New Year's resolutions are hard. Mine were to learn a bit more about Streamlit, to get deeper into using local AI as a data correlation mechanism, and to get fitter/healthier.

So that's where Train Track comes in. It's a small Python app I am writing using FastCGI and Streamlit to analyze my Apple Health data, exported and sent to Train Track daily via Health Auto Export. HAE is pretty cool, it takes everything my phone knows about my health and habits and can send it via MQTT, to Home Assistant, or (most important to me) a REST endpoint.

Of Apple, Casio, Garmin and Suunto Wearing

Reading Time: 4 minutes

There was a time, for decades, if not centuries, when a watch provided us with the time. We would wear it in a pocket, attached to a chain, we would stare up at a clock tower and we would see the time. We might even hear church bells to indicate every quarter, half and full hour. In the last decade we have gone from wearing watches to tell time, to watches that quantify us.

They quantify our heart rate, our step count, our position in the world, our altitude, the barometric pressure, our speed, our climb rate, our depth underwater, our tissue compartment saturating and safety stop requirements and more.

Wrist Default

By default we place watches on our wrists because that is where watches have traditionally gone, and when I say watches I mean one at a time. I don't mean that we would wear four at once. Normal people wear one watch, if they wear a watch in the first place.

A Collection of Wrist Worn Watches

In the age of the quantified self, via wrist watch, so each brand, whether Suunto, Garmin, Apple, Casio, Xiaomi and others collect and feed their own DB. As a result, if you buy a watch from a new brand than you usually wear, you feed a new database. If you don't want a gap in your history you need to wear the new watch, and the old one, to feed both databases.

In light of this, it makes sense to move where watches are worn. Some manufacturers have moved data acquisition to our fingers. In other cases people wear a heart rate belt. This is especially useful in winter when sleeves make watches hard to access. If we wear a watch over our jacket sleeve it is easy to access.

Tracking Activities From the App

Xiaomi made the interesting decision, unique to them, in so far as I have seen, to allow you to start tracking an activity from the mobile phone app, rather than from the device. This allows you to wear the tracker on your ankle hidden under a sock, for example, rather than on your wrist.

In so doing you can quantify your walks, bike rides, and more, without having a fitness tracker on your wrist. It gives you the opportunity to wear a "normal" watch instead.

When watches got 24/7 HR tracking, and step counting and more, I was excited to play with the new features but now, years later, I find that smart watches tracking our sleep, heart rate, step count, stress and more is more of a distraction than a useful feature.

Cyclists and Duplicated Workouts

I have observed that cyclists often have duplicate cycling workouts. This is because they have their 'head unit' tracking a workout, as well as their sports watch. Both are automatically uploaded to Garmin and Strava so one workout is often deleted to favour the other. At least in this regard, I am normal.

The Clingy Lovers

Garmin and Apple both require you to wear a device 24/7 for two to four weeks with new devices, to give you certain types of data, and this is invasive. We shouldn't have to wear a device for 8 or more hours a day to get standing stats, and when we sleep for sleeping stats.

We shouldn't have to wear four devices to feed four databases because none of them are friends with each other. Ironically Xiaomi and Suunto are the best behaved, because xiaomi feeds the Suunto app with ease. Garmin, Suunto and Apple do not play well with each other. Each one is siloed. With Garmin you need to wear an Apple watch at the same time, for Apple to recognise the workout. If you do a workout with Garmin, then Apple ignores it.

For the Self

Garmin, Suunto, Sportstracker, Apple and Garmin are private, so the data is only seen by us, the users, so whether we feed one database or the other reflects our mental and emotional state, rather than social standing. Since no one, or almost can see the raw data across the platforms above it doesn't matter what we wear because Strava and Komoot are the public facing platforms

For Others - Strava and Komoot

In an ideal world Sports Tracker would be the pinnacle sharing sports app but in this day and age Strava is. Komoot was a contender for a while but people favour Strava, for now, so it makes sense to focus on Strava.

Suunto, Garmin, Xiaomi, Apple and more all feed to Strava natively. If you're happy with Strava being dominant, then a single device is fine.

