8 ms·

Definitely an odd device that it doesn't seem to make accessing the data without hacking into the bluetooth stream data, but this was pretty awesome. to the au

Definitely an odd device that it doesn't seem to make accessing the data without hacking into the bluetooth stream data, but this was pretty awesome. to the author: Did you end up graphing / recording the data or just displaying it while you played?

frabert 6y ago
From a quick skimp over the article, it looks to me like the device employs standard Bluetooth protocol capabilities, so any app capable of pairing to generic Bluetooth heart rate sensors should be capable of doing so. The author simply went the route of yak-shaving instead of searching for a ready-made library. Please note I'm not dissing the yak shaving! EDIT: typo
- jcdavis 6y ago
  I looked into existing windows apps, there was only one extremely janky one that didn't do what I wanted, so of course I had to try and write my own
matsemann 6y ago
I think it's a standard BLE/ANT+ training sensor, any existing training program should be able to read it out of the box. Still a fun project, though. But I agree it's an odd device. If one wants more precision than the optical sensors found in smart watches, using a HR belt would be the logical choice?
- jcdavis 6y ago
  I've tried chest straps once or twice and found them pretty uncomfortable, though its possible I would get used to it. The advantage of these standalone optical sensors is that because they are smaller & lighter, and sit on the fleshier upper arm, they are much more accurate than sensors on a watch, despite being the same tech. Edit: DC Rainmaker's analysis shows that these are more or less as good as a chest strap (https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/03/polar-oh1-plus-optical-hr-sensor-in-depth-review.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/03/polar-oh1-plus-optical-h...)
jcdavis 6y ago
(I'm the author, happy to see this getting re-posted) I'm trying to figure out how to render a graph inline, but its more complicated
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- abraae 6y ago
  I have atrial fibrillation (AF) and a few years ago I built a system to monitor my own heart rate using grafana. I can strongly recommend it. I used influxdb to store the raw data.
  - mzmoen 6y ago
    Any chance you can share more (post, github, etc)?
    - abraae 6y ago
      Regretfully it's not in any state to share. But basically it was: - simple Android app capture heart rate data over bluetooth from a polar chest band - send the data up to a server and pipe it into influxdb database - display using grafana It was very useful to show when I was having an episode. I tried all sorts of things to identify the triggers, in the end it turned out to be alcohol (duh!).
      - coding123 6y ago
        Nice investigative work. The best advocate for ones health is... yourself! I hear that a lot and it's definitely true.
moron4hire 6y ago
This isn't "hacking into the Bluetooth stream data". This is literally how you interface with Bluetooth devices. This way you don't need a driver specific to each device and don't need to write code specific to each device. The Bluetooth spec defines a large variety of common types of data streams (including things like friendly device names and battery status), as well as open areas where vendors can cram their own, purpose specific stuff. It's quite easy to use, once you learn the setup. And once you learn the specific API your combo of programming language and operating system use to communicate with BLE, everything about consuming a device is otherwise identical, so you can create libraries that consume specific types of data streams quite easily.

frabert 6y ago

From a quick skimp over the article, it looks to me like the device employs standard Bluetooth protocol capabilities, so any app capable of pairing to generic Bluetooth heart rate sensors should be capable of doing so. The author simply went the route of yak-shaving instead of searching for a ready-made library. Please note I'm not dissing the yak shaving! EDIT: typo

jcdavis 6y ago
I looked into existing windows apps, there was only one extremely janky one that didn't do what I wanted, so of course I had to try and write my own

matsemann 6y ago

I think it's a standard BLE/ANT+ training sensor, any existing training program should be able to read it out of the box. Still a fun project, though. But I agree it's an odd device. If one wants more precision than the optical sensors found in smart watches, using a HR belt would be the logical choice?

jcdavis 6y ago
I've tried chest straps once or twice and found them pretty uncomfortable, though its possible I would get used to it. The advantage of these standalone optical sensors is that because they are smaller & lighter, and sit on the fleshier upper arm, they are much more accurate than sensors on a watch, despite being the same tech. Edit: DC Rainmaker's analysis shows that these are more or less as good as a chest strap (https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/03/polar-oh1-plus-optical-hr-sensor-in-depth-review.html https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2019/03/polar-oh1-plus-optical-h...)

jcdavis 6y ago

(I'm the author, happy to see this getting re-posted) I'm trying to figure out how to render a graph inline, but its more complicated

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
abraae 6y ago
I have atrial fibrillation (AF) and a few years ago I built a system to monitor my own heart rate using grafana. I can strongly recommend it. I used influxdb to store the raw data.
- mzmoen 6y ago
  Any chance you can share more (post, github, etc)?
  - abraae 6y ago
    Regretfully it's not in any state to share. But basically it was: - simple Android app capture heart rate data over bluetooth from a polar chest band - send the data up to a server and pipe it into influxdb database - display using grafana It was very useful to show when I was having an episode. I tried all sorts of things to identify the triggers, in the end it turned out to be alcohol (duh!).
    - coding123 6y ago
      Nice investigative work. The best advocate for ones health is... yourself! I hear that a lot and it's definitely true.

moron4hire 6y ago

This isn't "hacking into the Bluetooth stream data". This is literally how you interface with Bluetooth devices. This way you don't need a driver specific to each device and don't need to write code specific to each device. The Bluetooth spec defines a large variety of common types of data streams (including things like friendly device names and battery status), as well as open areas where vendors can cram their own, purpose specific stuff. It's quite easy to use, once you learn the setup. And once you learn the specific API your combo of programming language and operating system use to communicate with BLE, everything about consuming a device is otherwise identical, so you can create libraries that consume specific types of data streams quite easily.