A Pill That Tracks Your Health? The Reality Of The ‘Quantified Self’ Movement

Microsensors in your shoes compile data on where you go and what you do. Your workout clothes track your daily progress at the gym and tell you when to slow down or speed up. The pill you swallow reports back on the state of your digestion, vital signs, and overall well-being. And as you sleep, a headband monitors your REM patterns.

A far-fetched sci-fi fantasy? Not at all. It’s merely a glimpse into what might be possible through a movement called “The Quantified Self,” which is part of the wider transformation being driven by the Internet of Everything (IoE).

The Internet of Everything, after all, is about connecting people, processes, data, and things in startling new ways. But ultimately it is the people dimension that looms the largest. Even when the machines are doing the “talking,” it is we who benefit. The whole point of IoE is to transform the ways in which we collaborate and innovate while arming us with unprecedented real-time insights and awareness about our environments, our workplaces, ourselves.

To that end, the Quantified Self movement employs technology to drive greater self-awareness by tracking data related to exercise, diet, health maintenance, financial management, learning and so forth.