An empirical study of the MRIS which describes our experiences with treadmill speed sensors and how they made us suffer

Last Updated on January 25, 2024 by pg@petergamma.org

Or the drama to get an accurate treadmill speed sensor which can be used to do our own calculations. We have reviewed this topic previously:

https://petergamma.org/category/treadmill-calibration/

• Although treadmills are the devices which are one of the most suitable devices for scientists the Quantitative Scientist Rob ter Horst does not even use one for this tests.

• We did some tests to measure treadmill speed on a Newgen medicals treadmill:

https://www.galaxus.ch/en/s3/product/newgen-medicals-treadmill-treadmills-15855960

• This treadmill is suitable to make some tests, but if we want data with which we can make some calculations we suggests to choose a curved treadmill which is much more robust and we suppose allows much more accurate readings.
• The Newgen medicals treadmill has a weak treadmill motor and if we listen carefully we can hear that it varies in speed.
• Also the metal case is not very robust.

1. We started to make some speed tests with an ANT+ food pod

• We connected the sensor to the Android app a training tracker.
• We use it to practice walking meditation, and for this purpose a sensor which allows to monitor slow speed is highly desirable.
• But we did not find a device which tracks speeds slower than 4 km/h reliable.
• The ANT+ foot pod from SUNTOO with a training tracker allows only speeds higher than 4 km/h, but not slower. Below that speed there is no signal.
• We did some tests with a STRYD foot pod as well, which allows also slower speeds, but we still do not use it to this date and do not know if it is accurate.

2. Then we did some tests with a Garmin Venu2 and wrist based speed measurements.

• We also found here that a speed of aorund 4 km/h is necessary to get a signal.
• For walking mediation it requires that the arms are moved vigurously, else we get no signal.
• This is not very comfortable.
• We use the protocol “indoor walking from Garmin.”
• Some years ago this protocol counted steps, or lap steps, lap steps are not shown in Garmin Connect anymore.
• We have seen that there is a Connect IQ which is called “indoor walking”, but we do not know if this can count steps as the protocol indoor walking did it previously.

3. We did also some tests with the TreadTracker treadmill speed sensor

• It can be paired to the a training tracker app to have a treadmill speed display on the smartphone.
• This is a bit better than the treadmill speed sensor which came with the Newgen Medical Treadmill
• Unfortunately the TreadTracker offers only Bluetooth pairing, and the Bluetooth protocol does not support steps.
• So the steps cannot be counted with it on a training tracker.

4. We thought about buying an NPE Runn treadmill speed sensor

• it supports also ANT+ which would allow to count steps with a training tracker, since the protocol supports it.
• it can be calibrated
• in Switzerland there is currently no seller who offers the sensor
• what we miss about this sensor is that it is not open and does not offer raw data access to make our own calculations.

If we look at scientific papers there we can see that there are hardly any papers which use the mentioned sensors above. If we look at scientific papers with treadmills, most of them use very robust treadmills, and (sports-) physiologists like Dr. Evan Matthews, cardiovascular and exercise physiologist from the Montclair State University USA uses multi-channel ECG devices on (-stress) treadmills, and those are very heavy built.

• There are some rare papers which use the STRYD foot pod, but these are from sports scientists and not physiologists if we remember correctly.

5. The most interesting sensor for us personally is the the Raspberry Pi speed sensor:

https://gallochri.com/2020/05/universal-treadmill-speed-sensor-for-zwift-with-ant-stick-and-raspberry-pi/

• But as always in the stongly contolled sports sensor market, this sensor is stongly controlled and we only have an instruction which connects it to ZWIFT.

• But we are looking for a sensor which is accurate and delivers data which can be used for calculations, and ZWIFT is the wrong platform for this.

• The Raspberry Pi speed would be suitable for our purpose, but the code need to be recoded for another platform than ZWIFT.
• We can do this by ourselves, but we are physiologists and not soft- and hardware developers, and if we do it, the result would eventually be another report in the form of:

6. «An empirical study of the MRIS which shows that to connect the Raspberry Pi speed sensor to Python, SQLite or Home Assistant sucks»

We wrote similar reports previously:

An empirical study of the MRIS which describes our experiences with NextCloudPi and how it made us suffer

For us personally it is easy to write a report about treadmill speed sensors and why they suck. And we suppose that there are many coders out there which easily can connect the Raspberry Pi speed sensor to another platform than ZWIFT. We are interested in this sensor and if you are a coder who is looking for a new project, this is one which would be interesting for us personally, to connect the Pi sensor to another platform where we can do something more with the sensor data than looking at those in ZWIFT, for instance write our own Python script. And we can offer you to test it, review it, write issues about it and help you to make it sucessful on the long term, by writing a review about it why this Pi treadmill speed sensor which supports for instance Python does not suck.