Grow With Me: Exploring the Integration of Augmented Reality and Health Tracking Technologies to Promote Physical Activity

Maintaining a healthy lifestyle requires ongoing and consistent effort. To address this challenge, a variety of technologies, such as wearable devices, have been investigated to encourage individuals to adopt healthy habits. We introduce Grow with Me that combines an Augmented Reality (AR) virtual pet with fitness tracking. In our application, the user's goal achievement level is linked to the health and mood of the user's virtual dog. As the user makes progress, their virtual dog learns new tricks and provides new interaction possibilities. To evaluate this solution, we conducted a mixed-methods within-subjects study with 21 participants who used both the 2D and AR versions of our application. Our results uncovered that the AR pet elicited stronger emotional responses, and participants expressed a greater willingness to use AR as a motivational tool. In this paper, we will present our study and its findings, as well as the potential of AR as a powerful tool for motivating health-related actions.