OutRun – Open-source, privacy oriented, outdoor fitness tracker(github.com)
github.com
OutRun – Open-source, privacy oriented, outdoor fitness tracker
https://github.com/timfraedrich/OutRun
71 comments
I use the Oura ring [1] for sleep tracking, it's by far the best I know of for sleep. The fact that it's a ring is convenient for comfort, and very precise as it adheres well to the finger even during night movements.
[1] https://ouraring.com/raf/34be98b1fd?utm_medium=iac
[1] https://ouraring.com/raf/34be98b1fd?utm_medium=iac
https://us.emfit.com/features/ seems to be more comprehensive
It’s interesting but needing a subscription for sleep and heart rate analysis is a bit too much for a $400 device.
At such a price (more than my Apple Watch) I expect all the analysis to be done on the phone.
At such a price (more than my Apple Watch) I expect all the analysis to be done on the phone.
Devil's advocate take: Apple can afford to give you "free" sleep tracking because it makes its money from other sources like crazy markups on hardware and 30% tax on Appstore purchases, plus other subscriptions people pay Apple for like iCloud, Apple Care, etc.
But small specialized shops like Oura can't fund constant R&D on hardware dev and sleep tracking algorithms, infrastructure, plus continuous SW patches & updates to existing customers and products, without subscriptions, because they lack Apple's other revenue streams and muscle to negociate steep discounts on HW and cloud infra, so the one-time sale fee of Oura's HW product is not enough to cover all those on-going dev costs and keep the company afloat.
Not an Oura customer or shareholder, just though I'd share some light on the costs and challenges of competing in this space. It just doesn't work without continuous subscription based revenue streams. Low margins on HW sales are not enough to fund such businesses.
But small specialized shops like Oura can't fund constant R&D on hardware dev and sleep tracking algorithms, infrastructure, plus continuous SW patches & updates to existing customers and products, without subscriptions, because they lack Apple's other revenue streams and muscle to negociate steep discounts on HW and cloud infra, so the one-time sale fee of Oura's HW product is not enough to cover all those on-going dev costs and keep the company afloat.
Not an Oura customer or shareholder, just though I'd share some light on the costs and challenges of competing in this space. It just doesn't work without continuous subscription based revenue streams. Low margins on HW sales are not enough to fund such businesses.
I’m not sure what you get with the Oura sub, but I would expect to get some form of ‘value’ in the form of services or analytics. Otherwise I’m just paying perpetual instalments for a device I thought I paid for.
Software app subs are one thing, but hardware is something else, IMO.
Software app subs are one thing, but hardware is something else, IMO.
There's also the Ultrahuman Ring Air which is around the same price but requires no subscription as far as I can tell.
https://ring.ultrahuman.com/
https://ring.ultrahuman.com/
Their marketing says
> research-grade sensors
Are these people really this shallow? What does that even mean
> research-grade sensors
Are these people really this shallow? What does that even mean
It means the sensors received the same grade as the research papers of the people who wrote the marketing copy.
haha good one
> Additionally, it would be great if devices like the Fitbit Charge could be used as a bluetooth heart rate monitor that can be used on apps that consume trackers on a (presumably) standard API (like TrainerRoad, Zwift, etc).
The new charge 6 does have this capability. [0]
[0](https://support.google.com/fitbit/answer/14236705)
The new charge 6 does have this capability. [0]
[0](https://support.google.com/fitbit/answer/14236705)
Fantastic! I am hoping this is an industry-wide trend
This has already been the case for primarily fitness oriented GPS watches / heart-rate trackers / etc for some time. Bluetooth, but even longer using ANT+, which is quite a bit more battery efficient.
Not open source but Sleep as Android is a great app that integrates with many different devices to track your sleep. They also have their own devices that can help improve tracking.
I understood sleep trackers are useless. Here your doctor can lend you some professional watches you can wear for 2 weeks that cost 700 eur, but those are not sold to the public. Unless things did change in the past 4 years.
And even then, they can not really measure your sleep. If you want to measure sleep, you will need to have wires on your scalp that measure what happens inside your brain.
And even then, they can not really measure your sleep. If you want to measure sleep, you will need to have wires on your scalp that measure what happens inside your brain.
Studies show that some device (like the Fitbit Charge 6, Apple watch) infer sleep stages with a greater than 80% agreement compared to an ECG sleep study.
--- For primarily younger white males
But still pretty good seeing as they infer this largely from heart rate and movement.
--- For primarily younger white males
But still pretty good seeing as they infer this largely from heart rate and movement.
Go do an actual sleep study some time. You'll be hooked up to a ton of sensors, and in the morning a group of doctors pour over the results, and they'll basically vote to decide on what the data means. "Oh this looks like REM".
So, to calibrate a sleep tracking device, you have a person wear the device, while also doing the sleep study. You do this a bunch of times. You train some ML models to try and make the outputs from the sensor data, after processing, the same as the study data.
After some degree of accuracy you declare success.
Now, does it work? In broad strokes, yes. You can (easily!!) see the effect of alcohol on sleep quality. If you have a crap night vs a good night, sure, a wrist based consumer device can figure that out.
