When I look at my wrist, I see more than a wellness device. I see a story being written—my story, my data, my heartbeat, my sleep patterns, my very biology encoded into digital form. And I've begun to ask myself: who owns that story? Who controls it? And who benefits from it?
For years, I've watched as our most intimate biological data has become just another commodity for Big Tech. Our wellness information—that most personal narrative of our bodily rhythms and patterns—has been extracted, stored in centralized servers, and used primarily to fuel consumer profiling and product development. All too often, when we want to access our own historical data, we're met with subscription paywalls. And when researchers seeking to advance public health try to access diverse wellness data, they find it locked away in corporate vaults, released only selectively when it serves business interests.
This reality has felt increasingly uncomfortable to me, especially as biometric data has become more sophisticated and intertwined with our identities. When Fitbit was absorbed by Google, completing Big Tech's consolidation of the wearables market into the hands of a few giants—Apple, Samsung, Huawei, Google—I knew the time had come to create an alternative.
A Vision Born from Personal Need
I'll be honest: I'm building for myself first. I want a device that fits my small wrist comfortably, that I can wear to work without it screaming "fitness tracker," and that gives me genuine agency over my own wellness data. I want to choose who I share that data with and how it's used. And I suspect I'm not alone.
The name "Cirdia" itself comes from "circadian"—the natural cycle of day and night that governs so much of our health and wellbeing. We're creating a system that acknowledges these natural rhythms with different devices for daytime activity and nighttime rest, because comfort and function shouldn't be compromised by one-size-fits-all design.
But Cirdia isn't just about creating better devices. It's about reimagining the entire relationship between people and their wellness data.
Privacy by Design, Community by Choice
At the core of Cirdia is a simple belief: your biometric data belongs to you. We're building wearables and applications that store and process your wellness data locally on your device. There are no centralized servers mining your information, no corporate algorithms profiling your habits.
When you choose to share—whether with health partners, research institutions, or friends for wellness challenges—that sharing happens directly, peer-to-peer. We're using Holochain's distributed architecture so that you control what's shared, with whom, and for what purpose. This isn't just about protecting privacy; it's about enabling community and connection on your terms.
A Journey We'll Take Together
What excites me most about Cirdia isn't just what we're building today, but how we're building it and where we're headed. We've incorporated as a Public Benefit Corporation because we believe wellness technology should serve the public good. Our roadmap includes not just product launches but a transition to community ownership through a hybrid retail cooperative model.
This isn't just another startup seeking rapid growth and acquisition. This is a movement to reclaim our wellness data, to build technology that serves humans first, and to prove that community and privacy can coexist harmoniously.
From our initial community building to our upcoming Kickstarter, from equity crowdfunding that allows our users to become owners to our eventual exit to community—every step of this journey is designed to expand the circle of stakeholders who shape what Cirdia becomes.
An Invitation to Join Us
I've had conversations with people spanning from their 20s to their 80s about Cirdia, and I've been struck by how the desire for greater agency over personal data transcends age, gender, and technical background. An 80-year-old woman eagerly asked to join our beta testing. Young privacy advocates immediately understood the value. Wellness professionals saw the potential for more ethical practice.
This tells me we're onto something important—something that speaks to a fundamental human desire for autonomy and connection.
As we launch our website and begin our community journey, I invite you to take the next step with us:
- Sign up for our newsletter at cirdia.com to receive updates about what we are building from the team as well as community curated articles… and also to be among the first to find out about our Kickstarter launch.
- Join the conversation on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Bluesky to share your thoughts on privacy in wellness technology.
- Share your wellness journey with the hashtag #MyCirdiaMoment to be featured in our community stories.
- Stay tuned for focus group opportunities where you can directly influence our product development.
Because ultimately, while I may have started this journey from personal need, Cirdia will grow into what we collectively want and need it to be. This is just the beginning of creating a future where privacy and community coexist harmoniously in wellness technology.
-mary
[In future posts, we'll introduce more members of the Cirdia team and share their perspectives on why they've joined this mission.]