Can it receive HR/Data from gym equipment?

[honglong1976]

The new update to Apple Watch,  WatchOS4 can use NFC to talk to gym equipment and receive data.

Is this something the Fitbit Iconic will do? or maybe planned?

thanks

Moderator edit: edited title for clarity

[N8teGee]

Out of the box I would say no at a guess. Although with the device having access to the Fitbit app gallery, I don't see why it wouldn't be possible for a developer to develop something like this in the future. 

[Dominique]

Just curious: what kind of data would you like to receive from the gym equipment? In the case of HR, do you think the gym’s treadmill would do a better job at tracking it than your Ionic? Or would it be able to calculate calories better than Fitbit?

[bbarrera]

@Dominique well for rowing machine I would like Concept2 to send time, distance, force, drag, and strokes per minute, and integrate that with HR and calories from smartwatch. Similar for treadmill and stationary bike. Calorie estimates on gym equipment is usually based on averages, unless you take the time to enter age and weight, and while this is an interesting topic for debate I think its safe to say your smartwatch has a better chance of correctly estimating calories (option for the geek to override calories or select which one 'wins' would be awesome).

Of course the other way to handle this problem is to run an app like Concept2's ErgData, or better yet for cycling something like Strava that supports reading HR from AW/smartwatch. But not all stationary bikes support sending power/cadence/estimatedSpeed data via Bluetooth. While I'd rather run an app, or use a bike computer (what I do in gym), I can imagine use cases where its possible to get better data by combining whats on the gym equipment with whats on my smartwatch.

[ErickFitbit]

@honglong1976 At this time, Ionic is not able to receive HR data from gym equipment. As @N8teGee said, the SDK will be made available to third-party developers soon, so they can start building apps for the Fitbit App Gallery.

@bbarrera I think you should vote for this existing Feature Suggestion idea if you haven't done so already.

[bbarrera]

@ErickFitbit The more interesting use case is Ionic sending HR to gym equipment. And secondly, receiving data from equipment although Fitbit API is very limited in data it will accept (start time, duration, calories, and miles for certain activities)

[PureEvil]

Actually, what would be more interesting to me is for the Ionic to push data to the gym equipment (like gender, weight, height, and age, which it should have), and then have the gym equipment give you a better assessment of your workout (caloric burn, etc.).

Then it would also be less ambiguous what exercise you are doing.  An elliptical machine knows that it's an elliptical and can tell Fitbit.

[honglong1976]

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/6/6/15745256/watchos-4-apple-watch-sync-cardio-data-gym...

[SunsetRunner]

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@honglong1976 wrote:

https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2017/6/6/15745256/watchos-4-apple-watch-sync-cardio-data-gym...

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Yes, but I note from that it will require all new gym equipment to take advantage of Apple's new feature. Not retrospective.