And Finally

For 30-50 CHF the Xiaomi Smart bands are excellent. They can feed Strava and Suunto with ease, and the app provides us with interesting data as well. I would be happy to dump Apple because I think it's expensive for what it is, and the battery doesn't last long enough. Suunto is good, if you have the budget to buy their watches, and if you don't then Xiaomi is a good choice.

If I was to limit myself to wearing one watch it would be the Garmin Instinct 2 because it's the most capable watch I have, within an affordable price range. Interestingly I noticed that watches seem to better at tracking sleep, when they're worn on an ankle at night.

My Apple Watch SE 2nd gen recently had a battery change, and I changed one or two settings so it lasts for entire bike rides, which is positive.

And finally I allow myself to wear a fitness watch and a smart watch simultaneously because I feel that this can be justified. They serve different niches. My passion/interest in this subject is as a result of years of using these devices every single day to track walks, climbs, via ferrata, runs, swims, bike rides, snowshoeing, skateboarding, rollerblading and more. Ironically I don't remember tracking snowboarding.

#ankles #Apple #casio #Garmin #quantified #self #suunto #watches #wrists

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Yesterday I wore the Suunto Peak 5 alongside the Apple Watch SE rather than the Apple Watch SE and Garmin device as I usually would. The reason for this is that I want to continue playing with Suunto devices, and I'd like to wean myself off of the Apple Watch, for at least a week or two.

In the process of doing this I was reminded that although the Apple watch is pivotal within the iOS app ecosystem Garmin is very well connected with other services. I share Garmin data with 11 services. These services are Adidas Running, AllTrails, Asics runkeeper, Decathlon (added today), komoot, Nike, Ride with GPS, Strava, TrainAsOne, Walk the Distance and Zwift.

Although connected I use Zwift, TrainAsOne and other apps much less than I used to. The point is that we often think "I need to keep wearing the Apple watch because of all the apps that feed off it, which although true to some degree, is no less true about Garmin and the apps that it can feed with data.

Yesterday, by not wearing the Garmin watch 11 services got no data about my walks into and out of Geneva and Nyon yesterday. To some degree Garmin is more central to my fitness journey than the Apple watch.

Who Cares?

I wear an Apple watch, and I would like to stop wearing it. I don't because of all the connected services. At the same time, as I noticed yesterday and this morning, 11 servies get their data from my Garmin data, not the Apple watch. In light of this the Garmin device is more integral than the Apple watch.

And Finally

The Suunto Peak 5 currently thinks that my fitness age is 55 so I want to wear it when doing sports, to see my fitness age descend back down to 25, as it indicated a year or two ago. It's silly, but I feel this compulsion. For that to work I should go on an endurance bike ride for several hours but I don't want to tire myself ahead of friday's 5:30 run.

https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/garmin-and-other-services/

#Apple #Garmin #quantified #se #self #sports #suunto #watch

Reading Time: 2 minutes

This year I have spent 350 hours hiking and walking according to Strava. In contrast I have spent just 44 hours cycling. If I had spent as much time cycling as I did walking then my cycling fitness would be higher than it is at the moment.

Part of me wishes that I had spent more time cycling but another part of me spends less time cycling than walking because finding safe cycling paths is not so easy in a place as densely populated as the Arc Lémanique.

There are plenty of agricultural roads to be enjoyed but for some absurd people cars choose to drive along them, rather than main roads. The result is that finding a road that is quiet and safe for cycling is difficult. The second challenge is that cycling roads are usually sparse, and disconnected.

If you cycle between Morges and Rolle you spend a lot of time on the road hoping that people give you a safe margin, before finally getting to the cycle lanes between Rolle and Gland, but even in Gland the cycling routes are designed for slow cyclists, not fast ones. You're forced to stop, you lose priority with cars. It's a mess.

I bring this up because what stopped me from cycling, aside from my bike being in another village, is that I didn't know of safe routes that I could ride and enjoy.

In theory the pleasant cycling season has ended and now we're into the Autumn experience, where gloves and warmer clothes are needed.

This year I may cycle into the cooler Autumn months, mainly because none of my walking routes are pleasant anymore. As I write about the cool air for cycling, I am using it to cool down the structure of my apartment, to make it more pleasant once again.

https://www.main-vision.com/richard/blog/time-spent-cycling-hiking-and-walking/

#cycling #metrics #quantified #seasons #weather