Problem Statement and Solution
In today’s world, people have become so obsessed with their work that they forget about their health. This leads to depression, lack of enthusiasm, burnout, and is the root cause of various diseases. This can be overcome by proper health tracking and motivation. This is where my idea comes in.
I developed an Amazon Alexa Skill that tracks the user’s daily health and wellness data like their water intake, their total hours of sleep, and their height and weight, giving them a daily health summary with a rating based on that data. It even presents them with a Body Mass Index rating (BMI) based on their height and weight data. The user can update their health data anytime and the same will be saved in the database. In case the user’s rating isn't up to mark in certain areas, they’ll be motivated to get in shape and better their health.
Why is it better than existing solutions?
This solution is better than the existing ones, because the existing Alexa Skills, if any, focus on just one of the above wellness tracking data, say, for example, either sleep, water or weight. My solution aims to implement all of those in a single unified and wholesome health tracking skill, so that the user just has to update their details on one single skill, giving them peace of mind. Besides, getting regular insight into their health will motivate the users to get in shape and the Body Mass Index rating will provide a wholesome and scientific reference as to where they stand in the weight spectrum.
Features
- Tracks user’s daily night’s sleep and gives feedback over the quality of sleep by giving them a rating out of 10 against the recommended daily sleep requirement.
- Tracks user’s daily water intake and gives them a rating out of 10 against the recommended daily water intake requirement.
- Tracks user’s daily height and weight data and asks them to work out more if they are overweight.
- Calculates the user’s Body Mass Index by taking into account their height and weight data and classifies them into 4 stages of obesity.
- Give a daily summary comprising of all the health tracking data of the various sections and give an overall healthiness rating based on the tracking data.
- Motivates the user to better their healthiness rating by increasing their water intake, sleeping more or even losing weight by working out.
Technologies Used
● Amazon AWS
● Lambda
● Alexa Skills Kit (ASK)
● DynamoDB
● Node.js
● CloudWatch Logs
Usage (Sample Utterances)
To use this Skill, you can say the following-
I. Sleep tracking
● I slept for six hours yesterday/today.
● Yesterday/today I slept for six hours.
● How much did I sleep yesterday/today?
● How many hours did I sleep for yesterday/today?
II. Water Intake tracking
● I drank seven glasses of water yesterday/today.
● I had seven glasses of water yesterday/today.
● How much water did I drink yesterday/today?
● How many glasses of water did I drink yesterday/today?
III. Weight tracking
● I weighed sixty kilograms yesterday/today.
● My weight is sixty kilograms as of yesterday/today.
● How much do I weigh as of yesterday/today?
● What was my weight yesterday/today?
IV. Height tracking
● I measured one hundred and eighty centimeters yesterday/today.
● My height is one hundred and eighty centimeters as of today/yesterday.
● I was one hundred and eighty centimeters tall yesterday/today.
● How much do I measure as of yesterday/today?
● How tall was I yesterday/today?
● What was my height yesterday/today?
V. Body Mass Index
● What is my body mass index for today/yesterday?
● Tell me my body mass index for today/yesterday.
VI. Daily Health Summary
● How healthy was my day on August 21st 2018?
● How was my day yesterday/today?
● What is my daily summary for yesterday/today?
● Tell me my daily summary for yesterday/today.
What I learned
I learned how to implement DynamoDb as this was the first time I was using it. The syntax was different from other databases I had used and it took some time to learn it.
What's next for HealthyMe
The following are some functionalities that can be added to this Skill in the near future -
● Just like the daily health summary, a weekly health summary can also be presented to the user which will contain an average of all the health data in the week preceding the current one and it will also give an overall rating to the user out of 10. The user will also be able to see how much weight they lost, how much height they
gained during that week.
● The Skill can be further extended to include data from third party fitness services like Google Fit, MyFitnessPal, FitBit etc. This can be implemented by using a paid subscription model where the user pays a certain monthly fee to fetch their data from all these services or to send their health data to any of these services.
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