Looking to hire a developer for wheelchair app

[JohnHeff]

Hi 

My niece is confined to a wheelchair and mentioned to me one day that all her friends had Fitbit watches that counted steps. She felt left out because obviously she couldn't count steps. So I thought I would try to learn how to code a Fitbit to count rotations of a wheel and work out an average of pushes per rotation and display in on a fitbit. I decided to use an ESP32 with a hall effect sensor attached to the wheelchair and a magnet attached to the wheel. I have managed to get this much working, but I have come to the conclusion that I need help. I am hoping someone could develop this for me. I would be willing to pay them. I have some web programming ability but it is limited and I am open to other options/suggestions on how to achieve this goal. 

Kind Regards

John

[Guy_]

Hi @JohnHeff - interesting challenge but you can't easily add steps so may be reverse the process.

It depends a bit on what devices are used but one possibly is to have a second device attached to the account (not always possible for later watches). 

Use a pendulum effect on the secondary device to count Steps, driven by taps from a peg or pegs attached to the wheel.

Watches can detect very small movements so short swings may be enough.

Try working out where on the pendulum the watch needs positioning first to consistently measure steps combined with the length of swing, it only needs be an inch or so for repetitive movements.

Then convert wheel rotations to create that swing. You may have to gear it to get the right ratio.

The secondary device can remain attached to the chair and only removed for charging and the primary device can be used for time, heart rate and normal measurements.

It remains to be seen if the app will accumulate the steps and if so arm movements will also count, so the wheel counter needs to be reduced by that amount.

An alternative is to use 2 accounts, one counting steps via the wheel and the other for normal health measurements. This gives more freedom in the choice of devices.

As mentioned it probably would be impossible to program adding steps, so that saves any coding and leaves a mechanical implementation as the best option.

There may be some brands that cater natively for wheelchair movements but they may not equate to steps.

May be one of the other good developers on this forum can also help?

[Gondwana]

Guy_ is right that it isn't easy to add steps to the Fitbit system. The only way I know is to do so via the Web API. The authorisation and architecture of a system to do this would be very complicated. The watch would only indicate steps added that way whenever the watch syncs (ie, about every 15 minutes).

[JohnHeff]

Hi Guy_ 

Thanks for you suggestions. It is an interesting idea of using a second device. I might play around with that idea.

You've got me thinking. That's not necessarily a good thing 🤔

Thanks again for your help.

[JohnHeff]

Thanks for you reply Peter. I am going to play around witht Guy_'s suggestion. Hopefully it will get me one step further if you'll pardon the pun.

Thanks again for your reply.

[Guy_]

Thanks @JohnHeff , lol - we are here and it will be interesting to know what you achieve. It might be useful for others.

The watches have accelerometers used to detect different types of movements like raising your wrist, steps etc. Only the Versa and Sense have a Gyroscope which I used to determine your sleeping position in one of my apps when wearing it on a chest strap, so lots of neat things are possible.