Friday, October 21, 2011

Sports Tracker Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor Connects to Smart Phones to Record Your Personal Data

Here’s another one of “those devices” that records data for you if you want to keep imagetrack and use your cell phone as an easy way of recording your heart rate, and if you say ok, it will use the GPS tracking capabilities too.  I looked at their privacy statement and it’s long but here’s a couple of lines that stood out to me, 3rd parties will get some information but have to abide by the company privacy policies.  Your personal data might not get sold but how about profiles and you are open to receiving advertisements too. 

Sport Tracker

When I look at all of these companies who collect on the web, I sure like HealthVault and having a direct place to store data with not having to use a 3rd party site on the web for the data.  I would load a desktop application to work with HealthVault in heartbeat faster than I would use the web based programs out there today, but I like privacy too.  The folks at WalMart who’s insurance just went up may not be able to afford one of these if it comes down to choosing between eating and rent and getting their hear rate though. 

Again, I wonder how many faithfully use some of these products and when I say faithfully, I mean commit to it past the “novelty” stage and incorporate it into activities all the time?  If you have employer based insurance with wellness included you may get one of these devices but again who knows where the data goes and so many wellness companies are owned by insurers today so putting information out there that could be used against one is still a big issue.  BD

“We may share your personal data if we have your consent to do so. Our Service may include sharing your personal data with other users of the service, for example where users publish their own content.

We may provide your personal data to third parties who work on our behalf for the above purposes. Such parties are not permitted to use your personal data for other purposes, and we require them to act consistently with this Privacy Policy and to use appropriate security measures to protect your personal data.”

Sports Tracker is now shipping its Bluetooth Heart Rate Monitor, a chest-worn unit that pairs with a smartphone app for viewing stats in real-time as well as storing your data on the company website or sharing it with others through social media.

The heart rate monitor works via a Bluetooth belt that you must first wet before wrapping around your chest (under your shirt). Wetting the back of the monitor ensures that the electrodes read your heart rate properly. Once connected, grab your smartphone and choose "settings" and then "heart rate belt" on the Sports Tracker app. Once it finds the heart rate belt, click "connect" and then enter the pin code "0000" to begin tracking data. Once you see your heart rate on your phone, you are ready to go.

http://www.gizmag.com/sports-tracker-bluetooth-heart-rate-monitor/20142/

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