Product Improvement:- Feedback to Bosch.

[Nycturne]

what I meant is the watch seems to override any workout from the garmin.

Hmm, yeah, there should be some de-duplication going on, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple favors the watch over third party sources when it has overlapping time stamps on data. But data incoming from third party apps shouldn’t be overwritten, so whatever Garmin added should remain intact. Makes me wonder what Garmin is actually adding.

I was hoping garmin would add its info like heart rate and all do health but it will just show a workout but that info is not considered a workout in heath.

That is weird. If I still was using my Garmin, I’d explore this a bit more on my end. Garmin should be able to create a workout just fine and dump the data in there. The way you describe this makes me think bugs have been creeping in over time with updates. Question is if it’s Garmin’s bugs or Apple’s bugs.

so the garmin is much better at keeping track of info. like how long of rides how many miles how much I climbed the apple watch is fairly inaccurate for info speed and distance is off by a fair amount. I wish I could get the watts info into garmin so I could track it over time better. plus strava is handy to keep track of my rides easier then even garmin.

Yeah, that’s one definite gap. HealthKit doesn’t have the ability to record power output or cadence as data points. I’ve played with Strava a bit so far, and there are a couple things I like about it, but so far eBike Connect covers about 90% of the stuff I care about, and has more granularity than Strava. The fact that export to Strava is manual is a pain too.

If I could get more robust weekly/monthly tracking through eBike Connect like Strava offers, that’d close the gap nicely for my current uses.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Hmm, yeah, there should be some de-duplication going on, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Apple favors the watch over third party sources when it has overlapping time stamps on data. But data incoming from third party apps shouldn’t be overwritten, so whatever Garmin added should remain intact. Makes me wonder what Garmin is actually adding.



That is weird. If I still was using my Garmin, I’d explore this a bit more on my end. Garmin should be able to create a workout just fine and dump the data in there. The way you describe this makes me think bugs have been creeping in over time with updates. Question is if it’s Garmin’s bugs or Apple’s bugs.



Yeah, that’s one definite gap. HealthKit doesn’t have the ability to record power output or cadence as data points. I’ve played with Strava a bit so far, and there are a couple things I like about it, but so far eBike Connect covers about 90% of the stuff I care about, and has more granularity than Strava. The fact that export to Strava is manual is a pain too.

If I could get more robust weekly/monthly tracking through eBike Connect like Strava offers, that’d close the gap nicely for my current uses.

I I meant was the garmin app does not contribute heart rate or any info to the exercise info when I have the watch on. the watch records exercise time but no other info if you don't actually use it to record the ride. so as far as the health app it does not add any info. its really a strange setup and it is not just garmin. same if strava pumps the info to health. with some work it will show workouts but they don't contribute to anything. I get the same amount of exercise with or without garmin. I need to turn the watch off and see what i get. I would use the watch to record my rides but in winter it is too hard to access it and at least my older watch ate up the battery like crazy.

 

[Nycturne]

I I meant was the garmin app does not contribute heart rate or any info to the exercise info when I have the watch on. the watch records exercise time but no other info if you don't actually use it to record the ride. so as far as the health app it does not add any info. its really a strange setup and it is not just garmin. same if strava pumps the info to health. with some work it will show workouts but they don't contribute to anything. I get the same amount of exercise with or without garmin. I need to turn the watch off and see what i get. I would use the watch to record my rides but in winter it is too hard to access it and at least my older watch ate up the battery like crazy.

Huh, okay, looks like I was misinformed, or Apple changed something at some point. I had seen reports that at least the time would count for third party apps, but unless you are riding at 34mph, it clearly isn’t counting towards rings.

If workouts from Garmin/Strava are missing data though, that’ll be on them. I’ve seen a good chunk of these apps simply coalesce an entire workout/activity into a single sample/datapoint, which sucks.

At least in my case, I haven’t really liked using Apple’s activity rings. But since third party apps can also read data from HealthKit, there’s apps like HealthView that lets me customize what I’m tracking daily/weekly more to my taste. So I have been using HealthView instead, which also happens to do a better job pulling in these third-party workouts into my goals/etc.

