Fitness Apps and Gear

S

SeattleSenior

New Member
Hello, fairly new to the forum but have been getting great help in e-bike selection. Looks like I’ll be going with a Turbo Tero 5.0 and I had some questions regarding fitness apps and gear.

I’ve been riding a Trek and using the Cobi app on my iPhone to track rides and upload to Strava. I use a heart rate zones model and use my Apple Watch as my HRM. I watch HR, boost level, altitude and cadence as I cycle so I can modulate cadence, gears and boost to get the HR I want. In Strava I can see distance, time in zones, cadence and HR graphs over time among others as well as a map of my route time synced to heart rate, etc.

With the Specialized app and hardware on the Tero, will I be able to do basically the same or more? Mostly wondering about integrating with my Apple Watch HRM. Are there other apps or gear recommendations? I’m very excited about the additional features the Specialized systems offer!

Thanks!
 
I don't have direct experience with that, and haven't yet bought the bike I'm considering, so take with a grain of salt...

Specialized says the Mastermind TCD (the display) will connect to a Bluetooth HRM, so you should be fine if that's what the app imitates. See https://support.specialized.com/tur...rMindTCD(MasterMindTurboConnectDisplay-wired)

If your existing use of the HRM app and Cobi app don't interfere, then I'd think you should be okay with the Specialized Mission Control app used to record rides and sync to Strava. Worst case you pick up a separate optical HRM.

FYI - check out "Heart Rate Control" feature in Mission Control - set a target HR and motor power will adjust to maintain the target HR.

Record your rides

support.specialized.com support.specialized.com
 
@SeattleSenior: Not sure about Apple Watch but I use a Polar OH-1 wrist HR monitor and it perfectly integrates with my older Vado. The Mastermind is even more advanced!

I don't use the "HR target" feature of the Mission Control Smart Control. I just set my preferred assistance/max motor power and then check my HR as I ride.
 
mission control doesn't connect to an apple watch for heart rate. i believe blevo does, but i do not believe it'll work with your tero.

you have several choices:

1) get a BLE heart rate sensor (wrist or chest strap) in addition to or instead of your apple watch and connect it to mission control
2a) use a different app than mission control, which means you'll get heart rate but lose the bike power readings, cadence, etc. speed and distance and mapping will work by GPS
2b) use a different app than mission control, but bridge the tero's ANT+ sensor output to your phone based cycling app's input; you'll get the rider power readings, cadence, etc, but not the battery and assist level readings.
2c) use mission control to control the bike's settings, log the ride with rider power, cadence, etc, but use another app at the same time to record the ride *with* heart rate data from the watch, and just combine the tracks of the output files later. this is kind of a pain, but works fine.
3) get a cycling computer, most all of which will support the ANT+ sensor output from the bike, including the "ebike field" which should give you battery info and so on. don't use mission control except to change settings. i gather this requires a companion app on the phone to pass along the watch heart rate data.


none are quite perfect. i've done 1, 2a, and 2b, 2c, and settled on 2b or 1 depending on the type of ride. i love my apple watches but don't find the heart rate data very accurate for cycling. for option 2b i use the app "cadence" which has all the features of a top of the line bike computer, is visually similar to (but way more customizable) mission control, and the north pole engineering "cable" ANT+ to BLE bridge. works well.
 
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mschwett said:
mission control doesn't connect to an apple watch for heart rate. i believe blevo does, but i do not believe it'll work with your tero.
Click to expand...

Apple Watch does not broadcast HR to anything but an iPhone by itself. All apps I’ve looked at require also running a companion app on the phone which then provides HR data via Bluetooth.

Much as I really like my Apple Watch, I wear my old Garmin FR235 for workout rides, as it has a broadcast HR over ANT+ function that my Edge 830 can receive.

