It’s been just over a year since we launched, and set out on a mission to make invisible illness visible.
From the beginning, we’ve been keen to be transparent about what we’re building at Visible and why. Too often the reasons for why service providers and researchers make certain decisions are unclear to the people they directly affect. This can be extremely frustrating, but it is also easily avoidable.
Over the past year we’ve written a number of blog posts about Visible’s progress including new features and research studies, and we want to continue this.
As it's the beginning of the year, now is a good time to look ahead and share our plans for Visible in 2024.
Improving the App
Over 40,000 people are using the Visible app to track their health and contribute to research, and we have exciting plans to continue to develop it so we can improve the lives of as many people as possible.
Just last week we updated the accuracy of HRV readings (reducing error by roughly 50%) and we have more improvements planned; including a Monthly Health Report, a monthly check-in, and a brand new feature that will help you better understand what factors, like medication or lifestyle changes, are impacting your health.
Looking back at everything we’ve done over the past year, one thing is clear: it’s only with your feedback that we’ve been able to build the best tool for the people we want to help. We’d encourage you to keep it coming. You can reach us via the Help & Feedback button inside the Visible app, and we’ll always respond.
Focusing on Wearable Data
As you may know, certain Visible users in the US and UK currently have access to Visible Plus, our wearable membership. Visible Plus is currently a paid program, and is how we support the work we do at Visible.
The potential for using wearable data to measure and manage energy-limiting conditions is huge. Making the most of wearable data has been a big part of our mission since we started Visible, and in 2024 we’ll start to focus on Visible Plus even more.
Wearable data can not only help manage these conditions via pacing but also measure these conditions through biometrics like HRV. Using biometrics has the potential to unlock a whole new paradigm for both patients and researchers.
The Visible team is super excited about Visible Plus, and we can’t wait to continue our work on this. If you're interested in getting involved, you can see if it’s a good fit for you here. We’ll start to share more and more about Visible Plus over the coming months, starting with a much-needed website refresh with all the basic information you need.
Expanding Research Partnerships
While the goal is to build the best tools possible to manage these conditions for individuals, the secondary outcome of this is that we’re collecting an incredible dataset to help move the science forward.
In 2024 we’ll continue to expand our research efforts, and we have some exciting new partnerships to announce in the coming months. Watch this space!
As always, your data belongs to you. This means it’s only ever shared with researchers if you enroll into a study in the Visible app, and agree to share your data entirely anonymously.
To bolster our research efforts, we’re also investigating a short ‘monthly check-in’ that would include validated health questionnaires (often used in clinical trials) to better align Visible data with research.
A Year of Hope and Progress
Progress can’t happen fast enough for complex chronic illness, and I’m fortunate as being part of the Visible team that I get to meet with researchers around the world frequently, and I feel incredibly optimistic that more answers will be found for these conditions.
The rate at which research papers are being published for Long Covid and ME/CFS alone is increasing at an exponential rate, and we hope to make significant contributions to this in 2024.
A big thank you for being being a part of the journey with us, here’s to another year of making invisible illness, visible.
Onwards!
Harry
