Motorola Motoactv :: Can Use A Cadence Sensor As A Speed Sensor
Jul 13, 2012
I want to buy an ant+ Cadence sensor which is really inexpensive and I'd like to know if I could pair it and use it as a SPEED sensor for my bike. Since a cadence sensor just counts how often the magnet passes by it then I guess they are the same as speed sensor.What would be the steps to complete this? or are the profiles baked in the firmware of the sensors and there's no way for the Motoactv to profile it as a different type of sensor?
Typical cycling computers use the sensors to measure both distance and speed. When an ANT+ speed sensor is used with the MotoACTV, does it get used for distance as well, or just speed? I commute in downtown Chicago and would welcome the more accurate distance measurement in addition to the GPS route tracking.
However, after the latest update, the battery life, even when doing nothing, is terrible. I had it charged to 100% before I went to sleep last night and when I woke up the battery was dead and the watch was off. Before it would last a couple of days even if I went on a short ride.
I did recently pair it to a Garmin speed/cadence sensor. But the battery was dying, like I said, when I wasn't even biking.
Which brings me to my second question. I got the speed sensor because I hoped that instead of waiting for the GPS to catch up to when I am stopped, that the speed sensor (like the wired one I have on my actual bike computer) would know immeditely when I've stopped and not mess up my average speed by having the time keep tracking when I was standing still. My wired computer has pause and start down to a science. Why can't this? Why is it still using GPS for speed instead of the sensor? Cadence works fine, so I know it isn't a communication problem, I don't think, anyway.
I just got my MOTOACTV and I love it.. I ride a stationary bike both at the gym and at home and I have yet to purchase the bike sensor.. while I understand I cannot monitor cadence or speed, I am trying to monitor my HR. I selected eliptical trainer for a ride just so that my HR would show up.. is there any way to simply monito your HR?
I've just tried to do a cycling fitness test in a gym on a standard gym bike bike (lifecycle fitness) but it wouldn't let me start with just a HRM , it gave me a message saying I had to have a Bike Sensor. So is there no way to do a fitness test on a bike without having to spend more money? I do have a road bike, but I'd like the option to do this in a gym without shelling out more.i can see theres "stationary bike" profile, but this doesn't have the option for a fitness test.(BTW - I also tried a quick start indoors cycling workout and got the same message (connect a bike sensor to start an indoor ride)
I have been using my MA with ANT+ HR Monitor sensor nearly every day since I got this as a Christmas present for a several hours.I noticed at the end of about 3 months that the HR Sensor was flacky, so I replaced the 2032 3 volt battery in the sensor.This seemed to fix the problem.The device worked well for a few more weeks and than I was having similar problems, so I replaced the battery a 2nd time.Yesterday, I was able to use the HR Sensor for my morning workout, but the sensor was no longer transmitting when I went for a 5 mile walk.i replaced the battery again and repaired the sensor with the device.It seemed to connect fine, but there is not any live data being displayed from the HR sensor.I have tried repairing the sensor and it will pair, but their is no data being recieved by the MA device.Has anyone else had problems like this with their ANT+ HR Sensor?
Am I missing something here? Should the MotoACTV bike speed/cadence sensor be tracking power/watts itself of is there another accessory that I need to get? It's recording all other info without difficulty. I've only used it about 3 times but always get a 0/0 when it comes to the power/watts reading.
I've just bought a 5230 and I'm really annoyed that I don't have the functionality my E51 had where if it was really dark the screen would dim down. This is an important thing to me since I tend to read at night and I dislike having to go all the way to settings and so on.
Do you know any piece of software that could change screen brightness based on the light sensor readings?I'm just amazed the phone software doesn't do that on its own but hey s60v5 is worse than s60v3...
I spend most of my time with the MOTOACTV trail running and mountain biking. This thing that annoys me the most is the software doesen't correct for gps loss. it just reads as I wasn't moving for a set amount of time. If I were to add a footpod for running...or speed/cadence for riding...would the software average the movements over time---or still cut out (record as not moving) as it does when I lose GPS signal when in heavily covered areas?
after i installed gingerbread for my phone, the light sensor seems to be acting funny. it will light up the soft keys and my keyboard in low light conditions, but once it is pitch black the keys will not light up at all.
Does the Razr have ANT+ capability built in or can it support an ANT+ stick? I use my phone as a cycling computer and would like to add a cadence sensor that uses the ANT+ communication - but don't want to invest in the sensor if I can't get it to work with the phone probably. I am not interested in using motoactive for the purpose but instead want to use other android apps like Strava, and Sportstrackerlive.
