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Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike
- whoisburbansky 6y agoScanned the article to try and find this, but did anybody else notice the name/an Amazon link to the bike in question?
- Someone1234 6y agoI, too, was confused that this was missing, since it seems like a lot of the Bluetooth data will be brand specific, and they don't mention even the brand (let alone exact model).
- NicoJuicy 6y agoDidn't see it, but an issue could be created on the github page
- wvenable 6y agoThe brand is Exerpeutic and the model is 7149 but it seems that model number is country specific (Canada).
- whoisburbansky 6y agoAh, thank you!
- moioci 6y agopicture looks like "Exerpeutic 900E Bluetooth Under Desk All User Height"
- wvenable 6y agoThat's close but that model has an elliptical pedal design. It wouldn't surprise me though if the Bluetooth connectivity was identical.
- josefresco 6y agoIs it practical to do fine mouse work while pedaling? Or is pedaling more something you do while checking email etc.? I know if someone so much as jiggles my desk I immediately notice.
- chevill 6y agoIf you tried to continuously pedal probably not. However, I'm not familiar with this particular product but every exercise bike I've used you can just instantly stop for a second or two and then start back up. So if you intermittently needed to precisely click on things it would probably be fine. I'm not sure what type of work depends on continuous, precise mouse use other than maybe graphics or professional gaming. I'm sure there's others that I just haven't considered.
- smithza 6y agoThrow the mouse out and just use emacs!
- gumby 6y agoAs a bonus you get more fine hand exercise -- on both hands!
- TeMPOraL 6y agoBe sure to remap Caps Lock to work as CTRL, or else you may overtrain your left pinkie.
- monsieurbanana 6y agoOr to alt, as the Flying Spaghetti Monster intended. Earlier keyboards had ctrl next to the space, which is why it's such a used modifier key (thumb is stronger than pinky, and is quite easy to use both left and right keys). Not that I personally do that, I'm too used to ctrl mapped to caps lock. If I could go back in time to before I started using emacs though... I would learn emacs with vim bindings. As a more general recommendation, getting used to both right and left control (whatever it's mapped to) is a huge ergonomic improvement. When you need to use Ctrl with a key in the left side of the keyboard, use right ctrl, and left ctrl when using a key in the right side. This avoid having to crumple your hand to reach, eg., ctrl+a.
- smithza 6y agoLastly, I very much did not want all my workout data locked away in this app. This is a great example to demonstrate the simplicity of modern "smart" products. I think of the Tim Berners-Lee next generation web product that never got off the runway: just of common and understandable interfaces for gleaning data from interconnected devices. The workout domain is a great candidate for standardizing data-types to pull health-related information into anyone's standard conforming health database. It should not require reverse-engineering like this to do.
- marshmallow_12 6y agothe obvious problem is that exactly no one in the industry has ever devoted more that 3 brain cells and 5 seconds working out a universal standard to present their data. Stuff competitors! And why shouldn't they? They have minus zero interest in making life easier for their broader (and probably narrower also) consumer base.
- FpUser 6y agoActually there is ANT+ with profiles for everything under the sun and BLE with some profiles as well.
- TeMPOraL 6y agoNothing will change until interoperability and full end-user access to data become legally mandated. As it is, everyone has every incentive to prevent users from accessing the data, because the whole business model of IoT is about holding data hostage to extract ransom from the customer.
- Shmebulock 6y agoIf users care about that, they'll go to a vendor that gives them access to the data. No need to legally mandate anything.
- piva00 6y ago
- udhdhxnxn 6y agoMy employer won't let me get an under the desk bike. I was also scolded for doing pushups in my cube. Working out from home with tape on the webcam is great.
- Jtsummers 6y agoSeriously? Do they think that if you're not sitting and typing you're not working or something? Do they measure how long and often you take restroom breaks?
- RankingMember 6y agoDamn, that's grounds to terminate that employer in my opinion.
- throwkeep 6y agoScolded? What was their reasoning?
- secondcoming 6y agoAre they noisy?
- FearlessNebula 6y agoWow, I would fire that employer
- Grustaf 6y ago> "my desk is actually the perfect height for peddling" Why is it so hard even for native speakers to spell the verb "pedal"? I mean it's spelled exactly like the noun, which most people seem to be able to spell properly. It's a genuine question, I see this all the time, maybe most of the time actually. It's strange because typically people tend to over-generalise, not the other way around.
- Hnaomyiph 6y agoI’d imagine it’s from lack of use in daily writing, combined with a lack of a ubiquitous context-aware spell checker. I make similar mistakes quite often
- Grustaf 6y agoIt’s not just the seldom used gerund. People even write “peddle” for the present form.
