Fleetly is launching a new app today that analyzes your fitness goals and motivates you to reach them. The app is part of a larger trend of gamification, where developers use game-like tasks to get people to do things they wouldn’t ordinarily want to do, like exercise.
Rivals such as Basis and Striiv are coming up with devices that monitor your movements and gamify fitness in the process. But Fleetly is one of the companies that plans to leverage the smartphones people already have, rather than get them to buy another gadget.
Fleetly can benchmark you changing fitness level and challenge you to compete for bragging rights on leaderboards. It can tell you if you have hit a plateau, based on time exercised, weight lifted, or distance run — and then provide recommendations on how to do better. The app is available for free on the web and on the iPhone at Fleetly.com/ios.
The app works for all exercises, from weight training to long-distance running, said Fleetly founder Geoff Pitfield, and it helps athletes at all levels.
Pitfield is an amateur triathlete and was inspired to create Fleetly during his initial training. He wanted to track his progress, but nothing supported his variety of activities. So he started making an app that fits in with the trends of a quantified self, feedback loops, and gamification.
Fleetly tracks your exercises, provides an ongoing numerical rating of your current fiscal level, which you can compare with friends or other active people. It rewards you with peer-group recognition and motivates you with challenges, leaderboards and medals. The app comes with more than 200 high-definition instructional videos and 260 exercise instructions. It helps you find and create exercises and workout routines to help you hit goals. It accommodates participation in sports from aerobics to yoga.
The app is compatible with Nike’s Nike+ fitness service and Withings Wi-Fi Body Scale. The company is based in Vancouver, Canada, and has an office in New York. The company was founded in 2010 and currently has three employees.
Fleetly will be compatible in the future with apps such as Foursquare, RunKeeper, and Garmin. Over time, it hopes to collect aggregated information about exercise habits and provide analysis that will help people see where they stand in the grand fitness universe.
Rivals include basic workout loggers such as GymBuddy. There are also apps for recording jogs such as Nike+, DailyMile, Runkeeper, and iMapmyRun. Fleetly hopes to set itself apart by covering the whole range of athletic endeavors. It also focuses on social integration and motivating people through gamification. Points are based on real-world measures such as calories burned, body type, and weight loss. If you slack off, so too does your fitness level.
The app works both online and offline when you’re at a gym, where it syncs automatically in the background as soon as it has a data connection. The company is funded by friends, family and angel investors.
Keith Stephens, a Fleetly user, said, “My favorite feature of the app (is the) quick access to see how the competition is doing. That really keeps me on my toes, everyday. Believe it or not, I like to see other people win and achieve their fitness goals, even more than myself. I want you to beat me, but I ain’t gonna give it to you.”
On average, the early users are using the app 16 times a week. They log nearly 20 different exercises per week. The top participants on the leaderboards are logging over 1,000 points a month, which is like running 35 miles per week. I’m inclined to believe they’re making it up.
