Hello, one fast question. In my garmin and Coros watches there is a “resume later” option that saves battery my stopping the gps. I assumed because the app uses apples native workout system that’s not possible. Am I correct? Otherwise a resume later feature would be great to save battery life while keeping one single workout.
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Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features
- Thread starter cfc
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Sorry, there is no resume function so you would need to end the workout and start a new one.
Is there anyway of setting the colour of routes to be a single solid colour?
I've found the "Settings/Watch Theme/Tint Colour", and can set the travelled path to a nice visible SOLID colour that really stands out on the Watch screen shown in the phone app....but I can't find where to edit the route, which is a muted colour that seems to vary between a washed out blue or pinky/red colour (dependant on hills?).
I find this confusing as when I glance at the map with a route enabled I'm never 100% sure if the route I'm supposed to be following is the actual route, or just a road (or is a bit of breadcrumb I've previously covered!). A solid colour for routes would fix this for those of us with weaker eyesight.
I've found the "Settings/Watch Theme/Tint Colour", and can set the travelled path to a nice visible SOLID colour that really stands out on the Watch screen shown in the phone app....but I can't find where to edit the route, which is a muted colour that seems to vary between a washed out blue or pinky/red colour (dependant on hills?).
I find this confusing as when I glance at the map with a route enabled I'm never 100% sure if the route I'm supposed to be following is the actual route, or just a road (or is a bit of breadcrumb I've previously covered!). A solid colour for routes would fix this for those of us with weaker eyesight.
Sorry that you don't like the route colour scheme. A couple of people have mentioned this over the years so it is on my to-do list, but low down the list because it is so rarely requested. Sorry about that.
As you guess, the colours are related to the gradient of the route, from red for steep uphill, through to blue for steep downhill. Flat stretches are shown in purple.
Is there a way to lock the map zoom and still have the rest of the watch UI active? When I do outdoor cycling workouts I think my glove hits the Digital Crown and zooms way in or way out.
There are a couple of ways to do this. The best way is to change the shortcuts for using the crown when the map is shown to "Do Nothing" (instead of "Zoom In Map" or "Zoom Out Map"). To do this go to Settings / Commands / Shortcuts.
Alternatively you could use the screen lock (tap 4x to enable/disable) and configure it to only affect the crown. To do this go to Settings / More / Screen Lock on the watch app or Settings / Other Settings on the iPhone app.
That beta was released to the App Store a while ago, so just download the release version from the App Store and you should be fine.
Don’t delete the beta; just install the App Store version over it. Thanks for testing the app!
Is there a special trick to force maps to download to the watch? I somehow got this to work a couple months ago, but now it's just stuck and nothing seems to work.
- On 17.6 iPhone, 10.6 watch
- Rebooted both phone and watch, verified the watch is connected to the phone
- Have the app open on both my phone and watch, go to various menus on watch, let it sit on the map
- Have tried with both the watch on my wrist and on the charger
The app is stuck at: "No Downloads Required. Run app on watch to enable transfers. Transferred 0/3 (0%)". Has been on this screen for over 30 minutes with no change.
- On 17.6 iPhone, 10.6 watch
- Rebooted both phone and watch, verified the watch is connected to the phone
- Have the app open on both my phone and watch, go to various menus on watch, let it sit on the map
- Have tried with both the watch on my wrist and on the charger
The app is stuck at: "No Downloads Required. Run app on watch to enable transfers. Transferred 0/3 (0%)". Has been on this screen for over 30 minutes with no change.
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The usual reason for problems is if you have another app which is transferring data (usually an audio app). WorkOutDoors then needs to wait until that app is finished. So it is worth waiting a few hours (sometimes longer) and trying again later.
Some people have reported that starting a dummy workout on the watch can help because it gives the app higher priority in the eyes of watchOS. However I never get any file transfer problems (I don’t often use audio apps) so I can’t confirm this.
If waiting and a dummy workout don't help then the order of things to try is:
- reboot both devices (note that if you do this before waiting then you could just restart the other data transfer and have to wait even longer).
- uninstall the watch app; reboot both devices; re-install the watch app.
- unpair the watch from the phone and then re-pair it.
Note that if you reinstall the watch app or unpair then you will then need to send the data from the iPhone app to the watch app. This can be done by going to the Settings tab and tapping File Management and then "Send Yesterday’s Watch Settings", "Send Screens to Watch” and “Send Interval Schedules to Watch”. If you want then you can also send routes or workouts individually. They can’t all be sent at once because they are too large.
Unfortunately the app is at the mercy of iOS/watchOS for file transfer. The mechanism they provide has always been a bit flaky. The degree of flakiness has varied over the years but is relatively bad at the moment. I assume that it is related to whatever they did to break the file transfer confirmation in iOS 17.5 (which they still haven't fixed).
I hope that helps.
Sorry for the hassle. You shouldn't need to delete the beta. Just install the release version on top of it and eveything should continue working fine.
Hello,
It would be great to be able to merge GPX (eg. before exporting to Strava) like made available by web tools like gotoes.org
Distinct use cases for that :
- activity was stopped by error (and manually restarted a while after)
- multiple days hiking
Also can't wait for :
- multiple screens feature (not only great for bike, but also for indoor running, hiking, etc)
- interval training revamp
Finally, another unrelated killer feature would be to load bike / treadmill interval training files and to play them in ERG mode of home trainers. I think the only way to do that at the moment is via subscription apps (would it be with Zwift with its 3D virtual world no one cares about, or its alternatives) ; but no one did a cheap, single paid and simple app that would load and play plain exercises.
