Knomee 3.0 is available

1. Introduction

Knomee 3.0 is now available on the AppStore. You can read the previous post to understand how we evolved to this version, this short message aims to present the key new features of Knomee 3.0:

Tracker reuse and nested quests (through quest links)
Improved Healthkit integration and new swimming trackers
Better insights from the data visualization screen

2. Tracker Reuse and Quest Links

Quests are made up of one to four trackers, which are the values that you want to track.

The main screen of Knomee shows you these 2 to 4 trackers and you used the sliders to choose your value.

Knomee is based on quests (one target tracker and one to three factor trackers) to help you detect causal links in your self-tracking. However, the same factor may be used in many quests, which becomes cumbersome if you have to define it many times and even more if you need to repeat your self-tracking. This is why you can now reuse an existing definition when you define a new quest.

In the following example, we reuse the existing “sleep” tracker:

This way, we do not have to repeat the description of the tracker.

Now, when you start to self-track with this new quest, you will not have to enter the value of the “reused” tracker if it was set up less than 10 minutes ago. Knomee will directly display the value with a smaller circle (the convention for data that was previously set up).

Notice that the link is bi-directionnal : the order in which you self-track does not matter. Whichever quest sets the value of "sleep" first will pass the information to the other one.

This is especially convenient for two reasons:

The limit to 3 factors is arbitrary and sometimes you may want track more. By reusing the target tracker you may have two quests to represent 6 possible factors (or more with more quests)
It is very convenient to have nested quests where the target value of one quest is a factor for another one. Tracker reuse supports this hierachical organisation.

Let us give a simple example of quest nesting. You may think that your mood depends on your sleep, your diet and your exercise level (top level quest). To improve your sleep, you track factors such as the time you go to bed, your last coffee time and how many cups you drink. Tracker reuse of “sleep” (cf. first photo) allows to link the two quests.

3. Improved Healthkit Integration

When you define a new tracker, you get a list of possible categories :

quantitative
descriptive : self-tracking with a qualitative label from a set that you define
yes/no: event tracking
imported tracker (Healthkit integration)
reuse (cf. previous)

Quantitative trackers have been expanded:

Time trackers : you have the choice between "hour" and "minute", respectively an amount of time which is measured in hours (like sleep) or minutes (like a sprint performance)
Counter tracker : you count the number of times something happens (discrete values 1,2, etc.)
Number tracker : continuous range of value between the minimum and maximum value that you set later.

The true improvement with Knomee 3.0 comes from the new implementation of Healthkit integration. Not only we have added a few automatic trackers ("imported" trackers are automatic because you do not have to set the slide, Knomee does it for you by reading from your Healthkit device), but the implementation is now faster and more robust.

Knomee 3.0 keeps the new Healthkit (imported) tracker organization

Activity (steps, swim)
Heart data (lots of data available from your Apple watch)
Health stat: weight (with a connected scale), sleep, blood oxygenation

The activity trackers have been exended in Knomee 3.0 in three ways:

The distance trackers tracks the total swimming distance over the past 6 days
"best 100m" is the best time for the set of consecutive laps that amounts to 100m. It is independant from the pool size and quite convenient if you alternate between swimming pools of different sizes.
"average 100m" is the average time over your swimming session for the 100m distance. Let us recall that a great benefit of Knomee is that it only looks at the actual laps, not the lost time when you turn you watch off, which can be long (pressing the crown first to get out of the water protection mode, then swiping with your wet fingers to turn the time watch off). We have found that 5 to 10 seconds are lost if your watch is old, which is annoying noise if you try to keep a precise log of your performance.

4. More insights from Daza Visualization

The "dataviz" screen is the second most important screen of Knomee. It helps you look at your data with the ability to go back in time and zoom in /out to change the time scale. This screen also show all the personal notes that you may have taken when you self-track.

This screen also shows the factor analysis of your quests. The top of the screen is made of up to six square buttons that represent each possible factor:

time of the day : is your quest sensitive to daily cycles ?
day of the week : is your quest sensitive to weekly cycles ?
geolocation : is your quest sensitive to where you are ?
each of the factor trackers that make up your quest

DataViz Screen

In this example you see a quest about your mood as a function of load (how much work), size of the mailbox and energy level.
The green color of the buttons, plus the percenntages below the square buttons, tell you that your three factors have indeed an influence on your quest goal (improving your mood)

Tracker Analysis

when you select a factor you get a correlation statistical analysis, which is illustrated by the graph in the picture (tracker normalization).

you get the possibility of additional tracker analysis:

the same time, week, geolocation analysis that you would get for the target tracker
additional statistical insights

Additional Insights

If you press the "tell me more" button, Knomee will tell you:

If there seems to be a delay between your factor and your target tracker. In that example, decreasing cholesterol-rich food has a delayed impact on your weight.
If there is a cummulative dimension, that this the correlation is maximal not with the instant value but rather with the average over a few days. Here the data says that you need to decrease cholesterol for 3 days before it really shows on your weight.

5. Faster Forecast

The main screen of knomee is the tracking screen shown below. Remember that:

you can switch quests either with horizontal swipe in the middle of the screen or by clicking on the quest name
That you move to the data visualization screen with a vertical swipe or by clicking the eye button of the left bottom of the screen.

Knomee uses simple forecasting to place the slider buttons where it is most probable. This dynamic behavior of the screen (see below) has two benefits

You have less to do to move the sliders to the actual value. This is part of our promise to make self-tracking as efficient as possible
It is fun to use since tracking is actually more interesting when the value is a “surprise”.

If you click on the score on the top right, you will get a simple explanation, the dedicated scoring screen has disappeared to make things simpler.

Knomee 3.0 has changed its forecasting algorithm to something much simpler (a linear regression) to ka the application faster and more robust (because your iPhone tend to kill any application which is a memory hog).

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