The issue right now is that to use HealthKit/HealthView right now, I either need to record my workouts on an Apple Watch as well, or manually export all my rides from the portal and use a tool like RunGap to import the TCX contents into HealthKit. It’d be great to be able to just have eBike Connect do the dump for me.

EDIT: To be honest, I’m half tempted to write my own importer app to vacuum activities from the portal and add it to HealthKit myself. The downside is that it looks like the API is not officially documented, and while someone did get it working, that was 2 years ago. Might not have the free time required to double check the work, and write an iOS port.

 

[fooferdoggie]

Huh, okay, looks like I was misinformed, or Apple changed something at some point. I had seen reports that at least the time would count for third party apps, but unless you are riding at 34mph, it clearly isn’t counting towards rings.

If workouts from Garmin/Strava are missing data though, that’ll be on them. I’ve seen a good chunk of these apps simply coalesce an entire workout/activity into a single sample/datapoint, which sucks.

At least in my case, I haven’t really liked using Apple’s activity rings. But since third party apps can also read data from HealthKit, there’s apps like HealthView that lets me customize what I’m tracking daily/weekly more to my taste. So I have been using HealthView instead, which also happens to do a better job pulling in these third-party workouts into my goals/etc.

The issue right now is that to use HealthKit/HealthView right now, I either need to record my workouts on an Apple Watch as well, or manually export all my rides from the portal and use a tool like RunGap to import the TCX contents into HealthKit. It’d be great to be able to just have eBike Connect do the dump for me.

EDIT: To be honest, I’m half tempted to write my own importer app to vacuum activities from the portal and add it to HealthKit myself. The downside is that it looks like the API is not officially documented, and while someone did get it working, that was 2 years ago. Might not have the free time required to double check the work, and write an iOS port.

ither apps may add time if you are not wearing the watch well I will test that when I go home today. but I get the exercise time recorded the same with or without garmin syncing. I don't really go by the rings I close them every day unless I have to sit home because of snow. but I was hoping my heart rate and such would get recorded into heath from garmin. when I got my Kiox I was hoping the info would go somewhere to save me using the garmin but nope. I just installed healthview and hey heartrate after paying for it then I found its not for today not sure when it is for

 

[Nycturne]

heart rate and such would get recorded into heath from garmin.

If after bringing up the workout, there's heart rate information in there, then Garmin is providing some heart rate information to HealthKit. Otherwise, if it's not there, Garmin isn't providing it. Both Garmin's TCX file format and HealthKit support the same abilities when recording heart rate information.

I just installed healthview and hey heartrate after paying for it then I found its not for today not sure when it is for

It's more of a tracker unless you pay to unlock the "goals" view. I like to graph by the week, rather than looking at specific days, so I get a rather nice view that way. But it does rely on HealthKit having data in order to display it. And that's the problem. Too many different companies wanting to be a fitness platform, and half-hearted efforts at interoperability between them.

 

[webcurl]

Bosch, yet another example of being able to change some settings ourselves:

2021–2022 Riese & Müller Homage

R&M Designer Sebastian Delauney … New to me … How the down tube meets the head tube — the section where the front carrier bosses are located is part of the head tube and is at a different angle from the section carrying the batteries. Possible problems with location of Abus lock — especially...

electricbikereview.com

Would it be too hard for us to be able to change some of these settings via Kiox, SmartPhoneHub or Nyon?:
1) Sport or eMTB
2) Battery reserve for shifting/lights
For myself i would like to keep eMTB & a reserve for lights for when around town but when touring switch to sport and have 0% reserve for lights.
I realize that changing crank length, wheel circumference, IGH or not, etc. would interfere with legal speed restrictions.
But to be able to change the others would be nice.

