Sweatcoin the app that pays you to exercise.
For a lot of people that is the dream.
Sweat coin is an app that promises to reward you for exercising. It monitors your activity through your smartphone or Apple Watch (no fitbit support yet) and then rewards you with sweat coins for your efforts.
Sweatcoins are essentially a form of currency that you can exchange for rewards (products or services). You earn sweatcoins by walking outdoors. The app will reward you with 1 sweatcoins per 1000 steps (minus 5% commission). You can then exchange your sweatcoins for products and services in the shopping section. They’re almost always fitness equipment, fitness trackers or classes. Eventually Sweatcoins founders aim for it to be listed on cryptocurrency exchanges, but not yet.
You are required to keep the app running in the background of your smartphone but I didn’t notice it effecting my battery life with the battery saving mode engaged. While it does track all your steps it’ll only reward you for steps taken outdoors. If (like me) you live in Ireland where it rains for around 200 days a year it might not be the most useful app out there but if you’re the outdoor running type who is lucky enough to live in a part of the world with a sunnier climate then this might just for you.
On smartphone the app works really well with it’s slick, minimalist design. But I did notice is was much more buggy on
The Apple Watch. The app also allows you to add friends and send and receive sweatcoins with them.
Sounds good right? I have noticed a couple of issues:
•Only steps taken outside are rewarded with Sweatcoins, this means if you have a job that involves a lot of indoor walking, you won’t be earning anything for those steps. The creators say that it’s still too easy to cheat the algorithm indoors but they are working on a fix to allow people to also earn from treadmills etc.
•The Apple Watch app is flaky. It crashes regularly and stops working randomly. I went for a 12k run last week without my phone. I started the app on my Apple Watch and checked it when I had finished. 1007 steps were logged and nothing more. It also tends to freeze quite often.
•At the moment the rewards are few and far between, there is some good stuff on it but unless you’re a regular outdoors walker it’ll take you a while to redeem anything.
Overall I was pleasantly surprised with sweatcoin, it’s a great idea. If you’re the outdoors type then this a nice, free and potentially profitable little app to have running in the background.
Belt.
Link to the app:
https://sweatco.in/