Living with chronic illness often means learning to pace your energy carefully, but that’s easier said than done. In this post, I’m sharing how Visible makes pacing easier for people with chronic illness.
Visible Health is an app and wearable designed to help people with conditions like chronic fatigue, Long COVID, and dysautonomia track their energy and improve pacing. I want to show you what the app and wearable actually do, how they’ve helped me understand my body, and why they’ve become one of my favourite chronic illness tools.
1. What pacing is and why it matters
If you live with a chronic illness, you’ve probably heard of pacing. It’s the idea of managing your limited energy so you can do the things you need to do without pushing your body into a crash. On paper, it sounds simple. In reality, it can feel like trying to play a game when no one has told you the rules and it’s something I have struggled with for years!
Many of us use Spoon Theory to explain how much energy we have in a day. Each task uses up a few spoons until we eventually run out. It’s a great way to help people understand, but it’s still guesswork. You don’t always know exactly how much energy something will take, or how your body will react until after you’ve done it.
That’s where Visible comes in. It’s a wearable and app designed specifically for people with chronic illness. Instead of traditional health trackers which often push us to do more, it measures the effort your body is using in real time and tells you when you’re overdoing it. It shows when you’re pushing too far and when it’s time to rest, so pacing becomes less about guessing and more about understanding. It’s taken what Spoon Theory represents and made it practical, trackable, and so much kinder.
2. My experience using Visible
I’ve been using Visible for around 18 months now, and it’s completely changed the way I understand my body and manage my energy. Before that, pacing felt like complete guesswork and I would go from flare to flare with zero understanding of what I was doing wrong. I’d rest when I crashed, push myself on the good days, and end up in that familiar boom-and-bust cycle. Visible helped me actually see what was happening rather than trying to piece it together afterwards.
The app works alongside a lightweight wearable that tracks how much effort your body is putting in via heart rate & HRV, rather than how many steps you take. When I first started using it, I was surprised by how much energy even simple tasks used, like having a shower or getting ready. Seeing those patterns helped me make small adjustments that made a big difference.
Visible itself has evolved a lot since I first tried it. Version 2 now has up to a five-day battery life, which makes a huge difference, and they’ve improved the design and app layout. The new wristband placement might work better for some people, but personally, I found it itchy and less comfortable. I still prefer the original armband, which thankfully still works perfectly with the new version.
I’ve also been part of the beta group testing new features like sleep analysis, which already feels promising for understanding fatigue. And soon, automatic morning stability will mean one less thing to remember each day.
3. Key features of Visible that help you pace better!
What makes Visible different from other health trackers is that it’s built entirely around rest, recovery, and understanding your limits rather than pushing you to do more. Over time, I’ve discovered the features that really make a difference in day-to-day life.
PacePoints
Instead of counting steps or calories, Visible gives you PacePoints, a daily measure of how much energy your body has used. It’s like Spoon Theory but far more precise. You can see your pace building up through the day and know when to pause before you hit the wall. It’s also been a great way to communicate with my partner and support workers. When I say I’m at “ten points,” they know exactly what that means. It takes the pressure off needing to justify how I feel. I also has a pace setter which can tell you early in the day if you’re likely to go over your pace points so you can slow down before your body slows you down. This is definitely the feature I rely on every single day!
Symptom tracking and activity tagging
The app lets you log symptoms and tag specific activities to see how they affect you. I’ve learned, for example, that having a shower uses far more energy than I realised, and that social plans often drain me as much as physical ones. Over time, those patterns help me plan better and be kinder to myself on the days I do more. It also means I can see patterns in my symptoms and show others how much my symptoms are actually occurring vs how much I say i’m having them out loud.
Health reports
Visible can generate health reports you can share with doctors or therapists, showing real data on how symptoms and energy levels change over time. It’s a huge help for appointments, especially when you can’t remember every detail or want to show how your fatigue really fluctuates between visits.
Morning stability and sleep tracking
Every morning, the app checks your stability score to help you decide how to pace your day. Right now, it’s a quick manual check, but automatic tracking is on the way, which will make it even easier. This gives you a score for how your body is doing first thing in the morning so you can assess your energy first thing. Sleep analysis is also being added, and as someone testing it early, I can already see how useful it’ll be for understanding my fatigue levels more clearly as on nights I think I’ve slept well the feature shows how poor my sleep quality actually was.
A tool for self-kindness
More than anything, Visible has helped me be kinder to myself. Instead of guilt when I need rest, I can see clear evidence that my body is working hard, even on quiet days. It turns invisible effort into something I can measure and understand. It helps me understand myself but also gives me an easy, visual way to explain how I’m feeling to others.
