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...
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.
However, to make eCoach a real substitute for a real sports GPS, it still needs work. Some easy-to-implement features I believe.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, that's genius! I never thought of that one and I'll add this one to the list too.
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
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.
All alerts need to be audible even if using media players on the n900 at the same time.
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?
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.).
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".
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?
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.
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.
(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.)
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.
I guess some day the lithium polymer battery in it will die out, what then?
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.
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.
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?
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?
Would appreciate this too.
Without being able to upload graphs directly to PC the strap is slightly out of reasonable budget.
