Why can't my tracking apps all get along?
Strava, Oura, Peloton, and a whole mess of fitness data
Life is supposed to be easy with so many apps and devices to track our fitness progress.
We should be able to slip on our smart watch or smart ring or just run with the phones in our pocket with amazing GPS capabilities.
Instead, I've recently been struggling to make sense of how apps like Strava, Oura, and Peloton all connect with each other. Let's just say that things have been a bit messy.
What am I looking to accomplish? I just want to be able to track my workouts (which are mostly runs) across all three of these platforms. Seems easy enough right?
And all three of these apps offer integration for the other two. I'm not doing any crazy third party workarounds here. I'm just running while wearing an Oura Ring, a Pixel Watch 2, and bringing my Pixel phone in my pocket.
When I initiate a run using the Strava app on my phone, the run is tracked fairly well. I get all the GPS capabilities of the phone and can easily keep track of my pace and mileage. That's a good amount of info.
But I also love to do Peloton Outdoor running workouts. And tracking these has been tricky. The Peloton app itself has gotten pretty robust over the years. It's more than just an app that plays audio or video workouts. You can track distance and pace like you would through Strava, and it connects to my Pixel Watch to offer heart rate data and a host of other metrics. In short, it's pretty impressive.
However, I am wearing an Oura Ring on my finger as well. And I'd argue that the ring offers me the most accurate heart rate data available. The Oura app even offers its own workout tracking feature that can use GPS and take all of your vitals while you're out on your run. Sounds great right? Well, it's kinda good but not the ideal place to be tracking all of your workout goals and progress. Obviously, it lacks all of the things that make Strava so great. There is no social component. There is no training calendar or specific route data. In short, it's a half-baked feature tossed into a very fine app.
If you're following me so far, you can see how confusing this all is. How can these apps all talk to each other? Well, Oura does a pretty decent job of integrating all of your Strava workouts. You can just initiate a run from your watch or the Strava app on your phone. When the workout is over, it will automatically show up as a workout in the Oura app. And all that data that Strava captured will filter into your daily activity goals, etc.
The biggest fly in the ointment here may be Peloton. Don't get me wrong, I love all of the Peloton workouts. I mostly do all of the outdoor running content but will jump on the stationary bike or do yoga classes from time to time. I love the seamless integration between the Peloton bike and my WearOS-powered Pixel watch. Tracking your heart rate while on the bike itself is pretty useful. But things get messy when the watch also wants to connect to the Peloton app to track my runs. Basically, I think I need to convince my Pixel Watch and Peloton to only talk to each other when I'm running, not cycling. Hmm, easier sad than done.
So what is the result of all this physical activity cross-contamination? I'm seeing runs pop up in Strava that were initiated by me in the app. Great, that's what I want! But then I'm also seeing two other runs that took place during that same window of time that are being ported over from the Peloton app. That's not what I want.
The detailed stats that are being tracked by the Strava App for WearOS watches are excellent. But they're being superseded on my wrist by the Peloton App instead which offers slightly different and less granular metrics. So I've started a run in Strava, then loaded up a Peloton running class while I'm outside and the Peloton tracking will cause the Strava tracking to pause in its tracks.
Whew! I'm sure your head is spinning as much as mine is right now. It's not the utopian fitness tracking world we were promised is it? I feel like I was better off back in the day with my trusty Garmin Forerunner 305 and an old-school heart rate monitor strapped uncomfortably to my chest. But I'll keep tinkering. I'll keep iterating. I think I'll need to just disable the connection between Peloton and Strava for now. Or is it an issue between Peloton and my WearOS watch? Like most tech issues, it's good to restart everything and revert back to the most basic functionality I suppose.
Anyone else feeling at odds with their fitness trackers these days? Any advice?
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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