Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features

[MitzEclipse]

Thanks. I tried that but when I open the AppStore on the watch and search for WorkOutdoors, there is no update, it says “open” and when I click open I go straight into the app. No option to update

 

[NME42]

Thanks. I tried that but when I open the AppStore on the watch and search for WorkOutdoors, there is no update, it says “open” and when I click open I go straight into the app. No option to update

Click on the search result and not the "open button" and an "update" button will appear.

 

[MitzEclipse]

Did that. In fact, I am in the AppStore and click account -> “updates” at the bottom and it says “no updates all apps are up to date”

 

[cfc]

Did that. In fact, I am in the AppStore and click account -> “updates” at the bottom and it says “no updates all apps are up to date”

It may not have come through their systems yet in your country. It sometimes takes a while and may come through on the iPhone App Store before the watch App Store.

 

[madmalkav]

This message was wrong,
but I can’t delete it from my phone.
Bulletin Board Haiku.

 

[Fangs404]

I've recently gotten into playing ultimate frisbee, and I don't have a great way to track it currently. The watch's default workout app has a "disc sports" setting that I can use, but it disappointingly doesn't use GPS and relies on step count to determine distance. I'd love to see a GPS-enabled map of how chaotic the sport is and also get a much more accurate measure of how much distance I covered. The closest I see in WorkOutDoors is soccer, but it looks like it's geared towards indoor soccer because it doesn't have a map.

So I guess a few thoughts:

• What's the best way to log GPS-enabled outdoor sports in WorkOutDoors? Perhaps there is no mode yet.
• It would be really neat if I could add my own custom screens (with an option for indoor or outdoor that would determine if GPS/mapping is enabled). This seems like it'd allow for ultimate flexibility. Or maybe this capability already exists and I'm just overlooking it.
• Or perhaps there could just be 2 new catch-all screens: "Indoor Sports" and "Outdoor Sports" (the main difference being whether GPS/mapping is enabled). I also play flag football and rugby, and I'd love to be able to track those as well. Although I guess this also reinforces how useful the above bullet (custom screens) would be. There's currently "other outdoor screens" and "other indoor screens", but I could see some utility in having screens specific to indoor and outdoor sports (i.e., perhaps I'd want to show slightly different information while playing sports than non-sports).

What do you think?

BTW, I absolutely love this app. As a computer/data scientist myself, I love all the data I can see about my various activities, and I can certainly appreciate the effort you've put into design/implementation. Thanks for all the hard work!

 

[sparksd]

Just got an Ultra 2 today and got this app - really outstanding! Quite impressive what has been accomplished with it (I'm a retired s/w & h/w engineer with 52 years' experience - I'm old - so I've seen my share of s/w to compare it to.)

 

[roman.b]

I will have another go at working around the ground contact and vertical oscillation values from Stryd at some some time in the future but at the moment I am focussed on watchOS 10.1.

If I can't work around it then I am tempted to just remove ground contact and vertical oscillation from the data received from Stryd. It would be better not to have the data than for it to not be correct. Or maybe get those metrics from watchOS even when using Stryd for other metrics.

However the number of emails that I get from people using Stryd has dropped massively in the last year (since watchOS 9 added power, ground time and vertical oscillation), so it is lower down my priorities these days. Sorry about that.

I saw the similar thing, the FIT file from the WOD is correct (no weird values there) but WOD writes incorrect data only into Apple Health and all the other apps (like Healthfit) that read data from Apple Health then get wrong values. Maybe you fixed the Stryd data that you are writing into the app internally but the data being written to Apple Health is not fixed. If that was the case, the fix might be easy (but I have not idea how it is implemented so you know that better).

 

[cfc]

I've recently gotten into playing ultimate frisbee, and I don't have a great way to track it currently. The watch's default workout app has a "disc sports" setting that I can use, but it disappointingly doesn't use GPS and relies on step count to determine distance. I'd love to see a GPS-enabled map of how chaotic the sport is and also get a much more accurate measure of how much distance I covered. The closest I see in WorkOutDoors is soccer, but it looks like it's geared towards indoor soccer because it doesn't have a map.

So I guess a few thoughts:

• What's the best way to log GPS-enabled outdoor sports in WorkOutDoors? Perhaps there is no mode yet.
• It would be really neat if I could add my own custom screens (with an option for indoor or outdoor that would determine if GPS/mapping is enabled). This seems like it'd allow for ultimate flexibility. Or maybe this capability already exists and I'm just overlooking it.
• Or perhaps there could just be 2 new catch-all screens: "Indoor Sports" and "Outdoor Sports" (the main difference being whether GPS/mapping is enabled). I also play flag football and rugby, and I'd love to be able to track those as well. Although I guess this also reinforces how useful the above bullet (custom screens) would be. There's currently "other outdoor screens" and "other indoor screens", but I could see some utility in having screens specific to indoor and outdoor sports (i.e., perhaps I'd want to show slightly different information while playing sports than non-sports).

