Now that I know how an accelerometer works, I need to figure out how I can integrate the data collection into the app.

How do you start/activate the accelerometer data recording?

There are a few options for this. It could run continuously – either permanently or between defined dates/times; start/stop through the use of a button or it could start recording once it detects motion.

Having it constantly running seems a tad excessive and would probably just run the battery down for no reason and a button is quite easy to forget to use, so I think the best way would be an automatic activation once it detects some sort of motion and this could possibly be combined with a limit on the dates/time that it is allowed to run.

How are we going to store the data collected?

Considering the fact that the data is being collected for analysis in a separate program, I think it makes the most sense to store the data in some form of database for easy importing to the data analysis program. Since I don’t know any database related programming languages, I’ll have to use Excel which should be more than adequate for the time being.

How are we going to analyse/visualise the data?

As part of the Digital Health Development Programme, the third module will consist of data analysis using R, SPSS and MATLAB. In this case I would have to export the data for use in these applications on the computer. However, with more programming experience it is possible to do data analytics within the app itself.