Nokia Sports Tracker Beta
When I formerly was jogging I wondered what distance I completed and what time it took me. Furthermore I wanted to know about my speed and would have liked to compare it to former runs. Now there is something that could help me, and you of course, to keep an eye on your training status.
Review conditions
For testing purposes I installed Nokia Sports Tracker in Version 1.71 for S60 3.0 on my Nokia E65. Please notice, that Sports Tracker is still in Beta status.
Installation
First you have to download Sports Tracker in the specific version for your device. After downloading the file, step through the familiar installation process. For tracking data you will need either an external GPS device or the built-in ones, like Nokia N95 has. Pairing my E65 with my external bluetooth GPS worked very well.
First view
At the first start of the application I recommend to establish a wireless lan connection, because you will need a free account to use the Sports Tracker properly. I did that and set up a user. You can also define some details about your person like age, gender, height and weight.
Main features
I think the name says exactly what this application does: it tracks your sport exercises. Select New Workout, tell it if you are running, walking, cycling or skiing and press start. Unless you have a valid GPS connection you can go for your workout. A nice fullscreen shows you some interesting data, a landscape mode is also possible but that didn’t make sense for me at this time. While you work out there are six different views that aggegrate facts that are pretty interesting to know. It shows your current speed, average speed, altitude, distance, time and others. But that is not all, Sports Tracker creates three different graphs showing for instance your speed and the distance. You can navigate through the screens via top and down key very easily.
Do you have a data flatrate? Turn on live sharing and your trackings will be available online for everyone you want to be able to see your workout live. When you finished a lap, just press the right soft button and the lap-time shows up. If you have finished your workout you can stop the tracking and save the recorded data. A pretty nice feature is that you can define every workout as a specific route. When you are running at the same way again and again you can compair your performance very easily through that feature and observe your training status. For that purpose you can also take a look at the training diary, where a small calendar shows up, that marks the days where you did your training.
But that is not all. Noka Sports Tracker also offers a nice web interface where you can upload your data to for sharing and viewing your trackings online. That could look like the following. Unfortunately the GPS data delivered where not pretty acurate at this point.
Besides that the mobile application also offers multi user support, as you can add new user profiles for the use of Sports Tracker. Furthermore there is the possibility of looking for pictures associated with your workout. Sports Tracker does this automatically, does a search for pictures created during the workput and lets you upload them.
Handling
Since the Sports Tracker is made by Nokia I expected the application to be very easy to use. And that is really true. It can be controlled intuitively. There is nothing negative to point out here.
Weaknesses
One thing I have to mention at this point is, that Sports Tracker did not ask which connection to use when I tried to upload my workouts. The application did just nothing but showing a progress bar. Aborting and reentering the preferred connection solved this issue.
Conclusion
Nokia is not the first who tries to connect technology and sports. But who needs Nike + iPod? I am really overwhelmed by the functionality Nokia Sports Tracker offers. I can do everything I expect of such an application, and even more. And the best: it is free. Nokia Sports Tracker is an excellent way to keep an eye on your workouts, even though it is still in beta status. In my opinion 5 of 5 stars are appropriate.
One Comment, Comment or Ping
Hiro
Hi,i’m wondering.. With the gps connection you described above,does that mean when you are running you are carrying both your nokia and your gps device in your training pockets?or do you just bring your nokia?coz i think it’s rather uncomfortable running without both your gadgets bouncing inside the pockets of your training pockets..don’t you think so?
Jun 22nd, 2008
Reply to “Nokia Sports Tracker Beta”