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Strava Bluetooth Sensors no longer supported

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Strava Bluetooth Sensors no longer supported

Old 10-14-19, 04:47 PM
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kshepherd
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Strava Bluetooth Sensors no longer supported

I should have done more research when I bought my cadence sensor. It said it supports Strava on the product description, but I just read Strava's blog post announcing that they removed the ability to pair directly with Bluetooth and ANT+ sensors last month. So that's a bummer.

So now I'm researching alternatives. I had just been taking my Apple Watch to track my rides with Strava (without taking my phone since my watch has cell service). I see Cyclemeter is popular and has a watch app, but their watch app requires taking your phone too. Does anyone know of another app (Apple Watch) that supports tracking rides without taking your phone?

Ideally something that would also sync with Strava and even better if it also can connect to external sensors like the BT cadence meters.

Thank you!
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Old 10-15-19, 08:34 AM
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Sad that they don't support that compatibility. I have a smart watch which I tried to sync with Strava when I got it, but it just wouldn't find it. No matter, I can still use the watch's app to track heart rate on rides.
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Old 10-15-19, 08:56 AM
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Yeah, I'd already switched long ago to recording rides using Wahoo Fitness. Works with every sensor I've tried so far. Then I upload the logs to Strava. Wahoo Fitness is lower resource, lower power drain and more reliable than Strava too. I and most of my friends have experienced many Strava glitches and lost logs. I've had only one such glitch with Wahoo Fitness in four years, and that was during a recent app update that was quickly fixed.

Cyclemeter was also more reliable than Strava, but I tried only the iPhone version a couple years ago. My only gripe was that my data was inaccessible after I declined to renew the annual subscription. That put me off enough that I didn't renew. It does offer some nifty customizable features including voice prompts. Worth considering.

And if you're in the market for a bike computer too, Bryton's top end models are less expensive than Garmin or Wahoo, and their lower end sub-$100 models have more features than CatEye and similar bike computers, including Bluetooth and ANT+ compatibility, built in GPS, etc.

For the past few months I've been riding with no computers at all on the bikes, mostly because I've been adjusting the fit so often. I've only been using my phone in a jersey pocket to log rides. But I'm pretty well set on bike fit on both road bikes, so I'm probably gonna buy one of the sub-$100 Brytons with Bluetooth and ANT+ to go with my various sensors -- heart, cadence, speed, etc.
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Old 10-15-19, 01:26 PM
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You need a device not an app if you don't want to take your phone with you. Get a cycle computer that pairs with your sensors.
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Old 10-15-19, 02:15 PM
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Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I don’t mind taking my cell phone with me, but I was hoping to still leverage heart rate and seeing the display information on my watch. Wahoo Fitness looks nice too, but I don’t think it has a Watch app unfortunately. I think Cyclemeter is going to be my best best for now until I decide to give up on apps and get a cycle computer.
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Old 10-15-19, 02:27 PM
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Karoo Hammerhead can sync to strava without a phone and has bluetooth/ant+.
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Old 10-15-19, 06:07 PM
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Great, I'll add that to my list to check out. Thanks!
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Old 10-15-19, 08:37 PM
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If you have LTE in your watch, will apps (that will run on it) know there's no phone involved? Have you tried it?

I use a Garmin watch, so I can't recommend anything to help you, but I can say I occasionally upload a recording to Strava, that's a possibility if you use a different app.
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Old 10-15-19, 10:12 PM
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Well that explains some things. I thought the battery just died in my HRM and I never thought to fix it except when setting out. Those greedy $&@%ers
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Old 10-16-19, 09:11 AM
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This sucks. Recording HR was one of the main reasons I signed up for Premium. Never once had a Strava crash or data loss using iPhone6 every day for years.
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Old 10-16-19, 10:11 AM
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Originally Posted by kshepherd
Thanks for the suggestions everyone! I don’t mind taking my cell phone with me, but I was hoping to still leverage heart rate and seeing the display information on my watch. Wahoo Fitness looks nice too, but I don’t think it has a Watch app unfortunately. I think Cyclemeter is going to be my best best for now until I decide to give up on apps and get a cycle computer.
I'm a bit confused as to what you want to do.

If you want to see your heart rate on your Apple Watch, you can either use the watch's monitor or pair the phone with a HRM strap (Wahoo or otherwise).

If you want GPS tracking for speed, location, etc. then you can use the Strava for Apple Watch app, which can also track HR. It does not appear that Strava has disabled BT HRMs from pairing with the watch and being read by the app.
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Old 10-16-19, 10:12 AM
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Originally Posted by noisebeam
This sucks. Recording HR was one of the main reasons I signed up for Premium. Never once had a Strava crash or data loss using iPhone6 every day for years.
?
I've used it to record HR without being a premium subscriber.

Though just received the email that will end Oct. 28 (for people who had previously paired BT devices).
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Old 10-16-19, 11:53 AM
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I wonder why the Strava app no longer supports sensors. Maybe trying to not interfere with the bike computer guys (their customers at some level).
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Old 10-16-19, 02:07 PM
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Originally Posted by JohnJ80
I wonder why the Strava app no longer supports sensors. Maybe trying to not interfere with the bike computer guys (their customers at some level).
According to them they were having reliability problems.

My guess is that the number of people using Strava directly to record was sufficiently low that they didn't want to bother fixing any issues. Most cyclists use a computer of some type. Don't know about runners - I'd guess it's a few more who use the phone, but still.
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Old 10-16-19, 02:18 PM
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I use iPhone for all activities, cycling, running, hiking, etc. I doubt their reliability claim - seems more like they want people to buy more stuff.