Thanks for the great app anyway
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The ability to merge workouts has been very low down on my To-Do list for a while but is rarely requested and would be a lot of work. Sorry about that.
Currently the app reads data from sensors but does not send data to them, so it couldn't tell a trainer/treadmill to change the resistance/speed. This is because the app uses the watchOS Bluetooth system, which does not allow data to be sent to devices (in BT terminology it can act as a central but not as a peripheral).
I guess that the apps which allow this are either iPhone apps (the iOS Bluetooth system can send data) or the devs have custom written the low-level Bluetooth code instead of using what watchOS provides. Again that would be a lot of work for something rarely requested.
However if Apple ever allow watchOS to control Bluetooth devices then I will consider adding it. Or maybe if I extend the app to run on the iPhone as well then it would be possible if you also had your phone nearby. That is not likely in the near future though.
Thank you for the quick but detailed reply.
Indeed, such trainer apps are ran from iOS : this is in case you implement the multi-screen mode between phone and watch (which would make sense both indoor and outdoor in my opinion - even though using WOD purely on the watch is already great 😊).
Hello
Firstly. Thank you for making this app. Worth every penny. The number of customizable settings is great. And having this full control makes this app my daily driver for workouts.
I was out running yesterday. Ran 5.01 km. according to my workout.
Uploaded it to Strava and they taxed me. 4.99 km. 😅😅
According to strava, it is because they round the distance down.
So is it possible to make a setting that determines whether to round down or round up the reported distance you see during a workout?
Firstly. Thank you for making this app. Worth every penny. The number of customizable settings is great. And having this full control makes this app my daily driver for workouts.
I was out running yesterday. Ran 5.01 km. according to my workout.
Uploaded it to Strava and they taxed me. 4.99 km. 😅😅
According to strava, it is because they round the distance down.
So is it possible to make a setting that determines whether to round down or round up the reported distance you see during a workout?
I'm not sure that rounding would explain that. It may explain 5.01 down to 5.00, but not down to 4.99. I suspect it is because Strava often ignore the distances in the file and recalculate the distances themselves. By default the app uses Apple's distances, which are pedometer based, whereas Strava sometimes recalculate using the GPS locations in the file.
To be honest a 0.4% difference is not bad when transferring workouts between systems which may use completely different ways to calculate distance, although I realise that it makes a big difference because it goes from over 5k to under 5k.
How are you sending the workout to Strava, and if it is direct from WorkOutDoors then what file type are you using? The app uses FIT by default, but you may have changed it in the Export Options screen of the Settings tab. If so then change it back to use FIT. If you are using GPX then that does not contain distances, so it forces Strava to recalculate them, but if you use FIT then you are at least sending the distances, so Strava usually respects them. But not always.
Not necessarily. If you were seeing a big difference then I would say yes, using GPS in WOD will give a closer match. However a small difference is possible because WorkOutDoors and Strava use different smoothing algorithms for GPS. GPS is not perfectly accurate so systems need to smooth the trail to avoid using a "jagged" line. This doesn't make much difference but would mean that they could still be a few metres out.
What you need to do is to make Strava respect the distances in the file sent to them, but I have never been able to work out how to do that. Other systems like Garmin Connect use the distances sent to them, but Strava sometimes do their own thing.
In recent years they have improved in this respect. In the past it was a common complaint from users that the Strava distances don't match Apple's distances, but it is relatively rare these days. Nowadays I only hear about it every month or so, and usually that is when someone has configured the app to send GPX files. However it still seems to happen with FIT files for some people.
Maybe it is some sort of rounding that they do and it is so minor that people only notice when it makes a difference like it did for you.
I might have a relevant idea here... You can choose an alternative distance calculation (which might actually just use the distance provided in the FIT file) on the Strava website (not in the app):
- open the workout
- click on the 3 dots next to the pencil
- select 'Correct Distance' from the menu that pops up
This option acts like a toggle: if you select it, your workout will show a different distance. If you are not satisfied and select the 'Correct Distance' again, the initial Strava distance returns.
Good tip!
Did it and it jumped to 5.11 km. A little over the top, so I think I will keep the original distance
Hi,
I noticed that when I use an interval in the interval schedule mode (interval set on the phone or using Fixed Length on the watch) when I finish the workout the data sent to Strava is with interval/split (1 km in my case) set correctly, but the data sent to Health/Fitness Apple App not have the same interval/split data but only one huge interval.
Eg.: I set a 16k interval on the phone o I use a 16k fixed length on the watch. On Strava I see data for every 1k laps ( speed, time..) but on the apple fitness app I can't see no interval/split.
I noticed that when I use an interval in the interval schedule mode (interval set on the phone or using Fixed Length on the watch) when I finish the workout the data sent to Strava is with interval/split (1 km in my case) set correctly, but the data sent to Health/Fitness Apple App not have the same interval/split data but only one huge interval.
Eg.: I set a 16k interval on the phone o I use a 16k fixed length on the watch. On Strava I see data for every 1k laps ( speed, time..) but on the apple fitness app I can't see no interval/split.