Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features

[NME42]

You can effectively copy an interval by making it the default for that type of interval. So for example if you have a particular set-up for warm ups then you can configure it for one warm up and then tap the "Make Default" button in the top right and the next time you create a warm up it will have the same duration, target, screen configuration etc.

It isn't quite a copy function but it does allow you to copy intervals (although it doesn't allow you to copy a whole group).

Thanks. Works great.

 

[NME42]

So did my first interval schedule today with WOD. Really great experience.

Some ideas for minor improvements:

1) Make Autolap configurable during interval schedules: this is a discussion that came up when Garmin changed the behaviour on their watches some years ago. The first watches had it simple: when doing a custom workout (say 10x400 with warmup/cooldown) their were no autolaps being taken. Which was something a large community (including me) found reasonable. When doing workouts, I am interested in the laps I have programmed and not an (arbitrary) 1km autolap. As mentioned, Garmin later brought back autolap as default for ALL workouts (plain vanilla or custom workouts) but made it configurable to be switched off in different run profiles. Was ok, but would have found a setting better: Autolap on (but not in workouts), on (always), off (always).

2) When an interval is started, it would be nice to have the repetition count (2/10) on the full screen. It is a little bit hard to read during the interval with the small font at the bottom

3) Would be nice to have a haptic countdown when an interval ends/starts.

4) Not sure what the pattern was but on some intervals I had haptic feedback, on others I had sound. Think haptic was there when the screen was unlocked, but not sure. Would prefer both always

Not used pace alerts yet, give feedback on this next time.

Great work!

 

[cfc]

So did my first interval schedule today with WOD. Really great experience.

Some ideas for minor improvements:

1) Make Autolap configurable during interval schedules: this is a discussion that came up when Garmin changed the behaviour on their watches some years ago. The first watches had it simple: when doing a custom workout (say 10x400 with warmup/cooldown) their were no autolaps being taken. Which was something a large community (including me) found reasonable. When doing workouts, I am interested in the laps I have programmed and not an (arbitrary) 1km autolap. As mentioned, Garmin later brought back autolap as default for ALL workouts (plain vanilla or custom workouts) but made it configurable to be switched off in different run profiles. Was ok, but would have found a setting better: Autolap on (but not in workouts), on (always), off (always).

2) When an interval is started, it would be nice to have the repetition count (2/10) on the full screen. It is a little bit hard to read during the interval with the small font at the bottom

3) Would be nice to have a haptic countdown when an interval ends/starts.

4) Not sure what the pattern was but on some intervals I had haptic feedback, on others I had sound. Think haptic was there when the screen was unlocked, but not sure. Would prefer both always

Not used pace alerts yet, give feedback on this next time.

Great work!

Thanks for the feedback. I am glad you like the intervals. To address your points:

1) I will have a think about how to do this. Your On / Off / Auto sounds a good approach, with auto basically meaning "on unless there using a schedule". I will add it to my "To Do" list.

2) I will also add including the repetition count to the displayed interval start message to my list as well. You can always add it as a metric but then it uses up valuable space.

3) & 4) The haptics should be switched on for interval countdowns. However watchOS seems to prioritise speaking over haptics, so if you have speaking on as well then the haptics seem a bit random, depending on whether the speaking was happening at the same time.

A warning for when you try pace alerts: the pedometer pace seems broken at the moment, so you may need to work around that by using the GPS pace, or by smoothing the pace, or by using a rolling pace metric for the target alerts. All these options are available in the Pace settings screen in the watch settings. Sorry about that - I am working on ways around it at the moment.

Thanks again for the useful feedback!

 

[NME42]

Thanks for your advice, appreciate it.

A warning for when you try pace alerts: the pedometer pace seems broken at the moment, so you may need to work around that by using the GPS pace, or by smoothing the pace, or by using a rolling pace metric for the target alerts. All these options are available in the Pace settings screen in the watch settings.

A question on this, as Garmin was never able to answer a question on this topic: "what is the basis for pace alerts?".

When using rolling pace, do you reset the rolling pace average when an interval starts? On my Garmin the first pace alerts were always nonsense when starting into a fast interval coming from a jog pause before.
So when pace alert is set to use rolling pace of 10 seconds, is the first pace alert coming earliest 10 seconds into the interval, which would be reasonable?

 

[cfc]

Thanks for your advice, appreciate it.

A question on this, as Garmin was never able to answer a question on this topic: "what is the basis for pace alerts?".