What do you think?

BTW, I absolutely love this app. As a computer/data scientist myself, I love all the data I can see about my various activities, and I can certainly appreciate the effort you've put into design/implementation. Thanks for all the hard work!

The Other Outdoor activity currently sounds the best for frisbee. In the future I plan to allow the ability to create custom activity types that map to Apple’s types, so you will be able to create new separate activity types for frisbee, flag football etc, and configure different screens for each.

Custom activities are probably top of my to-do list after I have added the navigation improvements, but that will take some time.

 

[cfc]

Just got an Ultra 2 today and got this app - really outstanding! Quite impressive what has been accomplished with it (I'm a retired s/w & h/w engineer with 52 years' experience - I'm old - so I've seen my share of s/w to compare it to.)

Thanks for your kind words!

 

[cfc]

I saw the similar thing, the FIT file from the WOD is correct (no weird values there) but WOD writes incorrect data only into Apple Health and all the other apps (like Healthfit) that read data from Apple Health then get wrong values. Maybe you fixed the Stryd data that you are writing into the app internally but the data being written to Apple Health is not fixed. If that was the case, the fix might be easy (but I have not idea how it is implemented so you know that better).

There is a good chance that I may have fixed the dodgy Stryd data in the latest version. It does quite strict sanity checks and I was optimistic that would fix it. So the current problem may now be in my code rather than their data.

However I am currently focussed on watchOS 10.1 and really want to get started on the navigation features when that is out of the way. Judging from the emails I get Stryd is not as popular amongst WOD users as it was before watchOS 9, and to be honest I am still slightly annoyed over the way they have repeatedly avoided helping me since January.

I will probably take another quick look at the problem when things calm down, but at the moment I am more likely to just remove the code that reads the ground time and vertical oscillation from Stryd than I am to spend a lot of time trying to fix it. Those metrics are available from watchOS now anyway.

 

[LeTraKeuR]

Hello all,
I don' t know if Ian can answer me but maybe the communauty so I ask to ebikes' user with a Specialized Levo. For the first time, this weekend while a ride, I saw my bike like a sensor, called Specialized Levo when I was scanning them. I connected him but I needed some information to use it and I didn' t have the time to set what it asked to me. So I unpair the bike and I tried again when I came back at home but never appears. Has anyone managed to connect their bike?
Thanks

 

[cfc]

Hello all,
I don' t know if Ian can answer me but maybe the communauty so I ask to ebikes' user with a Specialized Levo. For the first time, this weekend while a ride, I saw my bike like a sensor, called Specialized Levo when I was scanning them. I connected him but I needed some information to use it and I didn' t have the time to set what it asked to me. So I unpair the bike and I tried again when I came back at home but never appears. Has anyone managed to connect their bike?
Thanks

I have heard that at least some Specialized bikes do not use the standard Bluetooth protocols, which means they can't be used by the app.

When you managed to get it connected were you using WorkOutDoors or the new cycle sensor ability in watchOS 10? Apple may support proprietary Bluetooth protocols from large companies like Specialized, however WOD does not support using cycle sensors via watchOS.

 

[LeTraKeuR]

I have heard that at least some Specialized bikes do not use the standard Bluetooth protocols, which means they can't be used by the app.

When you managed to get it connected were you using WorkOutDoors or the new cycle sensor ability in watchOS 10? Apple may support proprietary Bluetooth protocols from large companies like Specialized, however WOD does not support using cycle sensors via watchOS.

I was using WOD when I managed to get it connected and yesterday I tried directly with the new Apple' s protocol but It didn't work.
I thought it was due the new protocol but no. I don't understand what happened

 

[cfc]

Make sure that the sensor is not connected to anything else (including watchOS). If it then does not connect to WOD then that usually means that it does not support the standard Bluetooth protocol.

There are two main reasons that a sensor will not connect to the app: either it does not support the standard Bluetooth protocol, or it is already connected to something else. This can be another device (e.g the iPhone), or another app on the watch, or watchOS itself.

 

[Akrapovic]

Got the update from the App Store. The release notes mention the widget stack, but it's not available as a widget, nor as an icon on the 3 icon widget. Is there something I need to enable?

 

[cfc]

Got the update from the App Store. The release notes mention the widget stack, but it's not available as a widget, nor as an icon on the 3 icon widget. Is there something I need to enable?

Did you make sure that the watch app was up to date and update it from the App Store on the watch if it was not?

 

[spacemnspiff]

Thanks for adding the tip jar in the past couple of versions of the app. As a long time user, this app deserves regular tips.

