Re: eCoach
 

Hmm, e-coach does not seem to automatically save your data when the phone needs to shutdown because of low battery. :-( Too bad. I did a 90 km bicycle tour and it didn't get saved when my phone shut down. Any idea if e-coach saves to a temporary file?

qiet72

Re: eCoach
 

x2.. Quite frustrating when it shuts down at the end of a long ride. Isn't there any way it could save the already gathered data before the n900 shuts down?

Re: eCoach
 

I'd like that eCoach would have a mode where it would not use GPS or track the location at all - ie. only record the heart rate / time consumed. Could this be done?

Re: eCoach
 

Thanks for the polar.patch! Haven't done any real training with this yet, just a five-minute test to check that it works. :) Sorry for the delay in replying BTW, I've been out of the country on vacation.

My Polar sends 0xd1 as the key instead of 0xf1 so I had to add a switch case. Otherwise it works just fine.

--Martin

Re: eCoach
 

Hi all,

I am new in the community. I am using eCoach (N900) since a few weeks. It's really great. However, I bought the Polar bluetooth device and now I found, that this device isn't supported yet.

Question: Is there a plan to support the device in the future? If yes, what can I do, so that the device is supported?

Thx and have a nice day.

HorstL

Re: eCoach
 

Horts

The two posts above mention there is a patch for the Polar BT HRM so I suggest you read the whole thread :)

Re: eCoach
 

I'm attaching my own version of eCoach with the Polar patch and double switch-case. The fact that I had to add another key shows that we don't understand the protocol yet.

It may or may not work for you. If it doesn't (i.e. it recognizes the Polar but gives a bpm of 0), it would be useful if you could connect the Polar to a computer and post the data dump

Good luck,
--Martin

Re: eCoach
 

Two points:

1. Thx for this app.
2. If pausing a record, the time you paused is added to the activity time. So if you for example run 30 minutes, pause 30 minutes, run 30 minutes you will get a time 1:30 hours, and as example 6km the activity will show running speed 4km/h because it calculates with 1:30 h and not the actual 1:00 that you really did run.

Re: eCoach
 

It seems the heiaheia API changed slightly so that eCoach reports don't contain the distance any more when uploading.

Re: eCoach
 

Yesterday we extended API to accept parameters in miles as well as in kilometers, but unfortunately a bug crawled in and distance values from eCoach was discarded. The problem was fixed and fix deployed today.

Sorry for all the trouble.

Re: eCoach
 

Thanks. Noticed that it works again. :)

Best would be if average and max speed would also be entered automatically.

Re: eCoach
 

Any plans to put interval training on this app? with beeps that indicate different intervals?
thanks

Re: eCoach
 

A pacemaker would be a nice feature: When starting an activity you say average speed=8 km/h and the N900 would beep if you differ to much. Difference could be dependant on the distance, so the farther you are the difference to make a pace beeb could be lower, as with more distance it takes more time to reach your average speed.

Re: eCoach
 

When recording has been stopped, and I go to Data-tab, the distance and duration of the exercise are reset to 0.
Is this a bug or a feature?
During the recoring it shows correct values and also the data entry in the calendar shows them. But I think it is a bug when you stop jogging and stop recording, you cannot see the data on the data-tab.
http://talk.maemo.org/attachment.php...1&d=1282825576

Re: eCoach
 

It would also be nice if Pause would really pause the activity. At the moment it still records and so the break will be calculated into average speed etc.

How is the Qt version progressing?

Re: eCoach
 

Hi all, it's high time to push Polar support into the official eCoach now.

How many have tried out Antti's Polar patch or the deb I posted a month ago? Does it work for you? Do you get zero or a reasonable BPM value?

--Martin

Re: eCoach
 

Sorry for being so silent for some time. I have been so busy lately and got distracted from eCoach for a while :)

How well does this patch work? I have not yet tested this on eCoach. I have had my own hack for a long time but I have not published one reason being that it doesn't work always and it is so hackish' over all.