When using rolling pace, do you reset the rolling pace average when an interval starts? On my Garmin the first pace alerts were always nonsense when starting into a fast interval coming from a jog pause before.
So when pace alert is set to use rolling pace of 10 seconds, is the first pace alert coming earliest 10 seconds into the interval, which would be reasonable?

The rolling pace is not reset at the beginning of each interval and I do not do any restrictions of pace alerts based on the window. I like the sound of the latter idea though. If I were to reset the rolling pace when the interval starts then it would take a few seconds to be reliable, but there would be no need to reset it if the alerts were restricted until the rolling pace window (10 seconds in this case) was covered.

I will add that to the list. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[bbn26]

Hi guys; got two questions:

1. lately my instant pace is all over the place; almost unusable. Jumps from 3min/km to 7min/km etc. In the past it was working just fine. Digging around I found a menu for current pace so I guess this has to do with that. The (default) settings were on meaning: pedometer with zero smoothing. I've selected 3/5 smoothing but still kept it on pedometer. If anyone has any experience with the best setting here, please let me know.
2. the optical HR read at wrist level is completely unusable for me. I've did a 1h run yesterday and I'm almost certain I was at 120-150bpm the whole run, according to the watch I've never went under 170 (I'm pretty good at estimating my pulse due to all the training). This didn't use to be so bad. Of course it was never on par with a chest strap but it was more or less around. My question would be: did something change? And is this app relevant? If I would use the native Workout app... would that get a different priority in reading the HR?

thanks!

 

[cfc]

Hi guys; got two questions:

1. lately my instant pace is all over the place; almost unusable. Jumps from 3min/km to 7min/km etc. In the past it was working just fine. Digging around I found a menu for current pace so I guess this has to do with that. The (default) settings were on meaning: pedometer with zero smoothing. I've selected 3/5 smoothing but still kept it on pedometer. If anyone has any experience with the best setting here, please let me know.
2. the optical HR read at wrist level is completely unusable for me. I've did a 1h run yesterday and I'm almost certain I was at 120-150bpm the whole run, according to the watch I've never went under 170 (I'm pretty good at estimating my pulse due to all the training). This didn't use to be so bad. Of course it was never on par with a chest strap but it was more or less around. My question would be: did something change? And is this app relevant? If I would use the native Workout app... would that get a different priority in reading the HR?

thanks!

Sorry - there is an issue with instant pace at the moment, which I am looking into. There are several possible workarounds though: use GPS, increase smoothing or use a rolling pace (as described in the previous post).

There is nothing the app can do about the HR, which is totally hardware related and would affect every app. It is more common at this time of the year because the cold makes a big difference (assuming it is Winter where you are). Your blood is further from the surface and harder for the sensor to detect. It also varies from person to person. Apple have an article on it here: https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT207941#heartrate

 

[NME42]

Ah, cfc was faster ;-).
Noted the same pattern: as soon as temperature was below 10 degrees or chilly wind, optical heart rate was not reliable for me. Exactly what you described, the heart rate locked at a very high value (for me in the range of 140-150) and stayed there. Am using a chest strap now from autumn to late spring.

 

[Otto Pilot]

As the end of the year approaches, I am looking back at fitness activity for the year and wondered if there is somewhere in WOD that shows cumulative stats? Am I just not finding it? Would love to be able to see running/biking/whatnot totals for the year when I have not necessarily been completely diligent about getting everything into Strava. Or is there a place in Apple Health/Workouts that shows this?

 

[Monkswhiskers]

Ah, cfc was faster ;-).
Noted the same pattern: as soon as temperature was below 10 degrees or chilly wind, optical heart rate was not reliable for me. Exactly what you described, the heart rate locked at a very high value (for me in the range of 140-150) and stayed there. Am using a chest strap now from autumn to late spring.

I had this problem. Loosening the band one notch worked for me, I usually have it quite snug.

 

[cfc]

As the end of the year approaches, I am looking back at fitness activity for the year and wondered if there is somewhere in WOD that shows cumulative stats? Am I just not finding it? Would love to be able to see running/biking/whatnot totals for the year when I have not necessarily been completely diligent about getting everything into Strava. Or is there a place in Apple Health/Workouts that shows this?

The iPhone app allows you to analyse the workouts in quite a few ways. If you tap the organise button on the Workouts tab (a circle containing lines at the top right) then you can filter, sort and group. If you change the "Group By" setting to "Year" then it will show totals for each year, including 2019.

If you tap on a year then it shows all the workouts for that year and you can then organise them as well if you wish. So for example you could tap 2019 and then group by activity type to see separate totals for each activity for the current year.

 

[Otto Pilot]

Perfect...that gets me exactly what I wanted...thanks!