 

[William - Bosch Team]

Bosch, yet another example of being able to change some settings ourselves:

2021–2022 Riese & Müller Homage

R&M Designer Sebastian Delauney … New to me … How the down tube meets the head tube — the section where the front carrier bosses are located is part of the head tube and is at a different angle from the section carrying the batteries. Possible problems with location of Abus lock — especially...

electricbikereview.com

Would it be too hard for us to be able to change some of these settings via Kiox, SmartPhoneHub or Nyon?:
1) Sport or eMTB
2) Battery reserve for shifting/lights
For myself i would like to keep eMTB & a reserve for lights for when around town but when touring switch to sport and have 0% reserve for lights.
I realize that changing crank length, wheel circumference, IGH or not, etc. would interfere with legal speed restrictions.
But to be able to change the others would be nice.

Great questions!
I think the eMTB to Sport selection by the rider would be very popular, and would make sense to have. The difficulty though is that eMTB mode is part of one software package, and Sport mode is part of another. While both software packages or "Container Files" are essentially the same outside of eMTB/Sport, it still requires installation of one Container File or the other to work. The closest thing I can think of to this would be using Nyon with its custom user-defined assistance modes... and then switching between standard riding modes and custom modes via the Nyon display. I still need to test this, but I believe you'd have eMTB with your standard modes, and then you could leave the adjustment at "Sport Mode" with the custom settings. Switching just takes a few seconds. This would also allow you to tweak Eco, Tour or whatever for more efficiency/range while touring.

As for the lights, I'm really not sure why since this is a matter of settings, rather than different software. If I had to commit to some well-informed speculation, I'd say it's due to the regulations requiring 2 hours of reserve lights, and the rider's ability to unintentionally disable the reserve. If you want to avoid the 6 - 36Wh reserve during touring, your best bet may be to "disable" lights, and use a setup with its own battery.

 

[Nycturne]

Oh, I did run across one more eBike Connect bug on the iPhone:

If for any reason the iPhone syncs down an incomplete activity, while the portal has the complete one, it is possible that the iPhone will refuse to sync the complete activity. Interestingly, it did eventually seem to get refreshed in the last couple days, so either something like a week later or because of the new month. Not sure which.

I couldn’t get it to manually force a refresh before then though, which is painful.

 

[ubt]

I would be so happy if the Kiox could broadcast sensor information via BLE so that it can be used with other cycling computers (Garmin, Wahoo, Hammerhead, etc). Is this something Bosch is considering?

 

[fooferdoggie]

I would be so happy if the Kiox could broadcast sensor information via BLE so that it can be used with other cycling computers (Garmin, Wahoo, Hammerhead, etc). Is this something Bosch is considering?

yes I would love to be able to send the watt info to my garmin. then I could record it in strava. right now if you don't loo cat it when done riding you not actually get that info.

 

[William - Bosch Team]

I would be so happy if the Kiox could broadcast sensor information via BLE so that it can be used with other cycling computers (Garmin, Wahoo, Hammerhead, etc). Is this something Bosch is considering?

Great idea! As far as I've heard, the focus has been on designing our on-board computers to accept/display incoming sensor info, rather than broadcast it. That being said, it would be cool if it had the option to do both. I have no idea what would be involved in making that happen since I'm not an engineer, but I will share your suggestion.

 

[webcurl]

Oh, I did run across one more eBike Connect bug on the iPhone:

It's a low priority as only Americans use the iPhone

Mobile Operating System Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of mobile operating systems worldwide based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

Mobile & Tablet Operating System Market Share United States Of America | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of mobile & tablet operating systems in United States Of America based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

Mobile & Tablet Operating System Market Share Europe | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of mobile & tablet operating systems in Europe based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

 

[Stefan Mikes]

It's a low priority as only Americans use the iPhone

A third of the market is not that bad

 

[Nycturne]

It's a low priority as only Americans use the iPhone

Mobile Operating System Market Share Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of mobile operating systems worldwide based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

Mobile & Tablet Operating System Market Share United States Of America | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of mobile & tablet operating systems in United States Of America based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

Mobile & Tablet Operating System Market Share Europe | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the market share of mobile & tablet operating systems in Europe based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

Based on my experience with the app, it’s likely the app is some flavor of React Native / Electron. So this behavior is likely something that appears on Android as well.

