How Under Armour Plans to Turn Your Clothes Into Gadgets

Under Armour was founded on a simple idea: Make athletes better. To do that, it’s turning human performance into a big data problem. The company is betting on the notion that the right hardware, the biggest data set, a lot of machine learning and powerful motivational tools can make everyone better, faster and stronger. It’s betting that technology doesn’t exist solely to make us lazy, to bring everything to our doors with the push of a button.

The centerpiece of that bet is a $400 kit, announced yesterday, called Healthbox, that provides a scale, an activity tracker wearable and a chest strap for measuring your heart rate.