 

[bbn26]

Sorry - there is an issue with instant pace at the moment, which I am looking into. There are several possible workarounds though: use GPS, increase smoothing or use a rolling pace (as described in the previous post).

I've experimented with all workoarunds: GPS, pedometer with smoothing 4/5, rolling for 10s as this seems to be the shortest. Honestly none really work well. The first two are all over the place, the 10s pace is okeish but not perfect. I've also compared it with the current pace in the native app which seems spot on and consistent.

Any ETA for the fix?

Also, if may I add a feature request: when starting the app to get the GPS lockdown before actually starting the workout, is it possible to:
a) make the app report as it would be in an active session; otherwise if I move my hand to warmup and the screen goes off, when I bring it up, the app is already closed and the watch face is visible
b) start the HR sensor to get a better lock on that also? maybe also report the status as for the GPS (if apple allows)
Both of these would be nice to have for training days but really musts for race day if you are competitive

thank you

 

[cfc]

I've experimented with all workoarunds: GPS, pedometer with smoothing 4/5, rolling for 10s as this seems to be the shortest. Honestly none really work well. The first two are all over the place, the 10s pace is okeish but not perfect. I've also compared it with the current pace in the native app which seems spot on and consistent.

Any ETA for the fix?

Also, if may I add a feature request: when starting the app to get the GPS lockdown before actually starting the workout, is it possible to:
a) make the app report as it would be in an active session; otherwise if I move my hand to warmup and the screen goes off, when I bring it up, the app is already closed and the watch face is visible
b) start the HR sensor to get a better lock on that also? maybe also report the status as for the GPS (if apple allows)
Both of these would be nice to have for training days but really musts for race day if you are competitive

thank you

I have a workaround with another option that determines the current pace from the distance estimates provided by Apple. I won't release it before Xmas though because I want a stable version over that period. However I plan to have a beta of it soon for people to try out.

I am not sure why the app disappears when not in a workout session. I haven't heard of that before. When you display it again does it show what you were previously looking at or does it look like it has restarted? To test this scroll down a bit and see if it is back to the top when it reappears.

I would like to add the ability for the app to check the heart rate before starting a workout, like it does for GPS, but at the moment Apple will not let me. They introduced the ability to get a HR lock outside of a workout in watchOS 6 but developers have to request the ability to do so. I requested it a while ago and haven't heard back. I tried again last week and still haven't heard back. If they do let me then I will show the HR on the main menu so you can wait for both that and the GPS to get a lock before starting a workout.

 

[FunkyMagicUK]

a) make the app report as it would be in an active session; otherwise if I move my hand to warmup and the screen goes off, when I bring it up, the app is already closed and the watch face is visible

Watch app on phone, ”General”, “Wake Screen”, do you have “Never Unless In Session” ticked by any chance?

 

[bbn26]

Watch app on phone, ”General”, “Wake Screen”, do you have “Never Unless In Session” ticked by any chance?

Hi! That's correct! I know that if I would set it to two minutes or so, it would do what I want, its just that it would affect also other apps.

I am not sure why the app disappears when not in a workout session. I haven't heard of that before. When you display it again does it show what you were previously looking at or does it look like it has restarted? To test this scroll down a bit and see if it is back to the top when it reappears.

I just tested: it shows where I left the scroll, so it doesn't actually restart. Its 100% related to my setting on Wake Screen that was mentioned above, but was thinking that you could trick the system to think its in session. Just to add more detail: if you flip your hand in about 2-3s it will still show the app. But above 5s it would default back to the watch face.

Thanks guys for all the answers!

 

[fredash]

Hi! That's correct! I know that if I would set it to two minutes or so, it would do what I want, its just that it would affect also other apps.



I just tested: it shows where I left the scroll, so it doesn't actually restart. Its 100% related to my setting on Wake Screen that was mentioned above, but was thinking that you could trick the system to think its in session. Just to add more detail: if you flip your hand in about 2-3s it will still show the app. But above 5s it would default back to the watch face.

Thanks guys for all the answers!

Watch app on phone, ”General”, “Wake Screen”, do you have “Never Unless In Session” ... AND scroll down this screen and set switch ON for WorkOutDoors App ;-)

 

[cfc]

If Apple do let me access the HR outside of a workout session then I wonder if that would help in this situation. I guess it depends on whether the HR access would count as a session.

