Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

https://codaris.github.io/UnderDeskBike/

by wvenable • 5 years ago

222 135 5 years ago

codaris.github.io

Scanned the article to try and find this, but did anybody else notice the name/an Amazon link to the bike in question?

I, 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• 5 years ago

Didn't see it, but an issue could be created on the github page

wvenable5• 5 years ago

The brand is Exerpeutic and the model is 7149 but it seems that model number is country specific (Canada).

whoisburbansky2• 5 years ago

Ah, thank you!

moioci• 5 years ago

picture looks like "Exerpeutic 900E Bluetooth Under Desk All User Height"

wvenable5• 5 years ago

That's close but that model has an elliptical pedal design. It wouldn't surprise me though if the Bluetooth connectivity was identical.

josefresco• 5 years ago

Is 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.

smithza3• 5 years ago

Throw the mouse out and just use emacs!

gumby3• 5 years ago

As a bonus you get more fine hand exercise -- on both hands!

throwkeep2• 5 years ago

Tempting. For those who have never used emacs or vim, how long would it take to get up to speed?

Someone12342• 5 years ago

No, but many people spend a great deal of time reading, and it is possible to do that while cycling.

rzzzt• 5 years ago

Vertical scrolling could be bound to the direction of pedaling as well.

wvenable5• 5 years ago

I was quite surprised to find that I could code and type normally while pedaling. I did expect this to be for just checking email, etc.

I don't think that you want to do fine mouse work at the same time as any physical activity.

chevill• 5 years ago

If 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.

zacharycohn• 5 years ago

I use a treadmill desk - I've found that 1.4mph works well. Pixel perfect work is a problem, but everything else is pretty okay.

mackrevinack2• 5 years ago

depends what type you use. trackpoints or rollerball mouse would work better since your hand movement isn't translated as much or at all

smithza3• 5 years ago

    Lastly, 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_122• 5 years ago

the 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• 5 years ago

Actually there is ANT+ with profiles for everything under the sun and BLE with some profiles as well.

TeMPOraL4• 5 years ago

Nothing 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.

matthewowen3• 5 years ago

This is a weird opinion - Garmin is arguably the market leader, and they opened up all their formats and protocols to be standards which are now widely adopted (.fit files, ant+ wireless communication), and they also now work with the competing wireless communication standard too (btle).

And just looking at exercise bikes, it's true that peloton/flywheel/etc are closed. But the products in that space from the established fitness tech players (eg wahoo and tacx) are entirely based around communicating via standard protocols (ant+ fe-c trainer control).

nradov3• 5 years ago

The workout domain has already standardized on the FIT file format. Pretty much all fitness trackers and bike computers use it for recording activities. It isn't fully open but anyone can license the SDK.

https://www.thisisant.com/developer

There is free open source software like GoldenCheetah which can read those comes so you don't have to depend on proprietary online services.

https://www.goldencheetah.org/

udhdhxnxn• 5 years ago

My 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• 5 years ago

Seriously? 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?

RankingMember2• 5 years ago

Damn, that's grounds to terminate that employer in my opinion.

throwkeep2• 5 years ago

Scolded? What was their reasoning?

secondcoming• 5 years ago

Are they noisy?

FearlessNebula• 5 years ago

Wow, I would fire that employer

Grustaf3• 5 years 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• 5 years ago

I’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

Grustaf3• 5 years ago

It’s not just the seldom used gerund. People even write “peddle” for the present form.

RankingMember2• 5 years ago

Probably the same part of the brain fouling up that causes the loose/lose screwup we've all probably made.

hoophoop• 5 years ago

As 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.

gumby3• 5 years 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).

iso1631• 5 years ago

FWIW Reading poetry doesn't work for me

How about Oxford poetry? Or Maidenhead?

snarfy• 5 years ago

I 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.

karmakaze2• 5 years ago

I 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.

karmakaze2• 5 years ago

Reflecting 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.

yabudemada2• 5 years ago

Clever 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• 5 years 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• 5 years ago

For 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.

ska• 5 years ago

A walk won't do that.

It can if you choose it, for reasonable levels of cardio.

If you are only going to do one thing (not advocating that!) you aren't going to be able to beat walking, especially on varying terrain.

impendia2• 5 years ago

I bought an under-desk bike near the beginning of lockdown and have run the odometer into the four figures. I highly recommend it to anyone.

I definitely agree with you that it is no replacement for walking, yoga, or other active forms of exercise. But I have found it a great substitute for just sitting while using a computer.

yabudemada2• 5 years ago

What about men's testicular/prostate health though? Bike seats are specially designed for cycling ergonomics; desk chairs are design for sitting upright in an ergonomic _stationary_ position.

I say this because I had some prostate bruising (I recovered from that quickly doing yoga), but I attribute it to sitting too long; I don't even want to think what a pedaling motion in my chair would do down there! Granted, I have never pedaled in my chair so I accept that maybe it is fine—I'm just not willing to take the risk.

