I want to get more intentional about my fitness and measuring my performance and whatnot. As such, I’m in the market for fitness tracking technology for the first time.
However, I’m very much a Free Software / self-hosted sort of person, and I’m very un-thrilled about how proprietary all this stuff seems. It looks like the sensors themselves are kind of standardized (“ant+”, whatever that is), and some of the data formats can be imported and exported, but the bike computers themselves and the companion apps and the online services appear to be trying to become walled gardens.
Short of building a bike computer from components myself, what hardware and software should I be looking into?
Edit: my most immediate concern is figuring out what bike computer to get, to be able to log data from the ANT+ speed, cadence, and heart rate sensors I’ve already bought (along with a GPS track). I’m considering anything from a Wahoo ELEMNT Bolt V3 ($300), to an off-brand(?) one like a Magene C506 ($100) or iGPSSport BSC100S ($38), to using my smartphone with an ANT+ dongle and the “A Training Tracker” app (Github, Play Store).
Hmm, looking at Gadgetbridge, iGPSSPORT bike computers are "mostly supported, " so that’s helpful. The page lists a bunch of them individually but not the cheap BSC100S I was thinking about, so I wonder if that one doesn’t work or if it just isn’t tested.
Aside from it being open source, is there a reason you mentioned Pebble? Would a smart watch instead of a bike computer give a good experience for biking?
It’s the only open source heart rate monitor that Im aware of. I bought an Amazfit watch before realizing before you can connect it to GadgetBridge you have to register an account with the watch creator so I returned it and never even bothered looking again. Even Pebble openly refuses to distribute their app outside of Google Play. This is why I say there aren’t any great options.
I mean not for navigation. But what do you need other than that? My friend send me safe routes to ride and I need some way to navigate them so that’s why I have one.
Are the ANT+ heart rate monitor chest straps not just sorta generic? I realize that’s not the same as being open source, but if they’re too single-function to be running nontrivial software at all then I don’t care that much.
Well, I was thinking it’d be nice to see info like speed, cadence, and other sensor data while I ride. And I admit, the fancier features on some bike computers, like “hill climb planning,” seemed kinda neat.
ANT+ typically needs to connect to some other dedicated hardware for recording.
Right, that’s why I’m asking about bike computers (or a smartphone with an ANT+ dongle and appropriate software). I wanted data from several types of ANT+ sensors (speed, cadence, heart rate, maybe even a power meter eventually) and that’s part of why I was questioning your suggestion of a smart watch instead.
A Pebble has a heart rate monitor built in, I think, but can those other sensors pair with it?
The point is the Pebbl connects directly to your phone, so no other devices needed. If you need all those other sensors a bike computer can be a good place to send them. There just aren’t any “free” options that I’m aware of.
Of the various proprietary bike computers, are they all equally sketchy/enshittified? Or are some brands less bad than others?
Garmin generally has a pretty good privacy policy, but of course that’s subject to change at any time. But it’s more than I can say for virtually every other company in existence that handles user data.
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/privacy/global/