- RankingMember 6y agoProbably the same part of the brain fouling up that causes the loose/lose screwup we've all probably made.
- hoophoop 6y agoAs a non-native speaker I might make other grammatical errors but not the ones related to phonetics. Often I found more difficult to understand English written by native speakers than by others because of that.
- gumby 6y ago"Peddle" is a legitimate homophone for "pedal". Some people hear the words while they read/write so make this class of mistake. Such errors always confuse me momentarily as I don't hear the words, but it doesn't make me think there's something wrong with the author. They can also come from autocorrect guessing, though probably not this case. (FWIW Reading poetry doesn't work for me and I have long assumed it is only a pleasure for people who hear the sound while reading).
- snarfy 6y agoI have one. I don't like to use it. When I exercise my brain is way off in alpha wave territory. I found it harmful to actually getting work done. I go jogging or ride a bike instead.
- karmakaze 6y agoI came to say something similar, but without the reasoning. I found that when I used a standing desk over a treadmill, the mechanics were alright as I type code (rather than mouse designs). The problem was in the thinking. The level of exercise increased bloodflow but didn't sync with the careful deep thought needed for working through complex/detailled situations.
- karmakaze 6y agoReflecting on this thought, I think it's because deep thinking requires/benefits from 'stillness' which is a way of saying free of distractions of noise, motion, etc. Walking on a treadmill I can do the same kinds of work I can do in a not-particularly-quiet open office. I don't know if concurrently burning calories that could instead go into thinking factors in at all.
- yabudemada 6y agoClever idea and implementation! I think from a health standpoint, though, this is a false positive and it is probably better to go for an old fashioned _walk_; or to drop to the floor and do some yoga. For instance, sitting down too much is in itself detrimental to ones health (whether pedaling or not). E.g. prostate health, posture, etc. In contrast, a stationary bike or road bike, the rider can stand up and pedal fast, etc. There's a much broader range of motion which make the activity healthy!
- amelius 6y ago> it is probably better to go for an old fashioned _walk_ For cardiofitness you need to get your heartrate over a certain threshold. A walk won't do that.
- dundarious 6y agoFor longevity, AFAIK you don't need that degree of cardiofitness, and walking is sufficient. It's possible to reduce longevity through running too fast, for example. Cultures that have noted longevity are not known for having an exercise culture either, rather they are moderately active throughout/several times a day. Unfortunately I can't find my sources right now, so take that as just something some guy said on the Internet.
- randcraw 6y agoTwo guys. I've seen a lot of confirmation from medical researchers that moderate rate walking (easy to converse meanwhile) does provide some aerobic benefit as well as improve strength and balance. Faster walking (difficult to converse) delivers more aerobic benefit still, to the extent that for folks over 55, it's suggested that fast walking is sufficient to get aerobic benefits. And if that's not enough, you can always speedwalk.
- novok 6y agoWalking up hills is the gentle-to-the-body challenge increaser, and makes sense since even tribesmen of 50k years ago needed to walk up hills and mountains regularly.
- shubik22 6y agoGreat article. One thing I’m curious about is the process for interpreting what the raw bytes in each packet mean. Is this just kind a trial and error thing? Are there different serialization formats you should look for? Thanks!
- wvenable 6y agoTrial and error. You start with the assumption that the developers are working logically and that they will have chosen the simplest solution. A few of my initial assumptions turned out to be wrong. For example, since I did see some word (16bit) values I assumed all the values would be words. That's probably what I would have done. But that turned out to be incorrect once I started looking at the values (it's a mix of bytes and words).
- shubik22 6y agoInteresting, thanks for the reply!
- bluGill 6y agoMostly it is a matter of making one change to the inputs you control at a time and then seeing what changes. Trial and error, but there typically isn't a lot of error as you quickly see what inputs cause what changes and learn to ignore the other fields. Though if the protocol uses encryption you are probably screwed. If I wanted to figure out the fields he doesn't understand I'd rig up some sort of stepper motor/servo to the pedals so I can precisely control the input, and then start changing things. Go from 0 - 120 rpm in .5 rpm increments, with a change every 15 seconds. Then go from 0 - 60 (or 90) rpm, but over many different accelerations. I used to work for a company that made automotive scan tools and we did this all the time with the automakers official scan tools. Even though the auto makers gave us a lot of documentation, what they did and what the docs say they do is different. (We even had a full time employee who worked at GM's offices with access to GM's source code and rights to pass on the algorithms used: and we still found it valuable to do the above to GM scan tools to work out what they really did)
- 6y ago
- PostThisTooFast 6y agoInteresting that he started his investigation with an Android app, since Bluetooth on Android is known to be shit. I mean... it's shit everywhere, but especially on Android.
