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Apps WorkOutDoors: New workout features
- Thread starter cfc
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Akrapovic
macrumors 65816
Still love this app. Still my go to.
I have a request, which I'll explain. Is it possible to have one of the selectable stats a battery percentage usage rate? For example, % used per km? Or % used per 15 minute or something? I'm training for marathon and then ultra marathon distance, and the Apple Watch S4 battery is not the best for longer events. It'd be good to have that for the training to work out what the watch is going to cope with.
I have a request, which I'll explain. Is it possible to have one of the selectable stats a battery percentage usage rate? For example, % used per km? Or % used per 15 minute or something? I'm training for marathon and then ultra marathon distance, and the Apple Watch S4 battery is not the best for longer events. It'd be good to have that for the training to work out what the watch is going to cope with.
No-one has ever asked for that before. A few people have requested a battery time remaining metric which estimates how much time you have before the battery runs out.
One of the problems is that in my experience the battery percentage reported by Apple is not perfectly linear. For example dropping from 100% to 90% usually takes noticeably longer than going from 20% to 10%.
So the app could estimate based on previous usage but you probably wouldn't get as much time as the metric reported. If it was the other way round then I would be tempted to add it but under-estimating the battery usage could be very annoying.
I have considered adjusting the calculation to slightly over-estimate, but that feels wrong, especially if the non-linearity varies between individual watches or models.
Apologies for the long response, but the upshot is that not many people have asked for battery estimates and if I did implement them then they may give a false sense of security.
erone
macrumors newbie
Hi there, i have an issue. The Absolute Altitude (current altitude above sea level) value is wrong in WorkOutdoors app. When i open iwatch compass, the value is correct, but in Workoutdoors there is big difference. For example, when i’m on 2000 meteres above sea level the workoutdoors app shows me 800 m. Is there any solution for that?
Regards
Regards
Did you wait for a good GPS signal at the start of your workout? The absolute altitude is calculated from the barometer (which provides relative altitude) but also needs a base altitude to apply the relative altitude to. It gets this base altitude from the GPS at the start of the workout, so if that is poor then the absolute altitude can be off. Admittedly not usually by 1200m, but it really depends on what the GPS is reporting.
Recent models of the watch have an "always on altimeter" and Apple have finally made this available to third party apps in watchOS 8, so I will switch the app to using that when I can. In the meantime try to wait for a good GPS signal before starting a workout if you care about absolute altitude. Ideally wait for 5 blue bars in the top left of the screen before starting.
Also, if the absolute altitude does look wrong during a workout then pause and resume the workout. When you resume the app will re-calibrate the absolute altitude using the current GPS altitude, so this should help (assuming you have a good GPS signal then).
I'm a new user of WorkOutdoors, and so far am very happy with the app. I've only used it a couple of times for outdoor walks, but have noticed that whereas the Apple Fitness app records the local temperature and humidity for each workout, WorkOutdoors does not do so. Does Apple provide an API to obtain that information, and if so, would it be possible for WorkOutdoors to record those values?
iamronreed
macrumors newbie
Unfortunately Apple do not offer a weather API and I don't know of any free weather services that I could use. I am hopeful that Apple's purchase of Dark Sky last year will eventually result in them making the data available to third party apps, but probably not for a while.
Here's a question which may have been discussed previously, but I didn't see anything on the WOD web site and a search in this thread doesn't find anything. I'm thinking of getting a new iPhone, and at some point a new Apple watch. What does one need to do to migrate WOD iPhone data to a new phone? Or to migrate watch data to a new watch? Or what if I get a new phone and a new watch at the same time?
If you restore your new iPhone from a backup of the old phone then the data should be fine. If you set it up as a new phone then you can use iTunes File Sharing to copy the workouts etc from the old phone to a computer and then from there to a new iPhone.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201301
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210598 (MacOS Catalina & Big Sur)
If you upgrade to a new watch then you can send the settings and screens from the WOD iPhone app to the new watch. To do this go to the Settings tab and tap Send Yesterday's Watch Settings and Send Screens & Profiles to Watch.
iamronreed
macrumors newbie
Just wanted to post a quick message about how great this app has been. I spent a while debating picking up a Garmin to replace my apple watch. Workoutdoor does 95% of what I'm looking for and has been incredibly reliable.
At this point, there are only 2 features that would be a huge quality of life improvement for me. The first would be the ability to add a few more zone, and be able to rename them. I'm doing an 80/20 training program, and it uses a 7 zone system, and so this would make it much easier to track my time spent in each.
The real killer feature for me would be the ability to import structured workouts. It's pretty tedious having to set up my full week of training every Sunday night. I'm using a plan from training peaks, so either a direct import from that platform or being able to import their exported workouts would be amazing.
A few other tiny things:
- Scroll wheel gesture to cycle through workout data screen
- Notification when you reach a waypoint in a route ( this would be an easy way to essentially get navigation alerts )
- option to clone a structured workout
- option to create custom interval ( warmup, cooldown etc) and save it. This would make manually creating a structure workout easier. For example, I use the current fast interval for several different HR zone targets, so I have to change it quite often.
- workout calendar where you can assign a specific program interval workout to a day. Right now I just rename them to some like "1- Mon - Tempo Run"
At this point, there are only 2 features that would be a huge quality of life improvement for me. The first would be the ability to add a few more zone, and be able to rename them. I'm doing an 80/20 training program, and it uses a 7 zone system, and so this would make it much easier to track my time spent in each.
The real killer feature for me would be the ability to import structured workouts. It's pretty tedious having to set up my full week of training every Sunday night. I'm using a plan from training peaks, so either a direct import from that platform or being able to import their exported workouts would be amazing.