4. What Visible has taught me about pacing
Using Visible has completely changed the way I think about pacing. Before, I used to rely on how I felt in the moment to decide what I could do despite knowing it would usually hit me the next day. The problem is, with chronic illness, how you feel right now doesn’t always match how much energy your body actually has left. Visible gave me a way to see that in real time.
It’s taught me that small decisions can make a big difference. On a typical day, I check my morning stability score before planning my schedule. If it’s low, I’ll ask for extra support, move filming to another day, or use body wipes instead of showering. Those decisions used to feel like “giving in,” but now I can see the impact in my numbers and know I’m actually protecting myself from a crash.
It’s also made a huge difference to how I communicate with the people around me. My partner and support workers can see my PacePoints and understand when I’m struggling, without me having to explain or prove anything. That visibility has helped me feel more understood and supported.
Even on holiday, Visible helped me find a better balance. When I went away earlier this year, I realised that just getting ready for breakfast was using up a big chunk of my energy. By making small changes, like having a quick snack in bed so i could take my medication before getting dressed meant I could lower my pace points, reduce crashes, and actually enjoy more of the trip.
Most importantly, it’s helped me show myself more kindness. On the days when I feel like I’ve “done nothing,” I can look back and see how hard my body’s been working just to keep going. That reminder has been one of the most healing parts of the whole experience. And it has taken time but I’m finally keeping my PacePoints more consistent and actually listening to what my visible is telling me. Sometimes high points are unavoidable but I know how to plan around those days much better now.
5. What I’d still love to see improved
No app or wearable is perfect, and while Visible has made a massive difference to my life, there are still a few things I think could make it even better.
The first is comfort. The latest version of Visible is now designed to be worn on the wrist. That might work brilliantly for some people, but I personally find it a bit itchy and uncomfortable. I still prefer the original armband, which I barely notice when I’m wearing it. Thankfully, you can still use the armband if that suits you better, but I’d love to see more colour options for straps in the future too.
I’m also really looking forward to Morning Stability becoming automatic. I forget to do it quite often, so I know that feature is going to help me so much.
For some people, the app itself can feel a little overwhelming at first because there’s so much to explore. I’ve found it helps to focus on what makes the biggest difference for you personally. These days, I mainly concentrate on my PacePoints and activity tracking, which keeps it simple but still gives me really useful information.
The onboarding process could be a bit clearer too. When I started testing the new sleep tracking feature in beta, I didn’t fully understand how it worked until I spoke to my contact at Visible. More in-app guidance or step-by-step support for new features would make a big difference.
I also know that cost and access are big topics in the chronic illness community. Some people find the subscription price tricky, especially for those of us already facing so many medical costs. The good news is that Visible are actively working on making it available through the NHS in the UK and through insurance providers in the US, though these things take time. You can also use the app for free without the wearable, which is a great way to try it out before deciding to invest. The free version is more limited, but it still gives a good feel for how the app works.
And for anyone outside the UK and US, I know there’s a lot of demand for it to launch in other countries too. Visible have said they’re working on expanding access globally, but again, that process takes time and approval.
Even with those small areas for improvement, I honestly wouldn’t be without Visible now. It’s one of the few tools designed for people with chronic illness, not just adapted from fitness tech, and that shows in how thoughtfully it’s built.
6. Why I recommend Visible
After using Visible for well over a year, I can confidently say it’s one of the most useful tools I’ve found for living with chronic illness. It hasn’t magically made my fatigue disappear, but it has helped me understand it, and that’s changed everything.
Visible takes something that’s usually invisible and gives it shape. It’s waterproof so it can track showers or swimming. It helps me communicate more clearly with the people around me, spot patterns that were impossible to notice before, and pace my days in a way that’s kinder and more sustainable. Whether I’m planning content, managing housework, or even going on holiday, it’s given me a language for my energy that I didn’t have before.
It’s also built for us. Most health tech focuses on doing more, walking further, or pushing harder, which isn’t always helpful when you live with conditions that need you to slow down. Visible flips that narrative completely. It shows that rest isn’t failure, it’s part of managing your health well.
If you’re curious about trying Visible, you can start with the free version of the app to see how it works. And if you decide to invest in the full experience, you can use my link here to get a £15/$20 discount!
For me, Visible has made my invisible disability visible — to my partner, my carers, and most importantly, to myself. It’s helped me make sense of my limits without guilt, and that’s something I wish I’d had years ago.
If you live with a chronic illness and want to understand your energy better, Visible is one of the few tools designed with pacing in mind. It helps you manage fatigue, plan your days, and make your invisible disability visible. Have you tried Visible yet? I’d love to hear how it’s helped you pace or what tools you use to manage your energy.