 

[bbn26]

Watch app on phone, ”General”, “Wake Screen”, do you have “Never Unless In Session” ... AND scroll down this screen and set switch ON for WorkOutDoors App ;-)

Are you on a beta? on OS6.1 you cannot scroll down that screen and select ON for particular apps. You can select never unless in session (which I have), within 2 minutes, within 1h and always
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If Apple do let me access the HR outside of a workout session then I wonder if that would help in this situation. I guess it depends on whether the HR access would count as a session.

I've set to keep the apps on screen within 2 minutes, so I'm fine with that; it works for me.
@cfc: thanks for all the answers and being active on forums. Your app is really great and many people mention it when discussing apple watch VS garmin

 

[fredash]

Are you on a beta? on OS6.1 you cannot scroll down that screen and select ON for particular apps. You can select never unless in session (which I have), within 2 minutes, within 1h and always
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I've set to keep the apps on screen within 2 minutes, so I'm fine with that; it works for me.
@cfc: thanks for all the answers and being active on forums. Your app is really great and many people mention it when discussing apple watch VS garmin

This setting is only available on the watch, not on the iPhone watch app ! I know ... this is strange !

 

[bbn26]

This setting is only available on the watch, not on the iPhone watch app ! I know ... this is strange !

wow, that's unexpected! indeed, found it after. Just that it was already enabled and it mentions that 'when enabled, the app will return as long as it is in session' but I think the issue is that WOD only enters 'in session' once you start a workout, the main screen not being considered one. Anyway, I've selected 2 minutes and this should be fine for me; thanks a lot for the advise and the replies

 

[fredash]

With Pleasure @bbn26 !

I am so satisfied by WorkOutDoors ... the only thing i am waiting for is the swimming workout (open water and pool) *and* a reliable Triathlon mode that will manage the 3 disciplines with transitions with only one action to quickly switch workout (with push on digital crown and button).

The only serious app available now on apple watch is made by mySwimPro (Triathlon Tracker) but has some bugs and is consuming a lot of battery.

So i hope that @cfc will add a triathlon mode soon with all the quality, accuracy and reliablity he always demonstrated !

Thanks,
Fred.

 

[cfc]

With Pleasure @bbn26 !

I am so satisfied by WorkOutDoors ... the only thing i am waiting for is the swimming workout (open water and pool) *and* a reliable Triathlon mode that will manage the 3 disciplines with transitions with only one action to quickly switch workout (with push on digital crown and button).

The only serious app available now on apple watch is made by mySwimPro (Triathlon Tracker) but has some bugs and is consuming a lot of battery.

So i hope that @cfc will add a triathlon mode soon with all the quality, accuracy and reliablity he always demonstrated !

Thanks,
Fred.

I am working on swimming at the moment. Open Water is not too hard but the Pool activity is a bit more complicated. The auto-lap notifications from watchOS come a long time after the lap is finished (sometimes half a minute!), which makes a lot of the lap metrics hard to calculate.

It is hard to tell users the metrics for the current lap when watchOS does not supply them until much later. Even the metrics for the previous lap are not really possible, so a lot of the data that the app supplies for other workout types won't be possible for pool swimming.

Triathlons will be added at some time in the future, but not until after the swimming activities have been added and are working well.

Glad you like the app!

 

[NME42]

In sense of a 80/20 solution for triathlons I would say that open water swimming would be sufficient first.
What also would be excellent would be to be able to define custom multisport workouts like brick trainings where I do combinations of workouts like ((bike-run) repeat until finished). With that one could have a solution for 80% of all multisport workouts.

 

[fredash]

I am working on swimming at the moment. Open Water is not too hard but the Pool activity is a bit more complicated. The auto-lap notifications from watchOS come a long time after the lap is finished (sometimes half a minute!), which makes a lot of the lap metrics hard to calculate.

It is hard to tell users the metrics for the current lap when watchOS does not supply them until much later. Even the metrics for the previous lap are not really possible, so a lot of the data that the app supplies for other workout types won't be possible for pool swimming.

Triathlons will be added at some time in the future, but not until after the swimming activities have been added and are working well.

Glad you like the app!

Hi thank you for your detailed answer.
i understand and I think that in consequence you must implement the swimming using less metrics than other workout types. The goal is to have a reliable app. If Apple does not deliver some metrics data or deliver them late then you cannot use them reliably.
I think that if we can already have the base metrics that are displayed by the Apple standard exercise app it will be a good start.
makes sense no ?

thanks again,
Fred.
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In sense of a 80/20 solution for triathlons I would say that open water swimming would be sufficient first.
What also would be excellent would be to be able to define custom multisport workouts like brick trainings where I do combinations of workouts like ((bike-run) repeat until finished). With that one could have a solution for 80% of all multisport workouts.

I completely agree with you !