Does this Antti's patch solve the connecting delay issue? Because on my experiments it took sometimes very long time to get HR data from the device. If you compare how well the belt works with SportsTracker, it connects always very fast and you get HR data right away. Maybe the connection between the HR belt and Device is not one way (from belt to device) as i thought it would be.

I am going to make a new eCoach release this weekend that will fix at leas bug that occurs when user presses close in the main menu and when asked if s/he really wants to close, presses no and application hides the main windows anyway and stays on as a background process. This leads to a situation where user cant start application anymore from the menu without killing previuous eCoach process before.
I will again look into auto saving as it is requested by many users.

Re: eCoach
 

OK i have just uploaded new eCoach 1.66 with GPX autosaving + couple of new sports for HeiaHeia + 1 bugfix. I will promote it to testing soon.

Re: eCoach
 

I've used Antti's patch for a month now, maybe a dozen runs and bike trips altogether. The delay is reasonable, connecting to the belt takes a handful of seconds and the heart rate is displayed after another 3-4 secs. I've had no problems whatsoever with reliability.

We don't understand the protocol well enough and the patch probably won't work for all users. My Polar uses 0xd1 as the key instead of 0xf1. I added another switch-case and now it WorksForMe(tm).

--Martin

Re: eCoach
 

I think your belt uses 0xf1 since I have set it originally as 0xd1. Anyhow, difference between 0xf1 and 0xd1 is only one bit (still no knowledge what it could be, chip revision or some other indicator). Also I have seen 0, 1, 2 and 3 in my dumps. IIRC one of those are pairs (1 and 2?) and it could be for example signal strength. It should be rather easy to verify by testing and also discover what are the rest of keys (battery, signal strength, signal quality, pulse quality, temp, etc.).

Unfortunately I broke my Nokia 6220c and I have no device to compare against Sports Tracker.

And also I think there is some problems to get connection and keep connection alive. When connection losses for some reason eCoach never tries to auto-connect I think. As a Sampo I think also there could be bidirectional communication protocol. Is that possible to set computer as Bluetooth repeater and snoop data?

br
Antti

Re: eCoach
 

Is Polar belt what you currently suggest using with eCoach or some other?
I am planning to buy one for eCoach use.

Re: eCoach
 

First of all; Thank you for this app. I am using this on my running training always, as a backup. Phone is always with me but sometimes i forget to take my real sports-GPS with me. Or do an ad-hoc exercise and the Garmin is nowhere near. eCoach works as a nice backup and mapper, as the Garmin does not have any maps, even though it records the route.

However, to make eCoach a real substitute for a real sports GPS, it still needs work. Some easy-to-implement features I believe.

Without HR-belt:
- DISPLAY MODE OPTIONS: PACE/SPEED; If this is already in eCoach, I apologise. I have noticed that in the activity log you can view the pace (min/km), but I am not sure whether it is visible during activity, as I currently only using eCoach as a backup/mapper, as stated earlier.
- AUTOPAUSE; when speed drops below predefined or user defined speed or pace (perhaps some predefined values depending on exercise type and possibility for user to input a custom value): pause the exercise and record this part of the exercise as rest time, both time and distance; For example, "Autopause when speed drops below 5km/h" to pause exercise when I am standing in the traffic lights or when I am tying my shoelaces.
- SPEED/PACE ALERTS; possibility to set low speed/pace alert and high speed/pace alert independently, both at custom speed/pace or a speed/pace chosen from a set of predefined values depending on exercise type. It should be possible to set either of them independently, or to use both. For example: "Alert me when ever my pace is slower than 6min/km" or "Alert me when my speed is slower than 10km/h or when my speed is higher than 12km/h"
- AUTO-LAPS; At user defined (custom, or chosen from a list) intervals (either time or distance), log a lap, with distance and time and accumulated time. These must be viewable after the exercise. Preferably also show a "popup" for like 10 secs and give an audible alert. For example: "Autolap every 1km" or "Autolap every 6 minutes".
- TIME/DISTANCE ALERTS, should both be independently toggleable on/off and the limits should again be user defined (custom or chosen from a list). For example, "Alert me every 30 minutes". Or, "Alert me every 5 kilometers".
- SPEED AVERAGING: In some conditions GPS receiving is poor, and speed display might become "jumpy", showing very low or very high speeds. Averaging would be used to "smoothen" the display, calculating the average speed based on the last [user defined] seconds' data. At least I see spikes in my speed curve, and I am pretty darn sure I do not run at speeds of over 40km/h as my eCoach seems to tell me sometimes. Speed averaging would result in more realistic speed measurement. This feature you can also see in the Sports Tracker, and I am pretty sure my Garmin also does it. Even though its not configurable in the Garmin, as opposed to NST.
- VIRTUAL OPPONENT; Set your virtual opponents' average speed, and during your exercise, see how much you are behind or ahead of the opponent. Either timewise or distancewise.

