LAS VEGAS –- There are hundreds of fitness apps and gadgets, but most of their intelligence is limited to the smart wearables you have on your body and the sensors in your phone. Under Armour and IBM took to the CES stage on Wednesday to announce a new partnership and "Cognitive Coaching Powered by IBM Watson" initiative that could change the way you manage your fitness, nutrition and workout regimen.
It’s a project that will include what the two companies are calling the “world’s first complete health and fitness insights app.”
The project will initially update Under Armour's existing UA Record app, which currently has, according to IBM, 160,000,000 users. Now, in addition to tapping into data signals from wearable fitness gear (shirts, socks, bands, sneakers, etc.) Under Armour’s Connected Fitness community, information from research studies and institutions, it will add a wealth of external data from IBM Watson. That data will do what’s called “cohort analysis” to find people with similar characteristics and give you, IBM promises, more accurate health, fitness and nutrition insights. Under Armour recently unveiled a full suite of health and fitness tracking hardware, called HealthBox, which will integrate with this new Watson-powered app.
"This is the first time consumers can see health and fitness days from others just like them to help meet their goals, powered by Watson. Under Armour has the world’s largest health and fitness community and the insights are pulled from this engaged community," said an IBM spokesperson.
Initially the app, which is available now in the Apple App (there's no Android version for now), will start with a subset of these capabilities and include sleep, fitness and activity tracking.
Over the course of the next year, Under Armour and IBM will roll out additional features including using IBM Watson’s visual recognition capabilities to identify foods and their nutritional value, integration of weather-related and environmental factors, as they relate your health and fitness. IBM Watson’s weather info could be particularly rich –- the company recently purchased much of Weather.com’s digital assets.