ergdata and apple watch

[pm5user]

hi,

i use ergdata together with a polar h10 chest strap (for hr accuracy) to log my trainings.

recently i bought an apple watch. i enabled syncing from ergdata to apple health.

when i start rowing, my watch detects training and creates a additional rowing workout training. hence i have duplicate training logs of every workout in the eorkout app, one from ergdata and one from the workout app and i have to delete one after every training, which is annoying.

how do other apple watch users log their trainings?

[rasstar]

You can disable ergdata synching with apple health.

[pm5user]

Yes, but isn't it better to use the data from the erg directly (ergdata syncing) than using the data logged by the watch? I would rather disable training detection (which I think is not possible). E.g. die KCal is more accurate from the erg I guess.

How do other users do that?

[Tsnor]

FWIW

my workouts go from PM5 w/polar H10 --> ergdata --> C2 log --> fitbit

I also tell my fitbit I am working out, so fitbit gets two overlapping records, one generated from my fitbit and one from C2.

Fitbit merges the two records so I get an "indoor rowing" record with the average Cals from C2 log, minutes from C2 log and heartrate data from the fitbit. (wish they also got the HR data from C2, fitbit does not work for rowing, HR is garbage).

Suggest you look into asking Apple to have their back end processing to merge the two records you are generating. Or they might be doing it already. It took me a while to see that Fitbit was not double counting cals from the C2 log with fitbit guessed cal for the time I was rowing.

[pm5user]

just checked it. unfortunately apple does not merge the trainings, they are doubled.

so i have to decide between ergdata apple health sync vs apple training.

[pm5user]

just found the following article https://www.cultofmac.com/690011/how-to ... -workouts/. IT seems apple can handle duplicate workouts, i.e. calories and rings are only counted once, but the number of trainings ist still incl doubles: My training app reports 4 workouts if I have done 2 workouts with activated ergdata sync and apple training logging. I guess I will keep both activated.

I would be interested, how other apple watch users handle this, but it seems not many concept2 users have an apple watch...

[Lapsusone]

I guess so far the correct approach for people who are using an Apple Watch is to have those double workouts in the Health App since they are not truly counted as double for calories etc., and the Workout AW app is lacking some key data (pace, distance...)

I've tried many scenarios to have the best outcome, including Selfloops Spark, BlueHeart monitor app, but none of them were really convincing.

Selfloops Spark has a weird way of counting calories (I trust more Apple Workouts or ErgData for this), and failed at recording a 500:1r interval workout accurately. It gave me 33 calories for a 25 minutes session and a total distance of 635m. Not reliable.

BlueHeart monitor makes the Apple Watch act as a bluetooth heart monitor, so you can have heart rate data with your logbook data and it is showing live on the PM5 screen as with any other heart-rate monitor. Again here this is nice because you get the heart rate data directly in your logbook without having something extra (IMO the AW monitor is accurate enough compared to chest ones). The app also syncs your workout so it fills your activity rings, bue here again you have to trust the app with how calories are counted, you have to watch a 30s ad before every workout unless you go premium, and you still have to launch 2 workouts (one with ergData and one with the app) to get the distance and pace information. Not ideal.

To me the ultimate solution would be for the ergData app to support workouts using the Apple Watch, so that it would fill the logbook with heart-rate data, show heart-rate on PM5 screen, sync to Health app with full picture (pace, distance etc), and fill the activity rings.

Do we know if C2 is working on those kind of features? I myself am in tech and I would gladly help with that.

[Ed W]

To me the ultimate solution would be for the ergData app to support workouts using the Apple Watch, so that it would fill the logbook with heart-rate data, show heart-rate on PM5 screen, sync to Health app with full picture (pace, distance etc), and fill the activity rings.

Do we know if C2 is working on those kind of features? I myself am in tech and I would gladly help with that.

I e-mail C2 support with this request from time to time. They don’t seem to have any interest in implementing Apple Watch support, unfortunately. Other apps like Zwift, Liverowing and Peloton have a companion watch app strictly for heart rate data, so I don’t know why they can’t do it for Ergdata.

[rfcii]

i use ergdata together with a polar h10 chest strap (for hr accuracy) to log my trainings.

recently i bought an apple watch. i enabled syncing from ergdata to apple health.

how do other apple watch users log their trainings?

I use ErgData on phone, and disabled the ability to write to Health. I wear a Garmin HR monitor paired with the C2. This is logged to the Concept2 log, which I consider as living in its own universe of tracking my rowing only, unrelated to Apple Health.

While I row, I start a generic "open goal" row in the Workout app on the watch, and let it use the watch's HR (which is very accurate to the Garmin!) to do the rings/time/calorie/move stuff. I consider this all a little fluffy but do like to see the rings logged each day.

When I do an Apple Fitness Plus rowing workout, I start a "just row" on the Concept2, and then enjoy the in-depth heartrate/stroke/etc details that itcaptures.

It is all a tiny bit cumbersome, and honestly expensive if you look at it that way, but does work pretty well!

[AngryAnt]

Note that this used to work.

All my ErgData sessions up to and including July 29th 2020 have (in the Fitness app) Heart Rate and Heart Rate Recovery records from the Apple Watch. July 30th onward do not.

My assumption has been that the C2 team did not follow along with required API updates from the fruit company around that time and so were left in the dust.

[celsius69]

Hi,

I'm also new to concept 2 PM5 and was looking for a solution to use my Apple Watch as heart rate monitor together with my iPhone/iPad connected with ErgData.
For me the only useful solution was to connect the iPhone with Ergdata via Bluetooth to PM5 and then use heartbeatz to connect the Apple Watch via ANT+ protocol also to PM5.
PM5 is accepting only one BT connection. With heartbeatz you translate the HR from Apple Watch to ANT+and can connect to any fitness device using ANT+.
The only downside is that heartbeatz must be purchased from North Pole Engineering from USA.
But the solution is very stable and easy to use.
Hope that helps.

[Tsnor]

Note that this used to work.

All my ErgData sessions up to and including July 29th 2020 have (in the Fitness app) Heart Rate and Heart Rate Recovery records from the Apple Watch. July 30th onward do not.

My assumption has been that the C2 team did not follow along with required API updates from the fruit company around that time and so were left in the dust.

Suggest you email Concept2 and ask them. They are very friendly. My guess would be that Concept2 sends the same data they always have and that Apple is not combining the data in the same way.

But if your assumption is correct then the C2 team might not know of the API change and your note could trigger an update.

Email address is info@concept2.com

[DoctorOfRowing]

I bought the App "Echo BLE Heart Rate from Watch" in the AppStore. It transfers the Hearbeat measured from the watch into a signal like from a HeartBelt. So the Value from the watch will be also shown on your C2 Rower - also in the file after your workout. Works almost perfect. There is sometimes a bit delay, I guess it calculates an average Heartbeat Value over some seconds.

[chicagoal]

Hey DoR:

This is intriguing but does it interfere with connecting Ergdata to the PM5? I'm seeing above ^ that the PM5 can only handle one BT connection at a time so it seems like that could be an issue.

Thanks!

I bought the App "Echo BLE Heart Rate from Watch" in the AppStore. It transfers the Hearbeat measured from the watch into a signal like from a HeartBelt. So the Value from the watch will be also shown on your C2 Rower - also in the file after your workout. Works almost perfect. There is sometimes a bit delay, I guess it calculates an average Heartbeat Value over some seconds.

[DoctorOfRowing]

For me it works. I connect first the Heart-Rate, and after the ERG App. The Erg App runs on my IPAD, the Heart Rate App on the Phone