I was googling around the interwebs to find out more recommendations for smart actions rule settings, and I noticed some references to a motion sensor trigger (for example, in the BGR review of the Droid Razr Maxx). I don't seem to have that trigger in the version of smart actions on my new Droid 4, though? Is that a hardware sensor limitation? Or do I need to change a setting somewhere to make that trigger come up in the list?
Its simply is that when I press the fingerprint sensor to bring the screen on, it starts yelling 'Swap too fast/too slow' bla bla bla BEFORE any actual fingerprint scan and it keeps doing it until I pres the sensor again to turn screen off. Tried disabling and enabling it, cleaned the sensor hardware gently but nothing has helped so far........Its Atrix 4G (till 4G i assume all parts will already go, just 4G will be left) on gingerbread 2.3.4...GB version.
I've seen this issue posted, but no updates or feedback in a while. While on a call the screen does not turn off, and I am constantly hanging up on people. I have installed the recent update that fixed the no call audio issue, and have rebooted the phone several times. The reboot will fix the problem, but only temporarily. I have also played with the pocket detection setting, and that does not make a difference. I do use bluetooth, and am thinking that it has something to do with it.
Seems like the display should turn off when the phone nears my ear, and should turn back on when I bring it back down. Not happening. Other than that, loving it.
If you have read my posts you know that I am now on Bionic #3. Unfortunately this one has issues as well. One of those issues is the proximity sensor doesn't work correctly. It will work for a little while and then a reboot is required to make it work again. If you don't know what the proximity sensor is, it is a sensor at the top of the phone that detects when you have the phone near your face. It will cut the screen on/off so that your face doesn't hit the keypad. It is very annoying and almost impossible to make phone calls with this sensor messed up.
I have noticed that when I start a call and put the phone to my head (or hand above the sensor) that the screen stays on. I do know that the phone's "pocket mode" works, which tells me that the proximity sensor is functioning. Faulty or non-existant software for the phone app?
i'm having is that although the light sensor seems to be functioning according to various sensor tests, brightness isn't automatically adjusting and the "in-pocket protection" thing isn't turning the phone off when I stick it in my pocket.
This is my second Razr. I noticed from the beginning that this unit is much "tighter" than my previous one. The power button and volume rocker don't wobble at all and sit tight. Now, when I was browsing a lot of heavy flash web sites last night in landscape mode, I hit home button and the screen rotated to portrait, so I rotated the phone as well. Then I go into Apps and the screen flips back to landscape even though I hold it vertically.
Hit home portrait mode, hit browser and it turns to landscape by itself. Holding the phone in portrait I unchecked the Auto-rotate, and the browser is back to portrait, check the A-R box and goes back to landscape. Reboot the phone and its fine. Long story short I can somewhat reproduce it when I make the phone warm up in landscape mode. Anyway the "tightness" of the phone stops gyro from rotating when the unit heats up?
I am frequently on the water and carry my Droid X in an Aquapac waterproof case. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to use the keypad to enter digits or hang up because the proximity sensor responds to the case and shuts off the screen. If I am quick enough, I can activate the speaker phone before this happens, but it's not ideal for a conversation. For whatever reason, this happened when I first bought the phone, went away with the Froyo upgrade, and is now back again with the Gingerbread upgrade.
After the gingerbread update I found that the proximity sensor would quit workng and the only solution was to restart the phone. I found that using bluetooth caused this behavior (repeated several times) by getting it to fail (although not every time) using the following sequence.
1. Power down and restart the phone (so that it was in a known state)
2. Call voice mail to confirm that the proximity sensor was working
3. Turn on blue tooth.
4. Turn off blue tooth. (didn't use it in between other then to connect with headset)
5. Call voice mail and proximity sensor would not work.
6. Cycle power on phone
7. Call voice mail and proximity sensor would work.
My solution was to quit using bluetooth and have not been using since the first week I updated to gingerbread. I did have the sensor quit working one time since but didn't think much of it until my daughter-in-law told me she had the same problem and she doesn't use bluetooth but she does use the speaker phone much more than I do. I believe that both speaker phone and bluetooth functions disable the sensor while in use. Is it possible that it is not always getting re-enabled? I have seen other posts concerning the proximity sensor not working but have not seen a tie to bluetooth use.
