SwattRacing

The problem

Fitness apps are built for people who already train: leaderboards, paces, elevation. Someone who never starts does not start with those apps either. The problem was not measuring better, it was giving a different reason to someone who does not feel like it.

What I built

An Android app that converts movement into an internal currency, SWatt. It is not a decorative score: it accumulates, it is stored, it is spent. The project has two halves, and the second one is the hard one.

The first half is technical: reading steps and activity from the phone, recognising real movement and discarding what is not. An app that hands out currency gets tested within the first week by someone who ties the phone to the dog.

The second half is economic. An internal currency is worth something only if the amount you can earn has a limit and if there is somewhere to spend it. I wrote the issuance rules the way you write them for money: how much can be earned per day, what a kilometre is worth against an hour of walking, what happens when someone hoards and never spends.

How it ended

[NUMERO] kilometres recorded, [NUMERO] active users. The number that matters most is a different one: how activity is distributed across the week. People who use the app move on weekdays, which is exactly the behaviour leaderboards fail to produce.

The project is now connected to Assobay: SWatt are spent on real products from real producers. A currency that buys something stops being a score.

← Proof