The Run/Gym Pack for iPhone by Wahoo Fitness has come to my rescue for integrating everything I want in my geeky running workout. I have reviewed numerous other fitness apps and each of them held a slice of a puzzle of gadgetry that I have come to know and love. Wahoo Fitness put everything together for me!
The company has found a niche in coming up with iOS-device-compatible fitness technologies, including Bluetooth-enabled cadence and pace sensors, ANT+ transmitters and receivers, and bike computers.
Wahoo’s free fitness app [1] brings together numerous statistics, GPS-mapping and now the heart rate monitor into a one-stop shop for all the data you could ever dream of! I’ve reviewed many of these parts separately, from the Nike+ Running [2] and iMapMyFitness [3] apps, to the Sportiiiis heart rate monitor , to the Bluetooth headphones that give you plenty of freedom from cables. Everything together has been heavenly!
I tested the Wahoo Fitness Pack on my iPhone 4S [4] . It will also work with other generations of iPhones, iPod Touches and even the iPad. The ANT+ key will not be compatible with the new iPhone 5, but might work with a charger adapter.
NOTE: Do you have an iPhone 5? Check out their Bluetooth-enabled heart rate strap [5] , which has been deemed iPhone 5-compatible.
Let’s take a tour, shall we?
What Comes in the Box
- Wahoo “Fisica Keyâ€, the ANT+ receiver [6] that plugs into the iOS device’s charging port
- Wahoo Fitness soft heart rate belt and sensor
- Instruction leaflet
Setup
There are batteries in the heart rate monitor already, and the key is powered by the iOS device, so everything arrives ready to go. But first, download the free Wahoo Fitness App [7] from the iTunes store. Once you install this, you’re set to plug in your Wahoo key and put on the soft heart rate belt/sensor.
Connecting your Wahoo key to the app is incredibly easy: when you start the app, you’ll be able to choose what kind of workout you’re doing. I selected “Runningâ€. Then under the “Quick Settingsâ€, I selected the “Running Settingsâ€. You can customize the properties of the running workout, and also select the “Add New†option under “Sensors Usedâ€. Select “Heart Rate†and wait for the app to recognize the Wahoo sensor. When it recognizes the heart rate sensor it will immediately display the current reading, as shown in the screen capture above.
From the same “Running Settings†menu you can customize what statistics you want displayed during your workout. There’s an incredible variety of options here: GPS pace and speed data, current/average heart rate data, and map data.
This is also where you can set up “Triggers†that will notify you when you hit customized break points in the workout, such as high heart rates, slow speeds or certain distances.
When you go back to the homepage, it’s as simple as hitting the giant green button at the bottom of the home screen to start your workout.
Share Your Workout with Other Apps
Another thing that I love about the Wahoo Fitness app is how it has integrated with the most popular fitness social networks, to include the ever-resistant-to-sharing Nike+ network.
Sharing the workouts is very easy. After you finish, simply select the upper right hand button on the workout summary page and you can quickly upload the data to the apps that you’ve already authenticated.
I would like to share the one and only thing that I didn’t like about this app: Wahoo keeps the entire time of the workout, to include any paused times. One of the review workouts I did included a one-hour stop while I chatted with a friend who was also running in the neighborhood. I hit “Pause†on the app, and the Wahoo workout summary seemed to appropriately calculate the average pace based on the active part of the workout, but not the paused part.
However, uploading it to Nike+ transmitted the full time that the app was recording a workout, so the 4 mile run I took in 37 minutes came across as a 1:46 hour run on Nike+. Compare the two data points here:
To conclude, I’m very impressed with the simplicity of this system and have been thrilled to finally have an impressively geeky workout data-collection empire!
The Wahoo Fitness ANT+ Run/Gym Pack for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad is available through Wahoo Fitness for $99.99 [8] or through Amazon at $99.95 [9] . If you have a soft-strap heart rate monitor already from another product , you can buy the Wahoo ANT+ key only for an MSRP of $59.99 [10] .
A complimentary sample of this product was provided for review purposes.
Links
- ^ Wahoo’s free fitness app (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Nike+ Running (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ iMapMyFitness (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ I tested the Wahoo Fitness Pack on my iPhone 4S (www.wahoofitness.com)
- ^ Check out their Bluetooth-enabled heart rate strap (www.wahoofitness.com)
- ^ ANT+ receiver (en.wikipedia.org)
- ^ Wahoo Fitness App (itunes.apple.com)
- ^ Wahoo Fitness for $99.99 (www.wahoofitness.com)
- ^ Amazon at $99.95 (www.amazon.com)
- ^ Wahoo ANT+ key only for an MSRP of $59.99 (www.amazon.com)
No comments:
Post a Comment