I hope that I can just avoid the next Strava app update and still record HR (from Wahoo TKR) in Strava. Funny too that Strava was advertising/promoting the TIKR on their site about a year ago as a easy way to add HR.
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Old 10-16-19, 04:17 PM
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Originally Posted by drewguy
According to them they were having reliability problems.

My guess is that the number of people using Strava directly to record was sufficiently low that they didn't want to bother fixing any issues. Most cyclists use a computer of some type. Don't know about runners - I'd guess it's a few more who use the phone, but still.
Yeah, makes sense -thanks for making me think about it that way. Anyone who has sensor other than speed, which you can get from GPS too, is highly likely to have another means of recording data. And, because Strava gets to see how the ride was recorded on the upload, they absolutely know which device has what share. And I’m betting the share from their app is tiny.

I do hope they keep the simple GPS recording in place though. I use that on my watch for short runs to the store etc...

Originally Posted by noisebeam
I use iPhone for all activities, cycling, running, hiking, etc. I doubt their reliability claim - seems more like they want people to buy more stuff.

I hope that I can just avoid the next Strava app update and still record HR (from Wahoo TKR) in Strava. Funny too that Strava was advertising/promoting the TIKR on their site about a year ago as a easy way to add HR.
Boy, I don’t hope that. I’m in a beta test group for one of the bike computer mfgs and I can tell you getting all sensors from all manufacturers to work reliably is really hard. They all think it’s going to be easy because, you know, there’s an ANT+ profile for that. Then they find out it’s a nightmare and all of these sensors have their own eccentricities, signal strength issues, and slightly different implementations of the profile. I would say though, that the power meter guys are the worst.

The finger pointing is epic - sensor guys say it’s the computer, computer guys say it’s the sensor. And because it’s all RF, it’s hard to prove anything at the user level without some pricey tools.

So I don’t blame Strava for getting out of that game at all. They are way, WAY better off to concentrate on a good API for all the different recording apps and devices to upload to Strava. Frankly, after my experience with beta testing computers, I think we’re all better off too.
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Old 10-16-19, 04:20 PM
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I don't really get how I will get HR in Strava using another app. Do I need to run two apps at once for a ride? Will that take more battery?
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Old 10-16-19, 07:38 PM
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Originally Posted by drewguy
According to them they were having reliability problems.
I've exchanged eMails with someone at Strava about connection failures. I've had the same phone for 4-5 years, very reliable, live in an area with A+ cell service and recently been having connection issues. Strava loses connection, sends a message and sometimes recovers with the dreaded straight line and lost data. Recommendations thus far are for things I've implemented on my phone years ago. Makes me wonder if, coupled with this latest announcement, we're looking at a decline in maintenance staff quality at Strava?

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Old 10-16-19, 10:32 PM
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Originally Posted by noisebeam
I don't really get how I will get HR in Strava using another app. Do I need to run two apps at once for a ride? Will that take more battery?
Use another app, don't use Strava at all to record. Save the file when you're done, and upload it to Strava.
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Old 10-16-19, 10:34 PM
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Originally Posted by drewguy
Most cyclists use a computer of some type. Don't know about runners - I'd guess it's a few more who use the phone, but still.
Runners prefer to use a GPS watch. It's no fun to carry something in your hand while you run, a phone can fall out of your pocket and shatter, and a watch is the easiest way to check your pace or whatever else you want to know.
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Old 10-17-19, 06:13 AM
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Originally Posted by noisebeam
I don't really get how I will get HR in Strava using another app. Do I need to run two apps at once for a ride? Will that take more battery?
Depends on what you're trying to do. First, multiple apps can record data from a single HRM simultaneously. Second, most HRMs can pair with more than one device simultaneously. For example, my Tickr pairs with both my Wahoo and Garmin devices (I sometimes run both for redundancy) as do my cadence/speed sensors.

If you want to display HR data on your Apple Watch, you could pair HRM with that and monitor HR through watch (Strava or otherwise) and also record your ride using, e.g., the Wahoo fitness app.
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Old 10-17-19, 07:25 AM
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Originally Posted by Seattle Forrest
Use another app, don't use Strava at all to record. Save the file when you're done, and upload it to Strava.
What app records GPS, BT HR and does Strava Beacon and how do other apps upload to Strava? I just use an iphone 6 and no other devices.
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Old 10-17-19, 08:02 AM
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Originally Posted by noisebeam
What app records GPS, BT HR and does Strava Beacon and how do other apps upload to Strava? I just use an iphone 6 and no other devices.
The only devices that support Strava Beacon are made by Garmin, as far as I can find. No iPhone apps appear to support Strava Beacon.

For the iPhone, the most sensor friendly app is probably Cyclemeter. It also supports upload to Strava.

Here are the confirmed devices supported in Cyclemeter.
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Old 10-17-19, 08:12 AM
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OK, Thanks. I'd would expect Strava after me paying $59.99 just last month to renew Summit specifically so I could use HR and Beacon in their app would explain to me how to continue using HR and Beacon with Strava. I don't really have the inclination to go off and re-figure all this out again with the usual troubleshooting headaches and just need a simple all in one solution on my phone that I use every day.
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Old 10-17-19, 09:06 AM
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Originally Posted by kshepherd
I should have done more research when I bought my cadence sensor. It said it supports Strava on the product description, but I just read Strava's blog post announcing that they removed the ability to pair directly with Bluetooth and ANT+ sensors last month. So that's a bummer.
Where did you read this? I don't use the phone app but just tried it and it didn't have any problem pairing with a BT HR monitor. It's not going to work with ANT+ sensors unless your phone happens to support ANT+ which is rare.
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