Gyroscope V1.8
Release notes for October 2016
The latest version (v1.8) is now available in the App Store. We’ve added a bunch of new HealthKit features to the app, as well as improvements to the web experience and data quality on all platforms.
iPhone App 1.8
Based on the common requests and feedback we’ve been getting, we’ve made improvements to existing features like the Sleep AI, and added new types of data that Pro users can start tracking.
Nutrition tracking (Pro)
Gyroscope just got much powerful for weight loss. If you’re tracking it in HealthKit, we can now load the calories, fat, carbs, and protein for your meals, and also water intake.
This is compatible with many of the different apps that save to HealthKit. The most popular one is probably MyFitnessPal for food tracking. Other apps like Waterlogged or Gulps also seem to work well if you’re interested in water tracking. Not everyone will want to log these things manually, but if you are serious about losing weight or already tracking this data, seeing it in Gyroscope every day can be very useful.
Meditation Tracking
Meditation is one of those useful habits that is hard to get started, so hopefully this additional motivation will be helpful.
The Apple Watch comes with a new breathing app that lets you do a minute of mindfulness. Other apps like Headspace or Calm also log that mindful time into HealthKit (new in iOS 10)
Now we can help you keep track of those moments throughout the day and see how regular meditation or mindfulness can have an effect on things like your your heart rate, productivity and sleep.
Automatic sleep tracking
If you’re already tracking sleep and want to use HealthKit data instead, that should work by default. However, if you have all the other features and are just missing sleep data, we can now start to fill in the gaps for you.
The sleep detection in the latest app should be much more accurate. You can now turn it on and off from the Pro tab in the app. It is recommended to use a device like Fitbit or Apple Watch at night, as well as set up RescueTime, or else the data may not be accurate. Some other known issues are with handling travel across multiple timezones.
The Vault
It’s really fun to add friends on Gyroscope and start competing on who has the most steps every day. However, you may not want them to be able to see other things on your profile that are more personal. Now we’ve added a new private section of the app called The Vault, which only you can see.
It can be configured on the website or in the app.
You can move things like your weight, locations or age to your Vault. Then you’ll still see those stats, but no one else will be able to.
This is different than just hiding your age or weight in settings, which removes it for everyone including yourself. It’s now up to you what you want to hide from yourself to not be reminded of, versus what you want to see but just don’t want others to.
New Pro Tab
To access all these new Pro features, we’ve added a new tab that gets unlocked when you upgrade to Pro. This will be the control panel for all the advanced features, and we’ll be continuing to expand the features.
Other fixes & Improvements
- Your recent weight info is accessible from the main reports screen
- Fixed an issue with photo-upload not always working for workouts
- Pro users can do an extra quick sync
- Better zooming options for maps
- Better account disconnect flow
- Workout titles & city names can be modified
- Guided tour for new users
Please note iOS10 is required for the app to run the new app version.
DNA Integration
Pro Feature
The import process is really easy and just takes a couple minutes to export from 23&me into Gyroscope. If you’ve already got your data, you can set it up in the Vault.
There is about 20mb of raw data, and it can be really overwhelming, but we’ve narrowed it down to a dozen of the most interesting and definitive items. Some of my favorite stats that I realized about myself:
- Caffeine metabolism rate. Often I would end up having two or three coffees in a day, and while for many people that could be totally fine, apparently I don’t metabolize it as effectively. This explains why I would often end up staying up really late some days.
- High pain tolerance, which is related to variations in the COMT gene, which affects dopamine processing. It is related to how you respond to stress and other factors.
Currently we only support 23&me, but we’re looking into handling other data formats from other sources as well — please contact us if you have questions or data from other providers.
Chrome Extension
Free · Web Feature
Now live in the Chrome store, anyone who uses Chrome can install this extension and replace their new tab screen with some helpful stats!
I only check the website a max of a few times a day, but the extension makes it effortless to stay on top of things. Your stats will be just so much more accessible and easy to check throughout the day.
There are a couple different themes depending on what you want to see, and will be adding more over time!
Expanded Workout Details
Free · Web Feature
All of the workouts on the site are now clickable! Now if you’re curious about what you did last Thursday, you can really easily get back to it and see the details. Or you can compare a few and see how your heart rate has changed.
If there are GPS points recorded, you’ll see a map. If you were tracking your heart rate or listening to music at the time, that will show as well.
Currently we’re not able to get the map data from HealthKit — just basic stats like duration and calories. Though the new Watch can track running maps now, we are only able to get it from Strava or Runkeeper, so we recommend still using those apps for now.
Helix Theme
Pro · Web Feature
We originally released the Helix theme last year, but just recently made a bunch of new improvements.
The pages should now load much faster and have better animations. The display of data is also improved and more tailored for new activities. Originally, it was optimized around my level of working out, which was maybe a few times a week.
However, once we released it the usage varied wildly. Eli filed a bug report recently about things getting messed up when he ran twice in the same day, and also went biking and to the gym. We hadn’t anticipated that, but now if you go through all that hard work it will display properly.
Mahdi has been playing softball and basketball lately, so we’ve also also added highlighting for various sports which can be tracked via HealthKit’s new workout types.
2016 Annual Reports
We’ve been talking to various print shops recently and working on some early concepts for some special pages.
We’ll be announcing more details soon. For now, you will want to make sure you do a full sync from the app to fill in all of your 2016 data.
Stay tuned!
V1.8 is now available in the app store. Be sure to upgrade to the the latest version, set up the new Pro features, and invite your friends to join you!