A few other tiny things:
- Scroll wheel gesture to cycle through workout data screen
- Notification when you reach a waypoint in a route ( this would be an easy way to essentially get navigation alerts )
- option to clone a structured workout
- option to create custom interval ( warmup, cooldown etc) and save it. This would make manually creating a structure workout easier. For example, I use the current fast interval for several different HR zone targets, so I have to change it quite often.
- workout calendar where you can assign a specific program interval workout to a day. Right now I just rename them to some like "1- Mon - Tempo Run"
Glad you like the app. Thanks for the feedback.
There are effectively 7 zones in that anything below zone 1 is effectively zone 0 (and shown as grey) and anything above 100% counts as zone 6+ (and is shown in purple). It isn't quite as good as 7 explicit zones though, so I may improve that in the future if enough people ask for it.
I plan to add the ability to import scheduled workouts at some time after I have added power metrics throughout the app (which should be in the next version). The schedule editing improvements sound useful, so I may add them if they are requested enough, but I don't have any plans to go as far as a workout calendar and training plans. I will leave that to other systems and hopefully the ability to import from them will be enough.
The next version will allow you to configure what happens when you rotate the crown, including cycling through the screens. The version after that is planned to have navigation improvements, including waypoint alerts.
So many improvements and new features are coming! Money well spent on this app. No regrets at all.
iamronreed
macrumors newbie
erone
macrumors newbie
Hi there,
WOD is a great app but I want to discuss some issues that I encounter often.
I'm posting this discussion here so we can help more people if they have the same issues.
erone
WOD is a great app but I want to discuss some issues that I encounter often.
I'm posting this discussion here so we can help more people if they have the same issues.
- Big Trace (path). When I load a pre-drawn route, quite often I see part of it very large and this interferes with the orientation for directions, as well as hides the objects below it, because it takes up an unnaturally large area of the map. See the photo for an example. If you have a solution to the problem I will be happy to discuss it.
- Send map on watch. After uploading a route on the watch, I want to upload the map as well. When I hit “Send Map” usually there are 15 objects (for example) to transfer. Very often he transfer few of them and the others not. I try to select the map area manually, but very often this does not work either. Sometimes when I try more time on the roll (10 for example) It works.
- Elevation not shown on SportsTracker. I know this is not directly related to you but if we find a solution to this problem it would be great. When I export workout from WOD app in GPX file, and then import it to SportsTracker app. I can’t see the elevations. I see the elevation graphic, but the ascent and descent altitude number is 0. The same file in strava show elevations correct.
- Split 2 workouts in one. Sometimes during a workout the battery drops, the clock restarts or for other reasons I have to interrupt a long hike for example. And right after that I play it again. These are 2 separate ones in workouts. Is there any way to split them in one workout.
- Used equipment in each workout. I have seen other requests here on this one. Strava have this one. What kind of sneakers am I wearing, for example, and automatic calculation of the distance traveled with them
- Delete a route from the watch that has already been deleted from the phone. I deleted the route first from the phone that remained in my watch. How to delete it from the watch.
- Next update. What to expect with the new update and when?
erone
Attachments
- This is a rare but very long term bug that people occasionally report but which I have never seen myself. It is interesting that you get it often because it is so rare. My plan is to investigate when I rewrite the route functionality in the version after next.
- When the phone to watch communications are struggling then the best thing to try is to reboot both devices.
- If the GPX file exported by WOD contains elevations then there isn’t much the app can do. The files are just text, so it is easy to check if the elevations are present.
- You cannot merge workouts in the app but you can export them as GPX or TCX files and there are a few places online that allow you to merge such files. You could then upload the result to Strava. I may allow merging (and trimming) in the future.
- My opinion is that Apple should offer gear tracking, so that it is tracked across all workout apps. Some people use WOD when they want navigation and other apps (e.g. Stryd) when they want other functionality, so such tracking within one app would be pointless to them. Having said that gear tracking is so frequently requested that I will probably add it. In the meantime you could tag each workout by including the shoe name in the workout name. You can then use the icon in the top right of the Workouts tab to filter workouts by name and then group by something to show totals for each tag.
- The next version of the app will have the ability to remove a route from the watch app rather than just being able to do it from the iPhone app.
- The next version will probably be available in a couple of months, with a beta available in a few weeks. It will have lots of improvements with sensor support and topo maps being the headline features. Sorry that it is taking a while: this is mainly because I have extended sensor support from just Stryd to also include many other sensor types.
I have never heard of that. It could be that a sleeve or glove tapped accidentally.
iamronreed
macrumors newbie
I actually had the same issue last week. Short sleeve shirt on, and I kept trying to relock it , but after a minute it would unlock again.
Do you maybe have a case on? If not then try playing with the shortcuts to change 4 taps to do something else and configure a different gesture to lock the screen. This would determine if something is accidentally tapping the screen or if the unlock is happening for some other reason.
Psurunner
macrumors newbie
I use my watch for mostly running and occasionally walking.
Somehow the “Running” button, which was always at the top of the list of activities when I opened the app, disappeared and can only be located by scrolling way down to the “Other Activities“ button.
Is there a way for me to get the ”Running” button back to the top of the list when I open the app on my watch?
Somehow the “Running” button, which was always at the top of the list of activities when I opened the app, disappeared and can only be located by scrolling way down to the “Other Activities“ button.
Is there a way for me to get the ”Running” button back to the top of the list when I open the app on my watch?
It sounds like you have removed running from the main menu. To put it back scroll down to the bottom of the Other Activities screen on the watch app and tap Activity Menus. Then find Running on that screen and ensure the switch is enabled, which should mean that running is shown on the main menu instead of the "Other Activities" menu.
Alternatively go to the Setting tab in the iPhone app and tap Menus. Then set "Running" to be "Main Menu".