Actual details? Eh. I wouldn't trust the devices for anything but directional data.
The more sensors devices get, the better than ML model can be trained.
Now it has been awhile since I last worked on this stuff (I actually just sat next to the people doing the work), so maybe there is some revolutionary new technique out there, but if not, it is still ML models trying to correlate things and match them up to what a bunch of fancier sensors said during studies.
So, to calibrate a sleep tracking device, you have a person wear the device, while also doing the sleep study. You do this a bunch of times. You train some ML models to try and make the outputs from the sensor data, after processing, the same as the study data.
After some degree of accuracy you declare success.
Now, does it work? In broad strokes, yes. You can (easily!!) see the effect of alcohol on sleep quality. If you have a crap night vs a good night, sure, a wrist based consumer device can figure that out.
Actual details? Eh. I wouldn't trust the devices for anything but directional data.
The more sensors devices get, the better than ML model can be trained.
Now it has been awhile since I last worked on this stuff (I actually just sat next to the people doing the work), so maybe there is some revolutionary new technique out there, but if not, it is still ML models trying to correlate things and match them up to what a bunch of fancier sensors said during studies.
Typical watch based sleep trackers and even my Withings sleep pad can’t really track my sleep properly, particularly REM sleep. I think I move too much. I bought a Dreem2 EEG device that measures brain waves and it could detect my REM sleep correctly, and determined that my sleep is actually fine, not great, but good enough.
You can definitely export data from Fitbit. I built an app to export intraday data to Apple Health using Fitbit’s REST API.
How could this concept be monetized? How much would you pay?
I'm in the EU and very excited that i possibly could compile and sideload apps like that to my phone soon.
You can do that now.
I’ve been using outrun for a year now and it’s really great! Always nice to see a good product featured on HN
What about an Android alternative?
Also Gadgetbridge on F-droid
Used to use this with Lenovo watch X. Worked ok, private, inexpensive. Avoid the Lenovo app.
What else works well with gadgetbridge?
Any ios equivalent?
What else works well with gadgetbridge?
Any ios equivalent?
Second this.
Wish they had a better layout for supported devices and you could sort by device type....but overall this seems like the best for privacy
I use open tracks
I second OpenTracks[0]! I use it for running, hiking, snowboarding, exploring potential terrain, etc. I can then export easily the data in QGIS3.
[0]: https://opentracksapp.com/
[0]: https://opentracksapp.com/
I use RunnerUp, it works great. Glad to see there are so many options in this space!
I’ve been wanting something like this but so long, and had it on my list of projects to potentially try making. All I need is basic tracking of my walks/runs to motivate myself, and have zero desire for all the other bloat most fitness apps have.
Given that there’s no mention of fitness trackers, I assume you need to record the activity on your phone?
That’s not ideal, but I’m definitely not the target market as I’m happy to buy one of the higher end Garmin models.
That’s not ideal, but I’m definitely not the target market as I’m happy to buy one of the higher end Garmin models.
I'm quite surprised Sega's lawyers didn't already come knocking over the name for this in the previous 4 years.
I'm not - it's not even a remotely related industry. That's not how this works.
It's a name for two (admittedly entirely unrelated use case) pieces of software. Just because something may or may not stand up in court doesn't automatically preclude lawyers from sending Cease & Desist letters or what ever. Just look at the nonsense from Take Two claiming that Remedy's new logo is too close to the Rock Star logo [1]. Any reasonable person wouldn't confuse the two, but still the lawyers are involved.
[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/take-two-reportedly-in-tradema...
[1] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/take-two-reportedly-in-tradema...
I started building something like this for myself (as a CLI tool, so way less ambitious). It’s a pretty fun project with a tight feedback loop.
Parsing GPS data is surprisingly simple.
It surprised me to learn that different apps will “smooth” out measures like elevation and distance — it’s actually quite a rich problem space with a few interesting solutions.
Parsing GPS data is surprisingly simple.
It surprised me to learn that different apps will “smooth” out measures like elevation and distance — it’s actually quite a rich problem space with a few interesting solutions.
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Seeing both "OutRun" and "tracker" in the title I thought this would be a thread about synthwave music (which would be very cool).
I see ways to sync new runs but no way to import all past runs from Apple Health
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"... tracker iOS app"
Project seems to be dead.
From #91 an asked an hour ago,
> I wouldn't necessarily say abandoned. I still work on it from time to time, but progress is very very slow and I cannot prioritise it over other things atm
https://github.com/timfraedrich/OutRun/issues/91
> I wouldn't necessarily say abandoned. I still work on it from time to time, but progress is very very slow and I cannot prioritise it over other things atm
https://github.com/timfraedrich/OutRun/issues/91
Which is fine but they didn’t merge any PRs either. I might have a go at a fork of this but I don’t take a phone with me running or track them these days.
I realise naming is hard but, as a big fan of Sega's iconic 1980s arcade racing game and its sequels - and at willing risk of sounding a little bit gatekeepy - I must admit that I don't particularly appreciate this project's appropriation of the name OutRun.
Also, it doesn't appear to be getting a lot of activity, which suggest it's perhaps not a going concern.
