New Fitness App Ideas? – Free Kit for Good Responses

[tom76]

I am beginning to develop a phone app aimedat the fitness market, which will help users to maintain, improve and measuretheir fitness. It will take data from a wireless heart rate monitor (cheststrap), the phone’s GPS sensor and from user input (e.g. weight).



Of course this can already be done (e.g.Runkeeper, CardioTrainer, iFitness) and the app will include all of thefeatures and analysis present in these apps. However, I am also looking toinclude novel features that are not available elsewhere – which is where youcan help!



What I would like to know is the kind ofnovel features that you would find useful in such an app. Are there things likeVO2max and EPOC which could be calculated and which you would find useful? Ihave access to expertise in signal analysis and machine learning – is there anyinformation that might be extracted from the sensor data which you might finduseful, e.g. breathing rate, a measure of the user’s level of fitness (e.g.Conconi test), a measure of when exercise intensity is too high?



Thanks for your time – when (if!) theproduct comes to market I will send each of you who provides useful feedbackwith a free sensor/app as an expression of my gratitude.

Thanks very much,

Tom

 

[JonnyBlade]

If it is GPS based will you be able to transfer routes between users of the same application, say via bluetooth or as a media transfer?

What about an indication of the lay of the land ahead?

Routes determined by the nature of your ride or run? ie Enter 'flat ride' and the GPS stays on flattish roads

Anticipated calorie usage for a journey and a suggestion of alternate routes if more or less calorie bun is required

Different exercises develop different parts of the body ie suggested routes for specific body execises?

 

[AshStone]

I think a lot of the stuff has already been done, but one thing i would like to see is a way to plan your route, than the app to be able to show you different ways you could take for more scenic routes etc. Also having an option of putting in a distance you'd like to do and the app to be able to find a way thats as close as possible to that distance but without coming back on yourself (like finding a massive circuit basically)

EDIT: Also, something that will record where you have been and show it on a map, show average speed etc etc.

 

[Panter]

I think it's pretty much covered by Endomondo.
The extras you mention would be good, but would require additional, expensive hardware I guess?
There are a lot of apps out there so it would be a difficult market to crack i would think.

Some sort of fitness measure would be good, I appreciate it can be calculated reasonably easily but an app that provides and monitors some sort of figure would be nice.

 

[Sleeping Menace]

A couple of things which might be refreshingly useful:

first.. on a regularly used route, to be able to compare my current elapsed time on the route, to the previous run, as well as the best timing for the route.

to be able to have NRT +/- times for each segment, or section of the ride.. ..perhaps jut an arrow pointing up/down, so I know if I'm going faster or slower than my average at any given time, as well as an indicator comparing my time for this section of the ride, to my previous times on it.

Same thing with heart rate? be able to do NRT comparisons of my current heart rate, to the rate on previous rides at this point..

The ability to annotate equipment changes (ie installed an 11-23 cassette).. to see the overall impact on the ride.. did it slow me down? was I quicker? did my heart rate indicate I was working harder or less for the same speed?
Possibly extend this idea for enthusiasts to be able to enter in, component by component, what they're running, and keep a running record of relative performance per 'builds'.. the usefulness would self illustrate when they were able to compare ..for example.. deep carbon wheels, vs very lightweight wheels.. to evaluate which was better for their fitness level and speed over a particular course.

...just a few ideas..
if someone came out with this.. especially for Blackberry, I'd pay good money for it..

........................
http://anotherdooratthe.endoftheinternet.org

Cycle related blog entries, including a few 5 minute reviews:
http://anotherdooratthe.endoftheinternet.org/category/cycling/

 

[oliglynn]

Rather than having a map with a trace below of elevation / speed etc which you have to try and mentally pick through and match to roads on the route, I'd like to see the ability to choose any of the data (speed / elevation etc) and get the route plotted on the map with a variable line colour representing values at any given point on the route

 

[Makins]

Here are my ideas:
- Plot a route on google maps, download it and have turn by turn navigation (through headphones or on phone screen)
- Be able to upload routes, with the time, calories burned and max/min/avg speed to a dedicated website as a log
- Offer compatibility with all GPS modules (Internal and bluetooth)
- Offer compatibility with all heart rate monitors and other external hardware
- Make it simple, advanced functions that are easy to use
- You could try to combine music with heart rate, i.e faster songs when you begin to slow down and slower songs when at a steady pace

Most important of all please please make it in Python or Java! An app that is reliable and functional that I can use on android, symbian, windows and most other phones would be amazing, all the best apps are made for iphones these days :/ I don't know about everyone else but I wouldn't feel comfortable with an iphone in my pocket while out cycling, a cheap nokia 5230 or similar would be much more practical.

Good luck!

Ben