With HR-belt (I do not know about these, as I am not using HR-BELT with N900, these may already be there):
- LOW/HIGH HR ALERTS; Same idea as speed/pace alerts above, basically to define the HR-range in which you want to train and alert if going outside of that

All alerts need to be audible even if using media players on the n900 at the same time. This would be better than sports-GPS + music player, because when the sports-GPS beeps on your wrist and you have loud music in your earphones, you can guess whther you can hear the alerts or not. Correct! You can't! But if the GPS and the media player are combined (as is the case for any GPS-enabled phone), this problem should be easy to overcome. ;)

If you managed to read through all of this, I thank you. Especially if you have your fingers in the eCoach development ;). Some kind of eCoach RoadMap would be cool to have: What are you planning to develop, in what order, etc...

Once more, Thank you.

Re: eCoach
 

As stated on http://ecoach.garage.maemo.org/ eCoach officially supports Zephyr HxM and FRWD B600 heart rate monitors.

I purchased the Zephyr as it's cheaper, easier to get (I bought it directly from their website), and looked exactly like what I wanted, and so far I'm very happy with it so I recommend it.

As far as I know, the developer decided to stop working on current GTK+ based version, and focus on his new Qt based version. That means no new features in current version, you'll have to wait for the new version.

This is already possible. Default display is the map. If you push the Data button, it will switch to data (hehe, obviously), and speed is one of them.

I think I've already seen a request for this in this thread but I can't find a feature request in the bug trackers so I'll file a bug as soon as Sampo answers the question at the end of this post.

Good idea, I'll file a feature request for that too.

Same for that one.

And same for that one too.

That too. I think I even already saw a request in this thread for this.

Oh, that's genius! I never thought of that one and I'll add this one to the list too. :)

This has been requested here too and this is the feature I'm really missing. All the other ones would be nice be I can do without them. But this one, I think it's much needed to make HRM really useful. I'll file that one too, of course.

I don't think that's really a problem since we have Pulseaudio, which means that any number of applications can play sounds at the same time. However, temporarily muting, reducing volume or pausing media player while playing the alert sound might be a better idea, depending on the way the alert sounds. I think there's a DBus way to do that.


Note to Sampo: I noticed there are bug reports and feature requests both on bugs.maemo.org and Maemo Garage. Do you really pay attention to both sites?

Re: eCoach
 

Yes, you're right, I got 0xf1 and 0xd1 mixed up. Anyway, both identifiers have been seen in the wild and I wonder whether the difference is significant or not.

From the other stats, battery level would be the most useful. The rest of the stats are basically "nice to have".

Well, we have one E72 with SportsTracker in the household but I can't do any extensive testing with it. I'll see if I can do some protocol snooping.

FWIW, I haven't had any connectivity problems, even when carrying the N900 in a belt on my back.

Auto-reconnect could be a good idea, but only if a HRM belt was detected at the beginning of the exercise. Sometimes I use eCoach without the HRM belt e.g. when I bike to work, and I don't think it makes sense for eCoach to actively try to reconnect in that case.

--Martin

Re: eCoach
 

(abit OT, sorry)
How often you need to recharge the Zephyr belt?
Your have this model (HxM)?
I guess some day the lithium polymer battery in it will die out, what then?

Datasheet says the HRB weight is in total 47g. I wonder if it feels heavy or big on chest? I have experience only with Polar F6 belt.

