Slashdot Mirror
Open Access To Exercise Data?
identity0 writes "A recent Slashdot discussion about heart-rate monitors in schools got me thinking about getting one for my own exercise. It turns out that the available models have a wide range of features: calorie rate, pedometers, GPS, PC connectivity, etc. Being a geek, I want one that will let me look at my exercise data, and I'm curious what experiences Slashdotters have had with them. Some download data to a proprietary application — are open source alternatives available or is the data format easily readable? Others upload data to an online app — can the data be pulled off the site or is it forever trapped on their servers? While I'm not an open source zealot or a paranoid about my data being shared, I would like to know that I can access my data in the future. Whatever method you guys use to monitor your exercise, I'd love to hear about it."
Concept2 rowers will dump their full workout log to CSV, and also allow realtime monitoring via USB + a supplied SDK.
I've got my rower hooked up to a WinAmp plugin I wrote which pipes heartrate, rowing speed and stroke rate into the visualisation system. This gets projected onto a 2m wide screen, so the harder I work, the more intense and psychedelic the visuals get.
My next project will be to connect the playback speed of VLC to the rower so I have to keep rowing at my target rate to keep watching House.
My wife uses a Polar heart rate monitor (http://www.polarusa.com, I forget which model). All of the data is stored in CSV files for easy import into spreadsheets and databases.
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