SeattleSenior said:
I’m leaning towards 1 - getting an additional HRM.
Click to expand...
Likely the simplest option. You can then record rides on the watch Workout app and have a parallel recording if you like.
 
gpburdell said:
Apple Watch does not broadcast HR to anything but an iPhone by itself. All apps I’ve looked at require also running a companion app on the phone which then provides HR data via Bluetooth.
Click to expand...

apps on the iPhone can of course use the apple watch heart rate data; rideWithGPS, cadence, strava, etc, it’s just that mission control doesn’t. or did you mean that all cycling computers you’ve looked at require a companion app? that would make sense.
 
mschwett said:
apps on the iPhone can of course use the apple watch heart rate data; rideWithGPS, cadence, strava, etc, it’s just that mission control doesn’t. or did you mean that all cycling computers you’ve looked at require a companion app? that would make sense.
Click to expand...

I've primarily looked at options for broadcasting HR to cycling computers. In those instances it seemed you need run a watch app as well as a companion app on the phone which gets the HR data from the watch and conveys it to the bluetooth connected device.

I don't doubt some apps can be written to leverage the data from an Apple watch, though I'd anticipate they also need some sort of companion app on the Apple Watch to cause it to provide continuous HR readings. Really haven't looked into those though as I've been using Garmin Connect for years and haven't had much reason to leverage alternate platforms.
 
mschwett said:
apps on the iPhone can of course use the apple watch heart rate data; rideWithGPS, cadence, strava, etc, it’s just that mission control doesn’t. or did you mean that all cycling computers you’ve looked at require a companion app? that would make sense.
Click to expand...
I had the same questions over the past year or so. I usually use the Strava app running from my Apple Watch on my Vado SL. That way my heart rate is monitored during the ride while all the other data is captured from the bike or phone. Works well.

After a couple of crashes, I decided I didn’t want my thousand dollar phone exposed on my handlebars so I bought the Specialized TCD (it hadn’t come with the bike). I use it during the rides for speed, cadence, distance and battery level monitoring. I keep the phone in a pocket. I mostly ride rail trails so don’t need maps too often.
 
With my previous bike (Trek) I used the COBI.Bike app, which did receive data from my Apple Watch. The connection was fine, but the watch often failed to read my heart rate (definitely not app-related, as it happens when I use the watch stand-alone on walks as well). I can be riding or walking along at 110 BPM or whatever, and 5 minutes later I’ll notice it’s still sitting on the same rate, when my HR had obviously slowed down or sped up.

For use on my Creo, I bought a Wahoo Tickr Fit HR monitor ($80) that is worn on the forearm. I’ve only put about 30 miles on my bike so far (it’s been raining a LOT, and I caught a darn cold), but it’s worked fine thus far. I’m using it with a Wahoo Roam computer, but I believe it will work with BLEvo or Mission Control as well, though I haven’t tried to connect with them yet.
 
Just as a data point - it seems different people see different results with wrist-worn HRMs. My experience with Apple Watch reading my HR during rides, walks, and runs has been great. My series 6 has been super reliable, as were my prior models. As reliable as the Garmin FR235 I've had for years. I used chest straps in the years before that and they were often a PITA during the colder drier winter months even using electrode gel. Although optical is technically not going to be as accurate as a chest strap, I never saw any significant difference the various times I wore both at the same time to see.
 
fooferdoggie said:
Using the Apple watch really eats up the battery. a chest HRM is a much better choice overall.
Click to expand...
I agree it eats the watch’s battery, and your iPhone too for that matter. But with fully charged devices chances are they’ll last at least as long as your bikes battery. (If I’m going on a ride longer than two hours I bring a power bank. I haven’t needed it to charge my watch but the iPhone has needed it.)

YMMV of course.
 
Plus a chest HRM is actually accurate. A forearm version is REAL close. Wrist ones (Garmin, FitBit, Apple) not so, basically at all - though of those the Apple tends to be the better choice. For me - my FitBit is pretty accurate for steps/distance, sucks on everything else. My Polars (arm and chest) seem to be dead on for heart rates. Here is a pretty good review of some of the better chest and forearm models. Or if you don't want to mess with straps, one can just do the simple breathing test to determine what zone you're in. I do this a lot actually.

 
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