(Polar is stupid not to provide protocol specs to open. Oh well, an another customer lost.)

Re: eCoach
 

I got it very recently and only made the initial charge so far. I've been using it for a total of ca. 2 hours (two one hour runs). Their FAQ and manual says that full charge should last 26 hours. That means that someone running once per week for one hour should recharge it twice a year… which to me sounds like not much at all.

Exactly.

Honestly, given how rarely you should have to recharge it, I think it'll be a long time before the battery dies. Even if the maximum charge reduces a bit with time, I think that would still be more than enough.

I don't have any experience with other devices, so I can't compare. This product feels very light. I didn't feel any discomfort at all.

I rather like to think that Zephyr are smart to provide them. :)

Re: eCoach
 

I have had a zephyr for about 6 months now and use it for 2hrs 10 mins every day (Mon - Fri)..

I charge it once every 2 weeks

It is light, don't really notice it that much

Make sure the contact pad is wet if you want the HRM to work

All in all I like it - it is pricey, but I use it alot so it is worth it and it is absolutely rock solid with E-Coach :D

Re: eCoach
 

Thanks for the tip afranke! I did know that you can also view the data page, but now that you mentioned it, I noticed that you can also change the dislay from speed to pace by clicking on the column. Never had thought of that before. :eek:

Re: eCoach
 

OT:
About the Zypher HxM Bluetooth HR-belt.
"If you have a coupon code, please enter it below:"
Does anyone know from where to get a coupon code maybe?

Re: eCoach
 

Would appreciate this too.

Without being able to upload graphs directly to PC the strap is slightly out of reasonable budget.

Re: eCoach
 

coupon code was from runningdigital.com I think.

Ecoach is excellent. I've been using it for a bit, works well with heiaheia.

No promises of anything but I have the belt and I am working on software right now to make an ecoach like fitness app.
David

Re: eCoach
 

How can I add Finnish Topomaps to eCoach? Somewhere you mentioned that you can't automatically do that (some copyright problems) ?

It's snowing now and topomaps would be good help in skiing!

Re: eCoach
 

I got the Zephyr BT-belt on monday and have been testing it with eCoach. Works good.

But, sometimes I would just want to record my heart rate during the night or a gym workout. I wouldn't need GPS tracking then. And in current version the recording does not start before GPS fix it got.
In indoors (cellar), one may not get GPS-fix at all and heart rate recording will never start.

So, a feature request:
One sport event, called "No GPS", where it would ignore GPS-tracking and won't wait GPS-fix to start recording heart rate.

btw, Is there any other known apps to N900 which could use Zephyr BT heart rate belt?

Re: eCoach
 

I'd love to have eCoach using local stored maps, which Mappero and Modrana are using. Both programs use nowadays same local resources; directory and sqlite3 database.

Re: eCoach
 

Anyone know if Suunto heart rate monitors work with ecoach?

Re: eCoach
 

They are not Bluetooth compatible, i believe ... so, no.

Re: eCoach
 

Re: eCoach
 

Have there been any updates to the eCoach progress?

Just started using it and eCoach is really only missing the audio alerts ie kilometre updates, minute updates.

You could even incorporate a beep test activity

Re: eCoach
 

Little off-topic, but does anyone have a file bluetooth_hxm_api_guide.pdf to give?
It used to be in http://www.zephyrtech.co.nz/assets/p..._api_guide.pdf, but is not there anymore and couldn't find it.

Re: eCoach
 

Hello

I dont think that I will be making much upgrade anymore for current GTK+ based eCoach.

I am in the works with Qt / QML based eCoach and developing it is so much easier than with GTK+ and Hildon.... So most likely all the new features will be in the new version.

Release of new eCoach has been delayed because at first I implemented it with just Qt but then I got to know QML and I changed to use it as the main technology.

However now the cause for more delays have been the Qt Mobility API and its QML bindings which are not yet completely ready. But hopefully soon. And I also will change to use Qt-Components in the UI components and that took also some effort.

The basic functionality like recording an activity and showing the log works but at the moment drawing route on the map doesn't work. Also the upload functionality to HeiaHeia is not yet complete.