Gatorade sent me a couple patches to try out as well as some Gatorade pods(opens in a new tab) — which effectively mix concentrate with water to make Gatorade — a fancy bottle, and a towel. I guess this was all to support my hydration.
I first tried a patch with a difficult Peloton workout, which is my primary form of exercise these day. And what is a more 2021 workout than a Peloton ride? I planned out 45 minutes worth of classes and got started.
The patch was perfectly comfortable and it was kind of neat to watch the lines move as I worked out. About halfway through my ride I had moved the lines quite a bit. By the end of my ride I was pouring sweat and the lines had snaked to fill nearly the entire patch. Here’s what that progression looked like — the orange line(opens in a new tab) is sweat levels, the purple line is sodium levels.
Flipping through the results pages, apparently I lost around 67 ounces of fluid in the workout. My sweat rate of 2,626 ml/hr was high, as were my sodium levels. Gatorade recommended I recover with 31 grams of protein and 74 ounces of fluid by day’s end.
My response was basically: Hmm, neat. I guess it’s kind of cool that they gave me a recommended recovery. But also, what in the ever-loving-hell do those sweat rate and sodium rates mean? Gatorade’s app really doesn’t offer many details; it just spits number out.
Analysis:
Prior to my formative assessment testing, I wanted to research the microfluidic sensor product that keeps popping up. This assessment provided great feedback on the user experience of the product, the experience and the UI experience. A notable assessment was that of the app data disclosure. The user was very confused by the numbers provided and what they mean. This is great secondary related insight for my app design and a result I want to avoid.
Source:
Marcin, T. (2021, October 29). The Gatorade GX sweat patch was weird, neat, and ultimately kind of pointless. Mashable. Retrieved October 27, 2022, from https://mashable.com/article/gatorade-gx-sweat-patch-review