I am not sure if Moto is aware of the bug introduced in .173. Ever since the OTA a few months back the orientation/rotation sensor randomly stops working. I haven't been able to track it down to any particular app, but instead have a feeling that it's caused by any app that forces a horizontal orientation. I don't want to limit it to just that though, but basically after this bug is triggered, tilting the phone manually into horizontal orientation doesn't rotate the screen and any games/apps that use the tilt sensor stop responding to it completely. I launched Elixir tools while this issue was occurring and in the Sensor section of the app the two sensors that deal with orientation, the orientation and the rotation vector sensors are jumping all over the place. A reboot fixes this for a few days or possibly until i launch an app that triggers this bug and then it's the same thing all over again.
I just got a RAZR less than 10 days ago, and sometime over the past few days, I noticed that the soft keys no longer illuminate and the proximity sensor on the top of the phone isn't working. They both seemed to stop working at the same time, and I can't figure why and how to fix it. The soft key issue is not the biggest deal, since I know which ones are which anyway. But the more annoying issue is the sensor not working, so that when I'm on calls and have the phone up to my ear, the screen won't shut off automatically, and turn back on again once removed from my face. It gets quite annoying having to hit the power button every time to shut the screen on and off during calls. Has this happened to anyone else?
Clean boot (restart), the proximity sensor works fine (when on call it turns screen off, when moved away from face screen on). As soon as I make or receive call via bluetooth (Motorola brand btw.) The proximity sensor stops working. When on call it will not turn the screen off... Rebooting the phone will fix until a call is made/received via bluetooth. This was confirmed with other Moto phones (Photon...) as well as different bluetooth devices.
today i notice that in the upper right corner of my atrix 2 , in that part where the proximity or light sensor is located , there is a faint red light dot, and no... it is not the notification led.
I purchased a new bike, and changed the setting default profile for cycle to MTB2, and I changed the tire size 29 after I noted the problem after the first run that the ACTV was set to the default cycle, (I guess) but since I started riding this bike the milage and mph have been off, the first ride was showing I think it was 22 miles, it was on 1 apr 2012, you can check my workouts, but we really rode about 27 miles. Today I rode exactly 22 miles and it was showing a little over 20 miles?
I hope I've missed something in the settings, I can't use this if its not accurate, plus I used it for 1 hour and 45 minutes today and the battery was almost at 0%? This is a problem considering that I will be doing 100 miles rides, which can take several hours.
I just got this last week in the hopes of replacing my ageing Garmins (Edge 705 for the bike and Forerunner 405 for runs) and have just put in 2 short rides over the weekend. I manage a couple of online training sites (don't ask me why) including the awesome Sportracks and these typically can either import .CSV or .TCX files.So I got the CSV exported from the MotoACTV website and basically imported it wholesale into Sportracks. Also I used an online tool to convert the CSV to TCX where I upload to Garminconnect and Strava (online). What I observed is that the speed shows 'spikes and dips' I guess overall the average speed will be the same over distance and I've checked this to be true but what with the 'spikes and dips'? This has basically sent the power estimation algorithm in Strava and Sportracks to overestimate the power due the the sudden deceleration 'dips' and sudden acceleration 'recovery from dips'. I don't see the same issue on the speed curve on the motoactv site itself.
When exercising on the treadmill at the gym, I have tried the "Walking/Indoors" program. At first I calibrated it at 3.0 mph (I actually run at 4.5mph). The pedometer seemed to be right on track, but the speed was just all over the place. So I read discussions in the forum that said it should be calibrated at the actual mph at which you walk/run. So I recalibrated today at 4.5 mph, and still the speed was jumping everywhere but the correct number.Full disclosure: My excercise routine is a power-walk (all that's left for me to do due to a spinal condition). I wear the ACTV on my wrist because I like to keep checking the stats. Even if I hold my arm still in front of me, the speed keeps oscillating.
I have noticed that the average speed reported per lap/interval does not correlate with the graph. For example, I did an interval workout on my bike recently. As you can see from the image below, my average speed for interval 5 was 32.99 km/hr. I know this to be correct, because I was trying to keep my fast intervals at +30 km/hr, and could see this on my watch during the workout. However, as you can see, the graph seems to be displaying an average speed of around 13 km/hr, and shows that my speed never went about 20 km/hr.
This problem is happening for me on all of my cycling workouts, whether or not I have a scheduled interval routine or just autolap for 1km. For some of the intervals (maybe 5-10 %), the graph seems to be consistent with the average speed for the interval, but for the majority of intervals it is all messed up. I'm using the 8GB version with the latest software update. My .csv for the workout is also attached.
