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Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

codaris.github.io

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Re: Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

#51

Post by TeMPOraL »

marshmallow_12 wrote: post #15
smithza wrote: post #10

Lastly, I very much did not want all my workout data locked away in this app. This is a great example to demonstrate the simplicity of modern "smart" products. I think of the Tim Berners-Lee next generation web product that never got off the runway: just of common and understandable interfaces for gleaning data from interconnected devices. The workout domain is a great candidate for standardizing data-types to pull h…

the obvious problem is that exactly no one in the industry has ever devoted more that 3 brain cells and 5 seconds working out a universal standard to present their data. Stuff competitors! And why shouldn't they? They have minus zero interest in making life easier for their broader (and probably narrower also) consumer base.

Nothing will change until interoperability and full end-user access to data become legally mandated. As it is, everyone has every incentive to prevent users from accessing the data, because the whole business model of IoT is about holding data hostage to extract ransom from the customer.

Re: Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

#52

Post by ska »

amelius wrote: post #18
yabudemada wrote: post #17

Clever idea and implementation! I think from a health standpoint, though, this is a false positive and it is probably better to go for an old fashioned _walk_; or to drop to the floor and do some yoga. For instance, sitting down too much is in itself detrimental to ones health (whether pedaling or not). E.g. prostate health, posture, etc. In contrast, a stationary bike or road bike, the rider can stand up and pedal f…

> it is probably better to go for an old fashioned _walk_ For cardiofitness you need to get your heartrate over a certain threshold. A walk won't do that.

>A walk won't do that.

It can if you choose it, for reasonable levels of cardio.

If you are only going to do one thing (not advocating that!) you aren't going to be able to beat walking, especially on varying terrain.

Re: Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

#54

Post by smithza »

throwkeep wrote: post #39
smithza wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throw the mouse out and just use emacs!

Tempting. For those who have never used emacs or vim, how long would it take to get up to speed?

If you are seriously interested (which I highly recommend) just throw yourself into it. In the case of emacs, effort put in is directly correlated to efficiency gained. I was proficient in basic text/code editing in a few hours and incrementally tried to shoehorn most editing/scripting problems to be solved with emacs. There is an emacs wiki[0], the tutorial built into emacs[1], and a stack exchange network (mostly for questions related to emacs lisp which you will want to tinker in pretty soon after using the tool) [2].

Just a note, emacs could be a full desktop experience, supporting reading/writing email, web browsing, document browsing (pdfs, html, etc.), picture viewing, text editing, automation guru, etc etc etc. Some caution against some of these features but I use it mainly for text editing and automation support. It has a very robust keyboard-macro-recording tool, for example.

[0] https://www.emacswiki.org/ [1] https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/EmacsTutorial [2] https://emacs.stackexchange.com/

Additional reading

[3] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/refcards/pdf/refcard.pdf [4] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs

Re: Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

#55

Post by shubik22 »

bluGill wrote: post #50
shubik22 wrote: post #23

Great article. One thing I’m curious about is the process for interpreting what the raw bytes in each packet mean. Is this just kind a trial and error thing? Are there different serialization formats you should look for? Thanks!

Mostly it is a matter of making one change to the inputs you control at a time and then seeing what changes. Trial and error, but there typically isn't a lot of error as you quickly see what inputs cause what changes and learn to ignore the other fields. Though if the protocol uses encryption you are probably screwed. If I wanted to figure out the fields he doesn't understand I'd rig up some sort of stepper motor/ser…

Got it, changing the inputs is a really clever idea. Thanks for the explanation!

Re: Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

#56

Post by shubik22 »

wvenable wrote: post #42
shubik22 wrote: post #23

Great article. One thing I’m curious about is the process for interpreting what the raw bytes in each packet mean. Is this just kind a trial and error thing? Are there different serialization formats you should look for? Thanks!

Trial and error. You start with the assumption that the developers are working logically and that they will have chosen the simplest solution. A few of my initial assumptions turned out to be wrong. For example, since I did see some word (16bit) values I assumed all the values would be words. That's probably what I would have done. But that turned out to be incorrect once I started looking at the values (it's a mix o…

Interesting, thanks for the reply!

Re: Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

#57

Post by rzzzt »

Someone1234 wrote: post #14
josefresco wrote: post #9

Is it practical to do fine mouse work while pedaling? Or is pedaling more something you do while checking email etc.? I know if someone so much as jiggles my desk I immediately notice.

No, but many people spend a great deal of time reading, and it is possible to do that while cycling.

Vertical scrolling could be bound to the direction of pedaling as well.

Re: Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

#58

Post by karatinversion »

smithza wrote: post #54
throwkeep wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tempting. For those who have never used emacs or vim, how long would it take to get up to speed?

If you are seriously interested (which I highly recommend) just throw yourself into it . In the case of emacs, effort put in is directly correlated to efficiency gained. I was proficient in basic text/code editing in a few hours and incrementally tried to shoehorn most editing/scripting problems to be solved with emacs. There is an emacs wiki[0], the tutorial built into emacs[1], and a stack exchange network (mostly…

I’ve found the emacs manual to be superior to the emacs wiki pretty much always (three months into my emacs journey here), fwiw.

Re: Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

#60

Post by novok »

I've tried desk treadmills with a standing desk, bike desks which are designed for a laptop and under desk pedalers like this. I end up ditching them all in the end because the movement is distracting enough to not let me get into the zone. Whenever I need to focus on something I instinctually stop moving to 'free up' brain power to execute whatever I'm doing better, be it a computer game, writing or coding.

Also you get more total workout by just going outside on a 30m walk, not to mention all the benefits of sunlight. Now I just do walks and explicit exercising vs. the fence sitting that is a treadmill walking desk.

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