 

[Richo5]

Hello,

I have read that, as is logical because of its complexity, you plan to wait several months before releasing a version with navigation, which will include numerous functions such as turn-by-turn, ... but using your app for hiking I think if there could not be a simpler intermediate phases.

I mean, the etrex or oregon navigators from garmin are and have been reference in hiking and biking without needing to do much more than what WoD is already able to do in some ways. Moreover, Coros during the first versions and until recently has not had turn by turn and has served to make a niche for itself.

In the end, what the solutions do is:

- Identify position on the track and detect away from the track: This is already done by WoD.
- Paint track on offline map: WoD does it wonderfully.
- Track statistics and accumulated effort. Wonderfully done
- Identify position on altitude graph with zoom. On the phone, this is already done. It is to move it to the watch, and allow to zoom on the graph.
- To have remaining distance information: remaining distance, remaining elevation gain ... I understand that it is the most complicated of the previous points from what I have read.

I say it to try to help you and simplify the roadmap. I think that the evolutions in WoD can be gradual because small things bring a lot. Other more complex things like turn by turn, can be fine, but it has not been and is not in many leading products in the market.

As said, your app is incredible. Waiting for new releases

@cfc - not sure if you saw this with the flurry of other release based discussion. I think this is not a bad approach to managing the development as turn by turn is hard

 

[cfc]

Thanks for adding the tip jar in the past couple of versions of the app. As a long time user, this app deserves regular tips.

Thanks for tipping, and for your kind words!

 

[cfc]

@cfc - not sure if you saw this with the flurry of other release based discussion. I think this is not a bad approach to managing the development as turn by turn is hard

I did post a reply to this, but I stupidly added it as a reply to the wrong post. Sorry about that. Here is what I wrote:

Ideally I would release the navigation functionality in stages, and would do exactly as you describe by adding the "following" functionality first.

However each of the navigation features that I am considering will require substantial changes to the data stored in a route file. So I don't want to radically change the structure of the file and then change it again. In an ideal world I would determine the structure in advance and make it flexible enough and backwards compatible enough to handle all future changes, but things rarely work like that.

It may be that after I have implemented the "following" functions then I feel it is ok to release a version with just them in, but at the moment I am planning to make all the navigation changes in a single release. It will take a long time but hopefully not as long as this year's rewrite for the always on display!

 

[Akrapovic]

Did you make sure that the watch app was up to date and update it from the App Store on the watch if it was not?

This worked, cheers. Surprised at this workflow from Apple though. I'd have expected an update of the iOS app to update the associated watch app as well.

 

[Scuba629]

I saw the similar thing, the FIT file from the WOD is correct (no weird values there) but WOD writes incorrect data only into Apple Health and all the other apps (like Healthfit) that read data from Apple Health then get wrong values. Maybe you fixed the Stryd data that you are writing into the app internally but the data being written to Apple Health is not fixed. If that was the case, the fix might be easy (but I have not idea how it is implemented so you know that better).

I've also found this to be what happens. At first I had Healthfit syncing all my data to Training Peaks, Strava, Final Surge and then I used the FIT file from Heathfit to import into Stryd. What I found was not only was the ground contact time and vertical oscillation wrong but values like Air Power and Form Power were missing.

I have now disabled Healthfit and setup Styrd to export to Training Peaks, Strava, and Final Surge. After I run with WOD I export the FIT file to my laptop and upload it to Stryd. From there they handle all the syncing and ive not had a problem with any of the data.

I almost wish WOD would just save the FIT file to iCloud so that I could skip the export and just upload it from my laptop as this was how I was doing it with Healthfit.

 

[SisyphusMD]

I've also found this to be what happens. At first I had Healthfit syncing all my data to Training Peaks, Strava, Final Surge and then I used the FIT file from Heathfit to import into Stryd. What I found was not only was the ground contact time and vertical oscillation wrong but values like Air Power and Form Power were missing.

I have now disabled Healthfit and setup Styrd to export to Training Peaks, Strava, and Final Surge. After I run with WOD I export the FIT file to my laptop and upload it to Stryd. From there they handle all the syncing and ive not had a problem with any of the data.

I almost wish WOD would just save the FIT file to iCloud so that I could skip the export and just upload it from my laptop as this was how I was doing it with Healthfit.

I’ve had the same thought about iCloud. HealthFit can auto sync to iCloud, but that doesn’t fix the issue since HealthFit’s .fit files have the bad data.

I feel like Ian must be very close to having this straightened out. It seems everyone consistently reports that the .fit files exported from WOD have good data. But anything sent to Apple Health/HealthFit has the bad data. Crossing my fingers the good data currently going to the .fit export could also go to Apple and then I can go back to automating the exports instead of manually exporting every run.

 

[Mauki]

Why is the time gone? Is this a watchOS 10 bug?