- chaibiker 6y agoRegular movement is key, and even switching between sit and stand every 30m is not enough. We are working on something along these lines by supporting more frequent useful movement, every 1-2m, without impacting typing with a smart robotic chair. Looking for early beta users in Silicon Valley and Boston for May- https://movably.typeform.com/to/y5NPOA2U https://movably.typeform.com/to/y5NPOA2U
- joethescout 6y agoConsistent movement without being distracted that saves me from back pain? Count me it! Already filled out the form!
- lfowles 6y agoGreat writeup! I did something similar for the (much dumber) DeskCycle which has a simple odometer. Conveniently I was just able to plug it into Aux In and track pulses. https://github.com/lfowles/deskcycle https://github.com/lfowles/deskcycle
- slantyyz 6y agoNice Work! I have a MagneTrainer, which is made by the same manufacturer as the DeskCycle, and uses the same "trip computer" as the DeskCycle. When I bought the Magnetrainer years ago, they had some Windows games they could link to using the Aux connection, but the connection kit was overpriced, and the games that were available looked "meh".
- thereddevil 6y agoWhat did you plug into aux? And what does this app do?
- lfowles 6y agoThe deskcycle has a port for its own odometer that's just connected with a regular 3.5mm audio cable. I don't remember 100% what the app does. I think I got as far as translating pulses to the same "speed" measurement as their odometer, but ran out of steam after that.
- fiftyacorn 6y agoIf your doing this sort of project your can get a head start integrating into golden cheetahs dashboard. I done it years ago with a Google map/turbo trainer as a project
- armagon 6y agoI wish I could use a (Mac) desktop application to talk to my Fitbit. It looks like there was one years ago. (First and foremost, I'm at my computer all day long. If it has trouble syncing, I'm right there and not going anywhere. I hate having to find my phone and try to get the data synced just to see how well fitbit thinks I slept last night. Also, would be nice to access my data from my device without involving the cloud.)
- RHSeeger 6y agoMy wife bought me a new fitbit for Christmas (mine is getting old, frequently just loses it's charge, etc). It would not allow me to initialize it without syncing to my phone, which had to be running their app. I wound up returning it because I don't _want_ to run their app on my phone. I even looked into if it might be possible to work around the issue. Turns out, the fitbit, which is advertised as having a GPS, actually uses your phone's GPS. It has one of it's own, but it's apparently absolute garbage; it's inaccurate and it drains the battery extremely fast. I'm still using my barely functionalit fitbit charge 2.
- judge2020 6y agoUnfortunately that's the price you pay to use most devices - they need accompanying proprietary software. There doesn't seem to be a big enough market for open-standard or open-protocol health/fitness tracking.
- RHSeeger 6y agoBut... it doesn't. I can look down at my old, not-phone-connected fitbit any time I want and see how many steps I've walked so far during the day. Or what my heart rate it. Or any number of other things. It doesn't _need_ the phone to be able to do that part of it's job. And I don't want the "challenge your friends to a walk-a-thon" junk that does use the app.
- nradov 6y agoThere is a semi-open standard and protocol for fitness tracking: the FIT file format and ANT+ for wireless networking. However most devices which support those standards like Garmin generally require the use of a proprietary mobile app for initial setup. Once you finish that you can uninstall the app.
- vagrantJin 6y agoFor some reason, I'm suddenly intrigued by the notion of building a device to exercise with while sitting.
- jrm4 6y agoUnless there's some sort of "resistance" thing; isn't something like this "hack in a weekend" easy with any stationary bike + Pi + camera or something? Just point it at the feet and record cycles?
- jacquesm 6y agoThis was my take on a connected exercise bike: https://jacquesmattheij.com/trainification/ https://jacquesmattheij.com/trainification/
- novok 6y agoI've tried desk treadmills with a standing desk, bike desks which are designed for a laptop and under desk pedalers like this. I end up ditching them all in the end because the movement is distracting enough to not let me get into the zone. Whenever I need to focus on something I instinctually stop moving to 'free up' brain power to execute whatever I'm doing better, be it a computer game, writing or coding. Also you get more total workout by just going outside on a 30m walk, not to mention all the benefits of sunlight. Now I just do walks and explicit exercising vs. the fence sitting that is a treadmill walking desk.
- pacman83 6y agoMy experience was the same. I ended up standing on a balance board at my stand-up desk. This strengthened my core and helped me to be more alert without actively distracting me. And yes, this should be a supplement and not a substitute for outdoor activity, normal cardio and strength training, stretching, etc.