Also, it doesn't appear to be getting a lot of activity, which suggest it's perhaps not a going concern.
I immediately thought of the arcade game when I saw the name
I'd be happier if it played Magical Sound Shower or something while you were exercising.
I thought is was a very good use of the name, much better than on a car game.
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I was briefly excited that it was related to the classic video game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_Run
I knew I couldn't be the only one. Does this serve as a consolation prize, though? https://github.com/djyt/cannonball
Open-source, privacy oriented, outdoor fitness tracker... for Apple iOS.
Is there a point besides snark? If one chooses to export to Apple Health, HealthKit keeps everything on device or encrypted. Even Apple can’t access the data. I stay away from all 3rd party health trackers since most don’t seem to have any commit to privacy, so this looks like a nice addition to the ecosystem.
Not snark, but I have an Android phone so it's irrelevant to me.
Not snark, but title clarification.
(When I saw "Open-source, privacy oriented, outdoor fitness tracker", I thought it would be available for an open source platform, so I clicked. It being for a closed, all-your-data-are-belong-to-us platform wasn't expected. Maybe the comment saved some clicks.)
(When I saw "Open-source, privacy oriented, outdoor fitness tracker", I thought it would be available for an open source platform, so I clicked. It being for a closed, all-your-data-are-belong-to-us platform wasn't expected. Maybe the comment saved some clicks.)
I would imagine frustration more than snark. The "... for Apple" clarifications would have saved me clicking on this thread in anticipation of something I could use.
> Even Apple can’t access the data.
They own your device 100%. Of course they can access your data...
They own your device 100%. Of course they can access your data...
Technically yes, but their policy and business value proposition to the end user says they don’t. it would wipe hundreds of billions of dollars of their worth overnight if it were ever shown Apple was secretly, willfully selling individual’s personal health information. Follow the money.
Since they own the device and OS, they don't need to access your data. They have low-level access to all the sensors/gps.
Open source related application, for open source desktops like Linux (unfortunately not for open source Android/GrapheneOS currently), there's Alex Harsányi's ActivityLog2 (which is an impressive application in Racket):
https://github.com/alex-hhh/ActivityLog2/wiki/Just-The-Scree...
Incidentally, I'd love to have an open source, privacy-respecting nutrition tracker that works on open source desktops. (I find my laptop much, much faster than phone for recording this data, at least in the ad hoc way I'm doing it, including things like weights of every ingredient that goes into a dish.)
https://github.com/alex-hhh/ActivityLog2/wiki/Just-The-Scree...
Incidentally, I'd love to have an open source, privacy-respecting nutrition tracker that works on open source desktops. (I find my laptop much, much faster than phone for recording this data, at least in the ad hoc way I'm doing it, including things like weights of every ingredient that goes into a dish.)
> Open source related application, for open source desktops like Linux (unfortunately not for open source Android/GrapheneOS currently), there's Alex Harsányi's ActivityLog2 (which is an impressive application in Racket):
>
> https://github.com/alex-hhh/ActivityLog2/wiki/Just-The-Scree...
In that realm, there is also GoldenCheetah:
- https://www.goldencheetah.org/ - https://github.com/GoldenCheetah/GoldenCheetah
In that realm, there is also GoldenCheetah:
- https://www.goldencheetah.org/ - https://github.com/GoldenCheetah/GoldenCheetah
The hard part about a nutrition tracker is the data.
The most complete nutrient data for basic foods seems to be http://www.ncc.umn.edu/food-and-nutrient-database/ which you need to pay for, so I wonder how an open source implementation could work.
I use Cronometer daily which shows you the datasource for each food you add, and if it's not NCCDB (the one at the link above) then chances are it's not going to have much info. Yet that extra info is exactly why I'm using a nutrient tracker rather than just a calorie tracker.
The most complete nutrient data for basic foods seems to be http://www.ncc.umn.edu/food-and-nutrient-database/ which you need to pay for, so I wonder how an open source implementation could work.
I use Cronometer daily which shows you the datasource for each food you add, and if it's not NCCDB (the one at the link above) then chances are it's not going to have much info. Yet that extra info is exactly why I'm using a nutrient tracker rather than just a calorie tracker.
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ionwake(1)
I wonder how Patrick thinks new tech like blockchain or AI might change the way we handle money. Will it make things easier, or will it bring new challenges?
There are so many devices, each have their own algorithm for sleep tracking and the device I pick largely depends on the accuracy of the device's sleep tracking.
However there are new apps, like Nukkuaa, an (EU only) sleep analysis app that uses any heart-rate tracker (like a bluetooth fitness chest strap) and infers sleep quality from the data.
A generic app expands what devices are available to me. Right now I use CGM tape and stick a Fitbit Charge 3 on my tricep - but I dislike the Fitbit app and if I change to another brand I cannot export my logs.
A third party app has the potential to train against more data than any individual single brand could and, with appropriate tagging, could possible offer better accuracy. Open source would be icing on the cake.
Additionally, it would be great if devices like the Fitbit Charge could be used as a bluetooth heart rate monitor that can be used on apps that consume trackers on a (presumably) standard API (like TrainerRoad, Zwift, etc).
- https://www.nukkuaa.com/en