新型健康神器换个思路帮你改掉坏毛病

Fitness trackers–the Bluetooth-enabled bracelets and wearable devices that monitor things like a person’s heart rate, steps taken and calories burned–had a moment last year. Then everyone realized that knowing how many steps they’d taken each day wasn’t all that helpful. What do you do with that information? Reports surfaced that half of fitness tracking devices had become inactive; industry experts suggest that number is closer to 85%.
健康追踪器（也就是基于蓝牙技术的腕带和可穿戴设备，能监测人们的心率、行走步数和消耗的卡路里）去年着实热闹了一阵。然后所有人都意识到，光知道自己每天走了多少步其实没什么用。您会拿这些信息做什么用呢？一些研究报告发现，这类设备有半数最终都闲置了起来；业内专家则认为这个数字要接近85%。

The fitness tracker moment has passed. The next wave of connected devices is taking a different approach: Instead of incentivizing users to exercise or sleep or eat healthy, and rewarding them for it with virtual badges and digital high-fives, this new class of devices use shame, guilt, and in one case, a physical shock, to keep their owners in line.
健康追踪设备可谓大势己去。下一波互联设备则采取了全新的互动方式：它们不再鼓励用户去锻炼，也不是鼓励他们保持饮食和睡眠健康，同时用什么虚拟奖牌和数字化击掌致意来奖励他们；相反，这些全新设备用羞耻感、负罪感，以及某种情况下的物理震动来让用户守规矩。

Where first-generation fitness trackers offered the carrot, the latest class is offering the stick. Soon everything you own, from your chair, to your lighter, to your fork or belt, will be able to scold you.
如果说第一代健康追踪设备奉上的是胡萝卜，那最新一代设备挥舞的就是大棒了。很快，你所拥有的一切东西，从板凳到打火机，从叉子到皮带，都能把你骂上一顿。

Take Quitbit. It’s a “smart lighter,” which measures how much its owner smokes, in hopes that that information will motivate them to cut back on the habit. Its designers created the device after they tried to track their own smoking with Google Docs and iPhone notes. They realized they weren’t always proud of how much they smoked, and therefore weren’t motivated to continue recording the behavior. So they built a lighter that records the data for them. In addition to tracking the data, which founders Takuji Nakano and Ata Ghofrani say is proven to help smokers decrease their smoking, Quitbit can be programmed to only work a certain number of times each day. They’re careful not to push the guilt factor, since it takes time for smokers to come around to the idea of quitting. “We have to be really gentle with it and will continually ease them into it by making them more cognitive about how much they’re smoking,” Nakano says. “We want to empower them to just try to quit.” The Quitbit crossed its funding goal on Kickstarter and will be available for purchase later this year.
比如Quitbit，这是个“智能打火机”，它能测出用户抽了多少烟。它的设计意图是希望这类信息能让用户少抽点烟。它的设计师是在用“谷歌医生”（Google Docs）和iPhone notes追踪自己的抽烟情况后才有了设计它的念头。他们知道自己并不总会因为自己抽了多少烟而感到自豪，因此也不会很有动力地记录这种行为。所以他们才会打造这么一款打火机来记录抽烟数据。中野卓二和阿塔o高夫拉尼这两位创始人表示，这款设备确实能帮吸烟者少抽烟。除此之外，Quitbit还能设定每天有效工作的次数。他们很注意不要激发吸烟者的负罪感，因为吸烟者需要一定的时间来认识到戒烟的必要性。中野说：“我们不得不小心行事，通过让吸烟者逐步意识到自己的吸烟量，持续地推动他们慢慢戒烟。我们希望能让他们确实有动力试着戒烟。”Quitbit已在众筹网站Kickstarter上公布了募资目标，今年晚些时候就能上市销售。

For drinkers, there are a myriad of iPhone breathalyzer tools that not only tell users how intoxicated they are and how long until they’ll be sober, but map out alcohol intake over time in a handy chart. The quantified drinker can choose from breathalyzer devices from BACTrack (which I reviewed last year),Breathometer, or Alcohoot.
喝酒的人们则可以选用各种iPhone上的酒精测试工具。它们不仅能告诉用户他们到底醉到了什么程度，还需要多久才能清醒，还能通过一个简明的表格显示出一段时间以来的酒精摄入量。喜欢定量的饮酒者可以选择的工具有BACTrack（去年我评测过），Breathometer或Alcohoot。