- StavrosK 6y agoA 30 meter walk doesn't even get me to the door!
- milkey_mouse 6y agoAh, that Segoe UI WPF app takes me back. I made so many little utility apps like that when I first got Visual Studio. WPF/WinForms is what I made my first GUI apps with, and first discovered why one shouldn't do blocking computations on the main thread...
- cosmodisk 6y agoIs it just me or the world gone a bit over the top trying to squeeze in a million things into any given second of our time? This Under Desk Exercise Bike is like a wearable chair to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Q1uCYK6wnjk https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Q1uCYK6wnjk
- mackrevinack 6y agoyea maybe, but where i live it rains most of the year so i cant get out to cycle anyway. i have an exercise bike inside but i find it incredibly boring and also my ass starts to hurt after 20 minutes because its an uncomfortable position to be sitting in... so something like this actually seems like a better idea
- cosmodisk 6y agoIt seems like a good idea on paper but most likely fails in practice: I get it, that it look practical,but in reality,when one is sitting at his desk trying to do some work,the only thing you can is drink coffee or eat some snacks. Anything else is a distraction,no matter how it's wrapped and I think some of the comments on the thread who had something like this make that point too.
- vosper 6y agoI think cycling is the wrong motion for an under-desk exercise machine. I think it should be a very short vertical motion, just feet moving up-and-down, something you can do without disrupting your chair posture, or making the rest of your body move too much. Potentially you don't even lift your toes up, just raise and lower your heels with some kind of resistance. Maybe you wouldn't get much exercise this way, but I think getting a whole lot of exercise whilst trying to work at a computer just isn't really doable.
- slightwinder 6y agoYou mean a stepper? https://www.amazon.com/-/us/dp/B07NRCZHYJ/ https://www.amazon.com/-/us/dp/B07NRCZHYJ/
- vosper 6y agoI wonder if even that might be too much motion for under a desk. Plus, it looks like it's designed to be stood on, so I wonder how it would work when you're sitting and not directly over it, and don't have all your weight on it. Still, might be an options. I've also thought a sliding back-and-forth motion might work -more like a skiing thing. Thanks for the link
- archi42 6y agoHm, as a [former] drummer, I'm thinking bass drum pedal here. Build for up/down motion while sitting. The pedal https://www.thomann.de/intl/millenium_pd222_pro_serie_fussmaschine.htm https://www.thomann.de/intl/millenium_pd222_pro_serie_fussma... [english language link] Something to hit (incl. sensor!): https://www.thomann.de/intl/millenium_e_drum_kick_bass_pad.htm https://www.thomann.de/intl/millenium_e_drum_kick_bass_pad.h... Partially kidding, partially serious. Careful: These aren't noiseless. My former downstairs neighbor wasn't too happy with me so I could only practice when he wasn't at home ;-)
- Sohcahtoa82 6y agoI interpreted the title to mean they exploited the bike and got code execution, similar to the guy who got code execution on a smart butt plug and presented at DEFCON 27 [0]. [0] (Slightly NSFW) https://youtu.be/RnxcPeemHSc https://youtu.be/RnxcPeemHSc
- donretag 6y agoYears (er, decades) ago, while in college, I was tasked with hooking up a primitive stationary bike with a virtual reality headset. The CRT monitor no longer worked for some reason, but the bicycle itself was still sending out signals, similar to the original story. The university was big into VR and graphics, and had developed a VR SDK and headgear. Hooking them up was a fun task since I got to work with C internals, connecting things at a lower level. It actually worked quite well. Today I work on systems that deal with large queries per second, but almost not as fun as getting your hands dirty with low-level bytes.
- WalterBright 6y agoJeez, just go for a walk or a run. I do my best work thinking while jogging.
- ck2 6y agoOkay but get outside once in a while too. Flapping your feet around under a desk is not real exercise. Easy bet just walking the same amount of time is better for you with your own weight providing resistance against muscles.
- Salamat 6y agoMy different take on hacking the under desk exercise bike has been different by hanging it on the wall so that you could be excersizing lying on your back.
- prakhargurunani 6y agoListening to Lofi Beats is useful for UI/UX engineers, but not for data scientists. One has to seriously think, so better stop the music.
- slowhand09 6y agoUpvoted for the link to "Unbricking a $2,000 Bike With a $10 Raspberry Pi". All this may motivate me to resume my Concept2 rower workouts. The reference there to "Bluetility" gives me a curiousity-quenching look at all the devices in my home, and possibly my vehicles.