That Buckaroo Bonzai reference seems apt for Chris Dancy. He is wired to the teeth with tracking systems galore. Sleep, steps, skin temperature are just a few of the things his watches, monitors and sensors track. No matter what he is doing, at least 300 wearable technologies are recording it and he can view it online whenever he wants.
Although this wearable technology and the ability to view one’s health data over time is a trend in healthcare, Dancy takes that trend to the nth degree.
He weighs himself on the Aria Wi-Fi scale, uses smartphone controlled Hue lighting at home and sleeps on a Beddit mattress cover to track his sleep, according to Mashable. Altogether he wears at least 300 tracking devices at any one time.
A concern that his doctor could not keep up with his heath records combined with a fear of an Internet service shutdown led him to take drastic action, according to Mashable.
“In an effort to collect this information, I started looking for ways I could gather data when I didn’t have time to write things down,” Dancy said.
Dancy credits the connected lifestyle with a 100-pound weight loss, but the article notes that he also practices the very low-tech art of yoga.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
He admits that he takes breaks from the connected life but that it’s tough to truly disconnect. “I do take days off with little to no tracking from wearables, but because I have so many systems that automatically track what I’m doing, it’s impossible to truly disconnect.”
Dancy sees himself as the future of connected devices. Really? I can think of very few people who would want that level of information about them quantified endlessly. But it’s an interesting experiment to show how much information can be collected on one person. On the other hand, it seems like there’s a thin line between taking the quantified self to such lengths and an obsessive compulsive disorder.