It’s still worth mentioning what platform the bug was found on though, as a developer on cross-platform mobile apps myself.

 

[Stephen - Bosch Team]

yes I would love to be able to send the watt info to my garmin. then I could record it in strava. right now if you don't loo cat it when done riding you not actually get that info.

I echo @William - Bosch Team, however, when recording rides from a Kiox and syncing data to the Bosch eBike Connect app---when one exports this ride to Strava, a power reading will be present. Here's a pic of a recent ride of mine.

 

[Alaskan]

@William - Bosch Team - Three of our four Bosch ebikes have derailleurs. Additionally, I seldom ride at night and for daytime visibility I carry small usb rechargeable lights that can be set to blinking mode which is far better in getting driver attention during daylight hours than an always on, steady light. As such I rarely use the integrated lights on my bike. I like it this way as I save my electrons for assisting and achieving greater range. Holding battery in reserve for shifting is something I don't need or use yet I pay the price in reduced range.

Right now all riders are having a portion of our battery capacity reserved for lights and shifting. This should be optional or at least a variable setting based on whether the drive train needs battery power to shift and if lights are switchable or always on or even present on the bike.

Right now having this setting, reserving battery capacity for all riders, effectively reduces the battery capacity for those of us who neither need nor want it, for no good reason. The current universal setting effectively shortens our useable battery range. This could make the difference between walking the final few miles or making it all the way home after a long ride.

 

[webcurl]

Right now all riders are having a portion of our battery capacity reserved for lights and shifting. This should be optional or at least a variable setting based on whether the drive train needs battery power to shift and if lights are switchable or always on or even present on the bike.

+1

 

[fooferdoggie]

I echo @William - Bosch Team, however, when recording rides from a Kiox and syncing data to the Bosch eBike Connect app---when one exports this ride to Strava, a power reading will be present. Here's a pic of a recent ride of mine.

how do you export it to strava?

 

[Stephen - Bosch Team]

how do you export it to strava?

Your login to your Bosch eBike Connect app also works at www.ebike-connect.com (simply, a web-based browser of the data). From there, you can upload individual rides to Strava as well as other exports.

cheers

 

[William - Bosch Team]

@William - Bosch Team - Three of our four Bosch ebikes have derailleurs. Additionally, I seldom ride at night and for daytime visibility I carry small usb rechargeable lights that can be set to blinking mode which is far better in getting driver attention during daylight hours than an always on, steady light. As such I rarely use the integrated lights on my bike. I like it this way as I save my electrons for assisting and achieving greater range. Holding battery in reserve for shifting is something I don't need or use yet I pay the price in reduced range.

Right now all riders are having a portion of our battery capacity reserved for lights and shifting. This should be optional or at least a variable setting based on whether the drive train needs battery power to shift and if lights are switchable or always on or even present on the bike.

Right now having this setting, reserving battery capacity for all riders, effectively reduces the battery capacity for those of us who neither need nor want it, for no good reason. The current universal setting effectively shortens our useable battery range. This could make the difference between walking the final few miles or making it all the way home after a long ride.

Same here! I have an obnoxiously bright, battery powered blinky light that I use during the day for maximum visibility. So much more visible than a steady light.

For non-eShift models, the reserve can be completely eliminated if your dealer selects "Disabled" for light status in the Diagnostic Tool software. You won't be able to use the integrated lights of course, but it may be a good option if you are only using the USB rechargeable set.

The options are 1. DISABLED, 2. SWITCHABLE ON/OFF, 3. PERMANENTLY ON. Options 2 and 3 will require the reserve, though you can have your dealer set it at 3 watts so the total reserve is only 6 Wh of capacity.

I know that the light reserve is required due to a regulation, but I'm not sure about the eShift reserve. If I had to guess, I'd say it may be a similar story, but I'm really not sure.