my wrist. And you know how what my progress is. So I do think that there's even within these wearables, there's way to balance those mindsets. And then you can always forget to charge it and then you go into the backing away phase.
Sarah Marion37:20
Yep, yep.
Maggie Bright37:25
Hmm. I know we've we've we've hit on a lot of of topics, and we did it in a fairly concise manner for us. Sir, is there any sort of I know the reports coming out in a few weeks for our state of our health subscribers? Any, any other big without spoiling anything I any other big takeaways? Right?
Sarah Marion37:49
No, we've had a lot of the we've had a lot of the highlights. I think one of the things that is really interesting to me about this category is the the bridges and barriers, so what what really solves a problem, what creates more problems. And I think one of the things that we've found with fitness versus nutrition is that the fitness trackers really do kind of solve many problems that people had, especially people that are already pretty engaged with fitness, they wanted an objective benchmark, they want to be able to progress they don't want, they don't take a set it and forget it approach anyway. And so this helps them you know, maintain that goal orientation, whereas the nutrition trackers don't solve problems that people who are already healthy eaters have, for instance, they solve other problems, that but the kind of people who track their fitness tend to already be engaged in nutrition. So they're looking for something, you know, perhaps one step up or with more personalizable goals that is a little bit more difficult to find right now, one thing that we didn't talk about is all of the there's this expanding world of like personalized nutrition surfaces, that gets into your DNA and vitamin packs
Chuck Murphy39:12
and we didn't talk about the DNA stuff that stuff is fascinating. There's it food, it's funny, you could do hours and hours on personalization of food and I think some of these properties are super interesting. The other thing we didn't talk about and maybe this is like a future podcast because I think we could spend a lot of time on this but I am fascinated by the merger kind of like where we started this podcast when you talk about the audience for a lot of this this this fitness tracking stuff and then you talk about the audience for in person. It you see some of these younger scaling gyms incorporating you know, not necessarily what technology was but has had turnover but you can see those things coming together like I can imagine like a world where someone does a really good job of this like and yeah and you see some experimentation with with with a lot of you Um, fitness chains on this now, but I think that it's good to be, there's a huge opportunity there for someone to do a really good job of integrating. You know what you could do at home, you know that the first thing that comes to mind, this is a super small example. But like if you happen to live in New York, it's pretty rad that you could go to the peloton, studio, do your work out there still have all your data in the app still being on whatever program you're on, still have the instructors you know, and everything but then also do it at home, that kind of like, you know, at home. And then in person, combo, I think is eight. I know a lot of people are really trying that. But I think there's I think it's still very early. Yeah, I
Sarah Marion40:42
agree. Because it's kind of, again, this is like, there's this one particular kind of consumer that has the tracker, and they go to the gym, and it's a nice gym, and they maybe go to a studio for some other specialized class, and they have the peloton at home, this is actually my husband, but um, and they have the watch. And just very engaged in that whole world. And part of the reason that I think that the tracking apps in particular have become so popular is because you can take them everywhere you're going. And so all of your data gets captured no matter where you are. Because if you go to a gym, you see people, they're doing classes on their phone, they're following tips on their phone, they're doing a program set by an app on the phone. And then some of our gym clients have said, Well, is it worth investing in smart equipment at the gym? If nobody uses it? If they just get on and hit Quickstart? And then use their phone instead?
Chuck Murphy41:47
Well, the gyms I think are probably really scarred by how many failed integration there has been? Yeah, it's it's a really tough position. Because it's so expensive. You know, it always amazes me how many gyms you go do that, that, you know, they, they, you know, can't even keep the TV part of the fitness, much less the part where you could plug in an iPod or you could, you know, there's been so many integrations that haven't worked, which is, that's the thing is like you really if you if you deploy a ton of capital in all these locations, and you try to do some integration, and then all of a sudden, something new comes along five years later, you're really in a tough spot, which is it's a hard business to launch, right? Which is probably why it'll it'll probably be like a yoga, we're equipment light version that gets this first like, I know, I've talked about this before the best, but somebody's gonna get this with mindfulness, I think something you could do either in in a physical space or in your home. Some combination of you know, I don't know, there's there's a lot there. That's, I think it's interesting, because it's so early stage.
Maggie Bright42:51
Yeah, there's, there's a lot of runway, I think, to figure out how this works, in terms of sort of pulling together all the pieces that may exist now into one sort of cohesive experience. And it's funny, I do think preferences are different. I mean, you know, just what I would want, that would be sort of this integrated experience probably looks really different than what the two of you want. And I think that's the struggle that companies have is to figure out, because you don't you know, if you go to the lowest common denominator, it might please no one, but if you get it to customize, then you know, you have to niche have a, an audience for it. And so I think that's the big challenge here is what sort of those what are kind of the big pieces you can pick up first, and then take people along the journey so that you can slowly change preferences. So they're more sort of universal across consumer groups, because, you know, I it, especially within nutrition, right, because your nutritional needs are so customized by person. And so how would you ever, you know, design something that sort of fits all of those if you're going for a custom approach? And I think that's the big challenge is like, how do you thread the needle between it being super customized and personal to being marketable at a at a more mass level? It's my two cents. Well, thank you both. I always love chatting with you, no matter what the topic is. And I feel like we will probably revisit this one sometime in the next 12 to 18 months, and we'll all have something new that we've purchased and have, you know, seamlessly integrated into our lives. So we can do. Exactly, I don't know, I don't know when I'm, I don't know. So my big thing right now and Sarah had to witness some of this yesterday is I'm doing all of this testing right now to get sort of like what my cellular level metabolic processes are. And so then I can like customize things, whether it be food or sleep, or whatever, on a very granular level. So that's my I knew big thing. I'll let y'all know how that goes. I've got like 7 million tests that I've been taking over the last few weeks.
Chuck Murphy45:06
So you're a cellular superhero. We already know that.
Maggie Bright45:09
No, I think I'm not. I'm gonna find out that I'm stressed and then they're gonna be like, so fix your stress. And I'm like, where's the app for that?