Personally, I'd go more for a walking desk or something where the motion is natural, but the desired cardio effect is the same.

shubik223• 5 years ago

Great 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!

wvenable5• 5 years ago

Trial 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).

shubik223• 5 years ago

Interesting, thanks for the reply!

bluGill2• 5 years ago

Mostly 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)

shubik223• 5 years ago

Got it, changing the inputs is a really clever idea. Thanks for the explanation!

chaibiker• 5 years ago

Regular 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

joethescout• 5 years ago

Consistent movement without being distracted that saves me from back pain? Count me it! Already filled out the form!

lfowles2• 5 years ago

Great 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

slantyyz• 5 years ago

Nice 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• 5 years ago

What did you plug into aux? And what does this app do?

lfowles2• 5 years ago

The 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• 5 years ago

If 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• 5 years ago

I 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.)

RHSeeger2• 5 years ago

My 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• 5 years ago

Unfortunately 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.

bluGill2• 5 years ago

Pine64 is working on a smart watch. If you are a developer it might be worth hacking on.

Just pointing this out for those in the same boat as you. Personally I hate things on my wrist and so I don't know if it is any good as I won't be using it anyway.

vagrantJin• 5 years ago

For some reason, I'm suddenly intrigued by the notion of building a device to exercise with while sitting.

jrm4• 5 years ago

Unless 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• 5 years ago

This was my take on a connected exercise bike:

https://jacquesmattheij.com/trainification/

novok3• 5 years ago

I'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• 5 years ago

My 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• 5 years ago

A 30 meter walk doesn't even get me to the door!

novok3• 5 years ago

30 minutes ;)

fataliss• 5 years ago

Humble brag. In NYC it gets you around the block twice!

terry_y_comb• 5 years ago

"Free up" brain power: I turn off the radio when I need to focus driving on the road (e.g. traffic, rain, snow)

It sounds absurds. But I think some may do the same.

Darmody• 5 years ago

It is not absurd. There's a reason why people lower the volume to park their car.

mandeepj2• 5 years ago

"Free up" brain power

Same. When I have to seriously think about the code I'm writing - I stop the music. I think that goes against a lot of people who continuously jam music while writing code.

quartesixte• 5 years ago

I also do this. In particularly treacherous stretches of road or in unfamiliar areas I turn off the music.

Only on well-worn commutes do I feel free to blast the radio.

emodendroket2• 5 years ago

I took up Dance Dance Revolution again, which I used to be into in high school. I thought I "couldn't do it anymore" but it just took several weeks before I was conditioned enough to not be in pain the next few days.

brailsafe6• 5 years ago

I love DDR and would love to play, but all my mats are destroyed!

AuryGlenz• 5 years ago

I’ve got a treadmill walking desk - two, actually. I’m in a bit of a unique situation where I do two types of jobs on my computer. I do both photography and some development. I can do all my photography tasks while walking at a fairly slow pace, 2mph or so. I’ll often walk 4 or 5 hours a day. I can’t, however, concentrate on an audiobook at the same time while culling photos. Editing and retouching are so automatic I can do all three.

Programming though? Only if I’m doing something I know how to do fairly well I can walk. That’s pretty rare due to how little time I can commit to coding.

In either situation it keeps me more awake and energized, even if I can’t concentrate as well.

HenryBemis2• 5 years ago

When I was coding, I could only listen to (soft) music when I was doing the visuals (colors, buttons, screens). At the time of writing code I would require absolute silence (noise cancallers I mentioned on another comment further up).

hellbannedguy• 5 years ago

There’s a study out there that Dr. Edell used to talk about.

It compared the mood of treadmill vs. outside walking.

Outside was perfected by a lot.

(I miss Dr. Edell. I thought someone would replace him, but no.)

toyg• 5 years ago

It’s the same for me except if I’m talking. When I present or have long conversations, my body automatically starts walking, and the more I walk the more I can focus on the conversation. It’s unreal, but it absolutely works. I end up pacing all over the house (thank goodness for wireless headsets) for hours. I have not found yet a way to reconcile this with the need for notes and screen when I present remotely, but for anything else it’s a great help.

hibbelig• 5 years ago

We had student surveys at university, and one professor was admired for his leg work during lecture :-)

watchdogtimer• 5 years ago

I think how well you can get "into the zone" while being physically active depends partly on how physically active you are to be begin with. If your body is not used to cycling or walking on a treadmill, then you're going to find it difficult to multitask when doing that activity.

I have used a bike desk for more than a decade. I have no difficulty getting into the zone; in fact, I find the rhythmic motion actually helps.

You can get far more exercise while you work than you can in your free time, simply because time spent working > available free time for most people. It all depends on how long and how much you exert yourself. Based on my desk's power meter, I burn about 1200 calories/day while I work.

milkey_mouse• 5 years ago

Ah, 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...

cosmodisk2• 5 years ago

Is 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

mackrevinack2• 5 years ago

yea 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

cosmodisk2• 5 years ago

It 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.

vosper2• 5 years ago

I 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• 5 years ago

You mean a stepper?

https://www.amazon.com/-/us/dp/B07NRCZHYJ/

vosper2• 5 years ago

I 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

Sohcahtoa82• 5 years ago

I 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

donretag• 5 years ago

Years (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• 5 years ago

Jeez, just go for a walk or a run. I do my best work thinking while jogging.

ck2• 5 years ago

Okay 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• 5 years ago

My 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• 5 years ago

Listening 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• 5 years ago

Upvoted 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.

Hacking a $200 Under Desk Exercise Bike

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