Notices

I tried the ecoach app and look great but the n810 gps really is not this reactive champ (and who bring it running around?) and who own the bluetooth heart thing + n810 owner + runner + geek enough to keep track the progress?
Im just asking is really this big deal? I know I could sound a bit trollish but it s a question that came in my mind everytime i watch the app promoted on maemo.org (and I cant remeber what was the previos 'pearl' up there). I think other apps really should deserve more attention .
Feel free to bury this post in case I completely miss the point

id have to second that opinion.

I see you point that it being a "Pearl" app. There are others that are more useful to the general user. I haven't ever used it running. I have run it in my car while driving. Its kind of cool to see the graph for elevation vs time and speed vs time and have them overlayed over each other.

When the spring/summer comes and I'm biking I may bring the tablet along, however I'd have to figure something out for mounting the tablet or placing it somewhere it won't get damadged.

I think a big reason its the Peal app is because its designed well and looks good. It doesn't matter how many people use its the fact that its a well designed programs so many of our tablets programs could be done better.

Makes sense.

Those pearls are chosen by people like you. Feel free going to the maemo-community list and suggest another one.

i guess my question is who has the time to go running when were constantly dicking around with our tablets LOL

I run everyday I haven't used ecoach yet because I have a small gps unit I use to map my trails but I am thinking of trying it. Trust me go get a German Shepard and a Labrador you will find time to run with them.

OK. So I used eCoach today for a bike ride. Verdict: Not good.
First problem was that it insisted on trying to connect to the network to get maps. I don't see any option to turn this off and I did not want to tether my tablet just for maps. I knew where I was going and didn't need to see it, especially since the tablet was going to be sitting in the back pouch.

OK so after the ride I whip out the tablet and looked at the "results."

What's this? Maximum speed: 574 MPH? Really? I didn't know I was keeping up with jumbo jets. Of course this messed up the graph. Which brings me to the next problem: You can't zoom in on portions of the graphs. So given that I had apparently been doing boeing 747 speeds the graph was way out of proportion.

I suppose that the altitude readout was correct, but since i really can't compare it with the speeds (you know 15 MPH is like a flat line next to 575 MPH) I can't really tell where the hills were. though apparently there are a great deal of elevation changes going on.

Generally if this app is going to be usefull it needs to have the option to turn off downloading maps (like Maemomapper) and it needs to know to throw out clearly way out speeds. If the latter is impossible (who knows someone may want to see how much aerobic exercise they are getting while flying a plane, or jumping out of one at cruising speed) then at least a means to zoom in on particular parts of the graph.

And that map part is pretty important given that tethering AND GPS bluetooth is a drain on batteries.

I've encountered the "speed phenomena" before. From what I could tell, its not a problem with eCoach. When it happened, my tablet hung for a few seconds and everything froze. When it came back, the speed had a huge jump. So between when the tablet froze and started working again, the tablet assumed that the distance I moved in 1 minute happened in less than a second.