I’m a bit of purist. Nothing makes me more anxious than a randomised music playlist. I like to have total control all the time.
But Spotify’s new brainwave, which combines wearable technology and big data, is definitely fantastic either way.
The music streaming service has discussed plans to use sensors on the listener’s body to select tracks for them, according to their heart rate. So if you’re out running you’ll get some upbeat tunes for encouragement, but if you’re relaxed I guess you’ll get some Moby or something.
I think it’s a real smart idea, but I’m just not sure how into it consumers will be. People do like different music, and what’s to say people listen to faster songs if they’re running?
But this is just the start. Building on heart rate monitoring, what if Spotify could start using temperature as well, or even sleep patterns, maybe times of the day? To be honest, I think I’d just be happy with a Spotify alarm app.
Anyway, I think Spotify is on the right track. The uses for wearable technology and data grow everyday in the health and fitness sector, and it’s good to see firms keeping up and trying to innovate.
I’ll close with these comments from Donovan Sung , Spotify’s product manager for discovery and recommendations.
"Maybe with motion sensors in phones, we can start guessing things whether users are running, biking or driving? Maybe the phone has a temperature sensor, or a heart rate sensor, we could guess whether the user is tense…" said Sung, talking to TechRadar.
"The more we know about you, the better the [recommendation] engine can be," said Sung, who said that a fine balance must be found between quantity and quality of music choice from the data collected.
