Data: Yes, just... which?

“It's all in the data — but data isn't everything.”

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Anyone who has ever experienced a highly complex analysis of virtually any kind of body data knows what it means: depending on how you look at the results, you can conclude that you have reached the peak of health — or will die soon.

Even though this is a bit lurid of, it is very relevant in particular and around sport: we produce data around the clock that could tell us virtually anything, but don't do that because... yes, why actually?

With obseed.me, we've identified two issues here:

1. The focus is often not on the data that would really help us.
2. There is no connection or just the opportunity to connect things.

Part 1: Which data is important to us?

When we talk about sports data, the focus is usually relatively one-sided and we like to focus on so-called “primary data.” This includes:

• training time
• Training distance
• power
• speed (km/h)
• Pace (min/km/min/100m...)
• heart rate

This is therefore data that we collect directly during training and which we believe tells us whether we are on the right track: If our performance increases, it must necessarily be good, as well as in terms of speed, distance, pace... That is not fundamentally wrong, but there is a first major risk here: this rather one-sided type of facts and figures primarily allows the conclusion that “more”, “harder”, “further” and “more intensive” are valid conclusions about training management.

It helps to ask yourself WHAT the data shows. Primary data shows one thing in particular: WHAT the body is doing right now.

On the other hand, we are much more interested in HOW the body does it...

Appearance: the data from the periphery.

By peripheral data, we mean things that we record mostly automatically, sometimes intentionally, relating to sports, but to which we rarely pay the attention they deserve — for the reasons mentioned above, which we will discuss in a moment. This data includes (but is not limited to):

• Sleep time
• sleep rhythms
• Sleep phases
• resting heart rate
• Heart rate variability
• Regularity of training
• Recovery values
• total load
• stress load
• body temperature
• weight
• blood sugar
• blood pressure
• Absorbed energy
• Energy consumed
• ...

The list can be extended indefinitely. This is data that, even outside of laboratory tests, gives us information about HOW the body can produce the primary data. A simple conclusion is that everything positive and negative that happens in primary data collection originates in the periphery. It would therefore be more than worthwhile to pay more attention to these things. Because: These are exclusively figures, data and facts that ultimately relate to health, i.e. are not only relevant for top athletes, but for... everyone.

No sport without health — it's as simple as that. And if the periphery could tell us that the training was too intense, too easy, or just right... wouldn't that be great?

Part 2: Causality and Correlation

One of the biggest difficulties in this area is that the global market offers a plethora of devices and wearables, most of which do the job they were designed for in a first-class way. There are more and more clinically validated health gadgets, from finger rings, which allow sleep tracking at almost laboratory level, to body analysis scales that come close to the data precision of an X-ray scan.

And it goes even further: most of us are now equipped with one of these wearables, often with two or even more, and sometimes additional devices are also used.

This leads to a situation that ultimately has the potential for greater performance, health and wellbeing, but at the same time conceals it: with every single device comes a new app that needs to be maintained, a new subscription that you have to solve, time that you have to spend to understand it.

We repeat ourselves: it goes even further. This quickly results in a state of permanent information about what the body does and how it does it - but unfortunately without being able to draw any real conclusions from it.

Our Approach: Voting Sovereignty

At obseed.me, this issue had been on our stomachs for a while - perhaps even literally? The data would probably have shown it... - which meant that we now offer our users the opportunity not only to analyze their data, but also to decide which Data they want to see from which device.

“THIS device records my sleep very well, but THIS watch is much better in sports...”

Your feedback, our campaign:

In the settings, obseed.me now allows you to directly link different profiles from different manufacturers and then decide which data is preferred for which statement/analysis.

This function is currently unique and we are convinced that we can make a valuable contribution not only to helping our users to gain more energy in sports and everyday life, but also to actively support their health.

We offer the opportunity to carry out long-term analyses on a wide variety of topics, to understand how various behaviours and/or trainings affect our body and thus lay the basis for a neutral, unembellished, but also uniquely meaningful basis for decision-making for the future.

We call this the “DNA of performance”: the factors that make us better as people on every level.