Direct Health

Inspiration

Sitting down and watching television can be a sedentary activity that may contribute to an unhealthy lifestyle. We developed Direct Health to combat this problem, and make watching TV more active. Direct Health brings interactivity to DIRECTV users and encourages health and wellness while still enjoying entertainment!

How it works

Direct Health integrates the DIRECTV API and an iOS application to deliver a seamless fitness notification experience. The user is able to select a workout from the iOS application, sending an HTTP request to an HTML application that is then connected to the DIRECTV using the API. Based on the type of show or movie that is playing, there are notifications at different intervals.

Challenges We ran into

While creating Direct Health, we ran into a couple of challenges that we had to overcome. First of all, we had some difficulties connecting the different layers together, where we had to have the HTML5 app, iOS app, and the TV itself interact with each other. In addition, we implented motion with the iPhone accelerometer, which none of us had worked on before.

Accomplishments that We're proud of

Connecting the different components
Learning different web languages and Swift

What We learned

Creating an HTML5 Application
Developing an iOS Application
Working with DIRECTV
Hosting on a WAMP server

What's next for Direct Health

More user flexibility in choosing workout intensity--users will be able to customize the exercise frequency for different types of viewing content.
Improved workout functionality. Exercise information will become available on the mobile application (i.e. diagrams of exercises and number of calories burned).