Category: Design

Health Mate App Has Many Problems Since Nokia Took Over From Withings

Nokia’s update of the Withings Health Mate App is causing many problems.

I like my Withings products and the the associated Health Mate App has been a pleasure to work with in the past. Recently Nokia took over Withings and also rebranded the whole product range. They also gave the Health Mate App a complete new design. What really upsets me is that they did not manage to come even close to the functionality that Withings’ original Health Mate app offered. I received the following reply from Nokia after asking them where my swim tracking data had gone:

Below you will find a list of known issues that we are in the process of fixing:

  • Health Mate isn’t sending data to Apple Health
  • Historical weight data not displayed in app
  • Navigation and UI issues with weight data graphs
  • Temperature and CO2 widgets missing
  • Luminosity, Noise, and Temperature data not displayed for Aura users
  • Normal ranges for Weight, BMI, Body Composition not appearing in the app
  • Swim data missing from the app
  • Inability to BMI widget to Dashboard
  • Inability to set or edit alarms on the Aura
  • Inability to log food or access the Nutrition screens
  • Inability to link Health Mate to MyFitnessPal
  • Inability to edit your Profile (email address, height)
  • Inability to set or change a Reminder
  • Inability to link to MyFitnessPal

Note that this is the bugs they are currently working on, after they already released a bug fix on June 23rd (version 3.0.2). Why do they release an incomplete and buggy app? Yes, it looks fancy, but how about focusing on the functionality first? This is not a good sign for Withings products. I really hope that Nokia does not ruin their beautiful products.

UPDATE: 8 August 2017

My Health Mate App updated automatically and Nokia put up a rather apologetic message. I can’t test if all the functionality they promised now really works, but at least some connection to Runkeeper is now working. My Swimming data usually is displayed twice, which remains a bit of a bummer.

Nokia apologises

UPDATE 3 May 2018

And now Nokia is selling its health products back to the founder of Withings. A prime example of “company strategy”.

 

LEGO Compatible Medium Sized Thrust Ball Bearing

LEGO’s turn table has considerable friction and rotating a model at an exhibition for a whole day would ruin it. A thrust ball bearing is necessary to decrease the friction. I previously 3D printed a large bearing for my Unikitty. For this year’s exhibition I needed a smaller thrust ball bearing so I designed a new medium sized ball bearing. It includes liftarms to hold a worm wheel which results in a rotation ratio of 1:78. You can download the model from A360 and GrabCAD.

Continue reading “LEGO Compatible Medium Sized Thrust Ball Bearing”

Revisiting 8230 Coastal Police Buggy – Stud.io Review

A review of the new Stud.io closed beta software. It is an excellent LEGO digital design software with a huge potential.

Back in 1996 I created 3D animated building instructions for the set 8230 Coasatal Policy Buggy. It was part of an internship at a 3D Company and it took me months to model every brick and to animate the whole model. Below is a rendering that took half a day to render. Twenty years later it is time to build this model again. Not with LEGO Digital Designer (LDD), but with Stud.io, the latest addition to virtual LEGO editors. Stud.io is currently a closed beta and the makers of Bricklink sign responsible for its development. Continue reading “Revisiting 8230 Coastal Police Buggy – Stud.io Review”

The United Colors Of The Brick

A t-shirt design that combines the LEGO color palette with the iconic design of Benetton.

Looks like I am in the t-shirt design fever. Here is my latest creation: The United Colors Of The Brick. Please vote for it so that it does get printed. This design is a homage to Benetton and the LEGO Color Palette.

UPDATE: The shirt is now available from Threadless.

The United Colors Of The Brick