Interestingness for health

In the mid-2000s, there was a popular photo site called Flickr, with a feature called 'Interestingness'. It did not show a list of the most popular photos, but the most 'interesting' ones of the day. I would frequently visit Flickr just to browse through the Interestingness page.

I wanted something like that for my health.

Not something that tells me I have lost 8 lbs in 3 months. That's factual but boring. I want to know I lost 2 lbs for 3 months and then 4 last month, because something changed. I want to know that high fiber dinners help me sleep better or I eat more protein on the days I workout in the morning. That's interesting.

So I built it. It's called 'Reflection' and it's the first thing you see when you open Hobbes. It connects to Apple Health and Google Health Connect, pulls your sleep, movement, and energy, and looks for non-obvious correlations with your food log. Now, genuinely surprising insights are rare, so Reflection is sparse by design. On the quiet days, you get a habit tip or a fun trend in your data.

Getting this right took far longer than I expected. I spent three weeks reading papers on serendipity, recommendation systems, and Bayesian surprise (?!) to set the dials well on Reflection.

What do I eat?

The second feature came from a different problem. Eating well isn't only about knowing what to eat. It's about deciding. You get home at 7pm after a full day. You have decision fatigue on what to make for dinner and simply choose to order in instead. Mental exhaustion removes your willingness to choose.

So Hobbes now tells you what to eat next. It's called Next Meal. It knows what you usually eat, where you are on your habits for the day, and how short you are on your targets. You open the app and a suggestion is already there.

It suggested an omelette for breakfast last week and I made it. It suggested soya chunks for dinner and I ignored it completely. Both of those are fine. The point isn't that you eat what it says. The point is that you're now reacting to a suggestion instead of staring into a fridge, and reacting is much cheaper than deciding.

Don't just ask, tell

Both features are the first things in Hobbes that give you something before asking you for anything. Nearly every nutrition app is a data intake form with a number at the end. You feed it, it grades you, you close it. Reflection and Next Meal run the other way. They're why I open Hobbes now when I'm not logging a meal, which I couldn't say a month ago.

I hope you like these new features. Update to the latest version of the app to see these (The update will be live on Android in a couple of days). If you haven't yet, download Hobbes from the App Store or Play Store and try it for free for 7 days.

PS: I was interviewed for a podcast recently where I spoke about Hobbes. Watch it when you have 15 minutes to spare.