Does anyone have an ANT+ treadmill or know of one that exists? Any thoughts on how well this works? According this Garmin link http://www8.garmin.com/intosports/antplus.html, these things exist, but searching the websites for their supposed partners…Woodway, StarTrac and Nautilus, I can’t find a single mention of ANT+ (other than Woodway uses ANT+ HR strap).
I’m about to buy a treadmill and to start doing a considerable portion of my running on one (you can babysit a newborn from a treadmill right? :). I like to log my workouts on trainingpeaks/strava and have been using a footpod for treadmill runs, but that is really not a great solution for me (the footpod is pretty inaccurate for me at different speeds…i.e., if I calibrate it to be accurate at a traning pace, it is very inaccurate at threshold or tempo pace, etc.). That is why I was excited about the prospect of having an ANT+ treadmill. I figured that all I would need to do would be to calibrate the treadmill, and it could talk to my watch (or directly to the internet) and make things easier (and more accurate).
(Also, I noticed in the Garmin link that they don’t mention the 910xt as one of the watches that works with an ANT+ treadmill, which seems silly…and makes me suspicous that the link is really outdated).
Anyone out there with thoughts or experience on this? Thanks…
Cool, thanks! Seems like this is a no brainer…it’s strange that more treadmill manufacturers don’t have this. They have LCD screens, iFit, automatic folding mechanisms, speakers and fans built in already! No ANT+ though. Lol.
I wonder if there is a workaround…Does anyone make an ANT+ dongle for treadmills?
I think this is an issue (lack of options) because there is a VERY small market of people who are looking to do “high-level” / performance run training on a treadmill. I bet 50 to 1 of treadmill purchasers are not interested in any treadmills interval and tempo accuracy.
You could get a cyclops powercal (heartrate-based power meter). That way, you could use all the existing cycling training apps while running. Or sleeping. Or doing it - “Hang on dear, I have to respond to this attack!”
While I’m thinking about misappropriating bike gear for the task, here’s a more serious hack that might actually work:
-Attach a bike S/C sensor in a spot where you’re not going to step on it (probably at the front)
-Attach one (or more) very thin magnets to the treadmill track, with even gaps between them.
-Set up your watch to look for a bike speed sensor with a wheel circumference that matches the length of the treadmill belt divided by how many magnets you attached.
So if the treadmill belt is 400cm long, you could add 2 evenly-spaced magnets, then tell your watch you’re riding a 636mm diameter (200cm / 3.14159) wheel. The speed readings it’d get would match your on-treadmill speed. I think the main issue would be making sure the magnets didn’t come off.
Cool, thanks! Seems like this is a no brainer…it’s strange that more treadmill manufacturers don’t have this. They have LCD screens, iFit, automatic folding mechanisms, speakers and fans built in already! No ANT+ though. Lol.
I wonder if there is a workaround…Does anyone make an ANT+ dongle for treadmills?
I agree - treadmill manufacturers have gotten SO lazy about their products. It’s really nothing but laziness. I’ve been using TM’s for 2 decades now, and there has been zero upgrades of the console portions for as far as I can remember - the current TM you buy today will have all the console functionality of the TM in 1990, no joke.
The engines and running belt don’t need any further upgrades - they were enough for elite runners to train on even before the 1990s, and they don’t need to get any better. Unfortunately, price has remained unchanged for the TMs.
I own a newish Sole F80 from 2012 which has been consistently ranked one of the top treadmills for the last 2 decades, and while yes, it’s a solid offering, programming in an interval workout is worse than pulling teeth, and the quick-speed change buttons on the side are fixed to totally irrelevant speeds and noncustomizable. I find this totally ridiculous, but to their defense, almost no treadmills short of the $5k ones offer better.
My ‘holy grail’ of TM offerings is one that allows you to EASILY re-run GPS courses (I can omit the downhills, no problem) and let you EASILY program workouts. You could do things like download the GPS trace from someone who ran the course like Boston or Pike’s peak last year, and then re-run the course on your treadmill so you’re ready for the climbs. Seems like a very easy software problem to solve, and shouldn’t even be prohibitively expensive added cost, but would instantly differentiate your TM from the sea of others in the market. And the market isn’t small - millions of folks look at their Garmin GPS files, and look how many millions of people train for marathons. And one of the most common question about marathon courses from folks at all levels is “how to I train for the hills properly?”
Woodway ALWAYS comes up in these forums when talking about treadmills, at some point.
Then I looked up the cost, and it’s like near $10k for a woodway.
Seriously, how many folks on ST actually own one of these things? Kind of irrelevant to the discussion when 99% of TM owners do not own a TM remotely in the same price range as a Woodway.
It pairs with the Garmin, and basically works just like it does on the spin bikes. The challenge is that this is/was really only offered in the $10K treadmills, as opposed to the Costco $700 treadmills. Thus, only a handful of gyms have it, and no home users.
As such, probably explains why Garmin cut the feature from their upcoming FR220/620 watches.
I just briefly looked online, a refurb model seemed to run around 5K. I’m not saying that is or isn’t too much money for a TM (I’m not in the market myself) but it is the option that satisfies the ANT+ requirement.