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Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

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Re: Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

#51

Congrats on the launch! I really would have thought it’s already part of the iOS built in apps! You mentioned it’s your first app. Did you vibe code your way through it or did you heavily use AI? I played around with Swift SwiftUI and I felt that AI helped me a lot in contrast to my day to day job, humongous code base, I can’t get AI to get those mythical 100x productivity gains, more like 0.37x, but for new projects…

I have some background with other coding languages which helps and also watched some YouTube videos about SwiftUI best practice.

But I heavily used AI to get code snippets, explain code and also correct some stuff. To me as someone using SwiftUI for the first time, it felt like a 10x productivity gain. But SwiftUI also feels nice to code

Re: Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

#52
Hi Tobias!

Feedback: First off, I really like your app's style. I love bold colors. The screenshots and text are clear and understandable - maybe except on how the data gets in there. Even if that's by hand, I still think this is a great first version and a solid product.

While I'm not in your workout target group - nor on iOS - it still resonates with me because I use Oura (the ring) specifically for their detailed heart-rate tracking and stress tracking. My most-used feature in their app is my stress-tracking throughout the day.

Feature request: Only to explain how data gets inserted.

Re: Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

#53

Hi Tobias! Feedback: First off, I really like your app's style. I love bold colors. The screenshots and text are clear and understandable - maybe except on how the data gets in there. Even if that's by hand, I still think this is a great first version and a solid product. While I'm not in your workout target group - nor on iOS - it still resonates with me because I use Oura (the ring) specifically for their detailed…

> Feature request: Only to explain how data gets inserted.

Pretty sure the easiest way is to use an apple watch

Re: Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

#54
Congrats on this launch! I love that there is no data tracking and collection outside of the device (it’s always a plus point). However, after downloading the app, I don’t understand the following in the Setup menu screens. Please look at these from a newbie perspective.

1. Time Period — not sure what this refers to. Why is the maximum only 30 days or one month? I think some text to explain that screen would help.

2. Resting Heart Rate — I don’t know what to choose and there is no information or link to sources that could help decide.

3. Metrics and Goals — what time period are those goals over? Is that related to the Time Period setting? Or is it weekly? Why are there goals and toggles for “Vigorous Exercise” and “Moderate Exercise” in addition to the zone wise toggles? How do these overlap with the zones? Again, reducing the goals and toggles and/or adding text and/or reorganizing this may help (for example, “Vigorous Exercise” could just be a heading for zone 5 and zone 4, “Moderate Exercise” could just be a heading for zone 3 and zone 2 — I don’t know if this even makes sense).

As someone else said, an onboarding flow with explanations and choices for settings could really help (and the user could be instructed that if needed, they can change these in settings later).

Looking at my “Vigorous Exercise” number on the main screen, I don’t know if I should aim to increase it or not. Some guidance on what goals to aim for, with the caveat that the user should consult a medical professional to decide on exercises appropriate for them, would also be useful.

Edit: I see that there’s some information in the Help & FAQ and About pages linked from the i (information) button, but it doesn’t cover everything from my feedback above. I still think these should be in the onboarding flow and easily accessible again within the app (without opening a web page).

Re: Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, admittedly I'm somewhat of a greybeard by this point... However... I thought that vibe coding was .... exactly heavily using AI... I know this not the place; but what exactly is your definition of 'vibe coding' since you've used it with such confidence in your comment perhaps you can enlighten this programmer..

Vibe coding is heavily using AI, but heavily using AI is not necessarily vibe coding. Vibe coding is when you disregard the code altogether and build something throwaway for fun that you don’t care about maintaining: > There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. […] It's not too bad for throwaway weekend projects,…

I now checked that X post. Very interesting. I would say the app is already too big to just do that. I think a good approach is to give the AI small packages but control the overall structure

Re: Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

#56
post #22

I would prefer an adaptive approach where the user also enters perceived difficulty and the app learns the correlation between heart rate and perceived difficulty to figure out the zones. I consistently have high heart rate during exercise: a normal walk might get my heart rate to 130, and a moderate run (10:30/mile) might get my heart rate to 180. A very fast run gets my heart rate to 215 (this is beyond the max mea…

Happy that you found the Karvonen method first of all. The intensity is just the percentage of the zones. So zone 2 the lower end would be 0.6 and the upper intensity of the zone would be 0.7.

I'm using (0.5, 0.6), => Zone 1 (0.6, 0.7), => Zone 2 (0.7, 0.8), => Zone 3 (0.8, 0.9), => Zone 4 (0.9, 1.5) => Zone 5

If you are able to reach 215 the problem might be that most of the calculations do 220 - age or something similar for max heart rate.

Re: Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

#57

This is great, congrats on shipping it! I like the interface but for the life of me I think I should be able to go back a period (“last week”). I think a week starts on Monday?

The week starts on monday yes. Thanks for also giving the hint that you want last week. for now maybe the "last 7 days" option would be useful for you

Re: Show HN: Heart Rate Zones Plus – The first iOS app I developed

#58
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not what I was referring to, hope this clarifies but apple seems willing to change the API which would require dev time to implement, ie this isn’t a project you can stick on the app store and ignore, it will require continuous effort and cash to keep there and compatible. As an individual developer is the owner of the app and code I just want to know if the app will still exist in a year and be functional, otherwise…

Okay, all granted, but now that we agree you keep all your data which is safe, we only need discuss how no other than totally trivial project I think can really be "[stuck] on the app store and [ignored]," not for more than a couple years. Anything with meaningful platform integration would impose the same requirement, not to mention the $100 pa vig and time investment required just to show up at the party. In 2025,…

I am committing as a user of the app, something I plan to integrate into my life.

It’s not unfair to want to know whether the author plans to make it viable long term or if it is a project that is scratching their personal itch.

If it’s a project that’s only meant to scratch a personal itch and they only plan to support it for as long as they deem it useful and have no intention of open sourcing it in the future that is fine, I personally, and I’m sure other , don’t want to bother with it, that doesn’t mean nobody does but it answers a question and prevents disappointment down the line.

If the author has intentions of supporting it long term then asking about funding or long term development effort assists the author to think about something they might bot have thought about, or at the very least has the author clarify.

I’m fine with paying for polish, many users are.

Here the product is already made and in distribution, asking these questions isn’t preventing the project for getting going, they are the next logical step in the life of a project, arguably some of them should have been asked before “going live” like if you would like to monitise the project.

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