Android app to track bicycle cycles in fitness

Question

There are plenty of Android tracking apps out there that measure your run/walk/bicycle activities as long as you are outside and moving. However, I'm looking for an app to track the activity of riding a fitness bicycle which is pretty much the same as regular one, except that I'm not moving.

Any recommendations? Or at the very least ideas how such an app might be written?

Answer 1

I'd strongly recommend using Strava which is found at http://www.strava.com/

It has options for normal cycling as well as stationary rides on a trainer. An exercise bike isn't physically moving so GPS functions aren't helpful to you, but the static rides will work.

I use an Android S5 with ANT+, and I have a cheap ANT+ cadence sensor for measuring pedal RPMs, and a strap-on ANT+ Heart Rate Monitor which sites around the chest. If your fitness bike is spanky and has a power meter then strava app can read that too, as long as your fancy phone has the correct wireless interface, which is often ANT+ but Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is also an option, and is the only option on iphones.

If your fitness bike is a normal bike held in a trainer, then even better because when you remove bike from trainer for a real road ride, the sensors and phone app will be able to log those rides too.

Best thing? Strava's free mode is very nice and contains everything I need. There's a premium mode which offers more bells and whistles for $7 US a month, but that's high end analysis which is beyond an elderly pedal masher like me.

Screenshot from Strava website of recording page (note that one has a HRM, and is showing a running screen) :

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Update: Strava removed support for ANT+ devices attached to phones in around 2018, originally for "stability improvement" reasons. Admittedly the app has become more stable over time, but I now have sensors that won't link to the app, and would require some kind of physical head unit on the bike to act as a concatenator/controller.

Answer 2

There are various possibilities:

• If your stationary bicycle supports sending data over bluetooth, you'll probably find an app to accept that data by searching for the name of the bike or something.
• Probably your bike already tracks data per training session. You could just manually copy it into a note taking or even better spread sheet app and track your progress like that.
• You could use bluetooth sensors measuring your pulse/pedaling frequency (available for normal bikes, should also work on the stationary useless variant)(use either sensor or both). That way I'm sure you'll find an app which can receive and log that sensor data.

Probably Google Play has various apps which could suit your specific needs (which you weren't to specific about), but of course you can just download the Google software development kit for Android and roll your own. Suggested structure:

• Measurement backbone: Use existing libraries to get sensor data and store it in memory.
• UI: Display the sensor values in memory, in real time. Don't do fancy graphs or anything, user should analyse data file on a computer when users wants something like this (rationale: writing fancy user interfaces is lots of work).
• Logger: Periodically write data to disk in a simple format, like CSV. Make the interval a simple configuration option, in seconds. I've got the impression some people are absurdly pressed for disk space on their phones so might want to set it to a longer time.
• Sync: There will be libraries to sync your data file with services like Owncloud, Dropbox, Google Drive or where ever the user wants to store his data. Do this when closing the app (when there are only metered/mobile connections) or almost as often as saving to disk (when there is free W-LAN). Have fun coding.