Show HN: Workout Tracker – self-hosted, single binary web application

https://github.com/jovandeginste/workout-tracker

by jovdg • 2 years ago

263 97 2 years ago

I tried some web tools to track my workouts (specifically, running); some (like FitTrackee) came close, but I always found annoyances. So I decided to build my own. Specifically geared towards distance-based workouts, such as walking, running or cycling.

shantnutiwari• 2 years ago

nice. How do you track teh distance (walked or running?)

abound4• 2 years ago

Without diving in too deeply, it looks like they use a package called `gpxgo` [1], which has some code for calculating the moving distance of a given GPX file [2].

[1] https://github.com/tkrajina/gpxgo

[2] https://github.com/tkrajina/gpxgo/blob/5e7c336e94dac3583a07c...

jovdg10• 2 years ago

Not sure exactly what you are asking about, so I'll be verbose :-)

I use an app called FitoTrack (also FOSS), which records my location while running. It stores my GPS position every few seconds. When I'm done, it auto-exports a GPX file to a folder on my phone, which is synced via syncthing. Then I (manually, for now) upload the file to my self-hosted workout tracker.

The GPX file contains some data per measurement point; this is the second point in some random GPX file:

      <trkpt lat="x" lon="y">
        <ele>56.72105575919558</ele>
        <extensions>
          <speed>1.8200000524520874</speed>
          <wstxns2:TrackPointExtension xmlns:wstxns2="gpxtxp"/>
        </extensions>
        <time>2024-02-28T09:28:26Z</time>
      </trkpt>

So it contains speed (average since previous point), elevation, location and time (offtopic: it took me a while to understand that this elevation is not the actual elevation above sea level; only yesterday I figured that out and fixed it in the code!).

The Go GPX library some of this information, and some extras (like max and min elevation, max speed, total up and down, etc. over the whole track). Then I perform some more calculations (like putting the points in buckets per km and per minute), and calculate the estimated location using a geocoder library.

Then, finally, to estimate the difference between walking, running, or cycling, I take the average speed and guesstimate from there. This may be wrong some times for some people, and could be improved on. Or maybe I should include an AI here? (just kidding)

abound4• 2 years ago

This looks truly excellent, nice work! I've been using RideWithGPS, which is a great tool, but doesn't scratch my "self-host everything, own my own data" itch, so I'll definitely be checking this out. I've built (and use daily) my own barebones workout tracker [1], but it's for non-distance-based workouts (i.e. rep-based stuff/lifts), so this compliments that nicely.

[1] https://github.com/bcspragu/stronk

juiiiced• 2 years ago

How many things do you self host and how do you manage them all?

abound4• 2 years ago

  $ kubectl get deployments.apps | wc -l
  25

Minus the header, looks like ~24. I use a single-node Kubernetes cluster running Talos [1]. Running a single-node cluster is kinda dumb architecturally, but adding a new service takes <10 minutes most of the time, which is nice. I've standardized on Cuelang [2] for my configs, so adding a new service is some DNS/Caddy config fiddling, then:

  deployment: <service>: spec: template: spec: {
   containers: [{
    ports: [...]
    command: [...]
    volumeMounts: [...]
   }]
   volumes: [...]
  }

And then running:

  cue export \
    --out yaml \
    --expression 'deployment.<service>' \
    --expression 'service.<service>' \
    kube.cue <service>/<service>.cue | kubectl apply -f -

Where `kube.cue` sets reasonable defaults (e.g. image is <local registry>/<service>). The "cluster" runs on a mini PC in my basement, and I have a small Digital Ocean VM with a static IP acting as an ingress (networking via Tailscale). Backups to cloud storage with restic, alerting/monitoring with Prometheus/Grafana, Caddy/Tailscale for local ingress.

[1] https://www.talos.dev/

[2] https://cuelang.org/

vimeh• 2 years ago

This is great! Am a fan of this kind of focused, self hosted application.

Clean UI, too. Interested to hear your thoughts on HTMX when you get around to eval-ing it

jovdg10• 2 years ago

I did some evaluation of HTMX a few weeks ago; while I understand the appeal, it does not yet ... vibe with me. Also, the use for HTMX is still very limited in this project. I don't think this will really change, because the project is fairly focused and will remain so for the time being. Maybe there is an opportunity with the statistics and graphs? Like switch the buckets between km, miles, and number of those (1 km, 5 km, etc), of zoom to more years.

xnx6• 2 years ago

I love the minor movement toward self-hosted web apps. I wish they were easy enough to setup as installing an app on Android or iPhone.

ramon156• 2 years ago

Hole in the market? Maybe a NAS-type system for self host? Something a bit stronger than a raspberry

panzagl• 2 years ago

Synology NASes are a popular choice.

xnx6• 2 years ago

I do think there's a niche hole in the market for a cloud host that's as easy to use as the major app stores. Fiddling with hardware and network routing is way too technical.

jollyllama• 2 years ago

They tried this with a device called Helm Personal Server. No, not the Kubernetes manager.

KomoD2• 2 years ago

There's Umbrel which sells a device like that, or YunoHost + your own device

Umbrel is just plug-and-play with an app store, haven't personally tried it but looks very cool.

CardenB• 2 years ago

This is basically what HOOBS markets. They've really fallen to the movement of open source though.

I think there's still a world in which you can buy an rPi with software preinstalled and updaters packaged without much effort though.

If that could take off, you could easily have this type of service. However, I think it falls apart because you need to govern the app store and that is expensive and difficult.

giobox• 2 years ago

While not as easy as an appstore, the modern Docker ecosystem IMO has made self hosting web apps at home super cheap/easy.

Use your old PC, a Raspberry Pi, an EC2 instance, whatever you like, a single small Docker Compose file with Watchtower for auto-updating the container image when new one published etc. I've got self-hosted services that have ran untouched for years this way at home from a handful of lines of YML. Docker Compose will also take care of restarting the service on reboot/powercut if thats a concern.

Given the ubiquity of container images, you can run largely any web application this way and the container image likely already exists - this project also has a Dockerfile and would run fine this way too.

easyas1243• 2 years ago

Why would you use Docker at all? Just run the application behind a reverse proxy. Docker doesn't get you anything except an extra management headache and an abstraction that happily punches holes in your firewall.

VyseofArcadia4• 2 years ago

I think a good question to ask is, what is gained here by being a web app? Couldn't this just be an Android or iPhone (or even desktop!) app?

jovdg10• 2 years ago

I can access it from any of my devices (laptops, desktop, phone), and my family can use it too.

xnx6• 2 years ago

Web app = Always on. No interruption from power outages or wifi problems. Higher bandwidth and more anonymous (if it's going to make requests).

Virtual android device in the cloud might be a great model for it since Android has good built-in security and process isolation.

kristiandupont• 2 years ago

Well that question implies that there is some intrinsic reason not to build it as a web app. That may be the case for you if you prefer Kotlin or Swift or something, but it wouldn't be the case for me.

mnutt• 2 years ago

That was the promise of Sandstorm. "Easy to install" is important but sandboxing and data protection _even of the data you give the app itself_ is just as important. I really hope it or something like it succeeds someday.

Edit: this app would probably make for a great Sandstorm app.

imiric• 2 years ago

Cloudron and YunoHost are Sandstorm alternatives that seem to have more traction.

nucleative• 2 years ago

Some kind of an app store concept on a VPS that le's you just plug in these self hosted projects, like installing an Android app, is really interesting. I think docker is the closest thing we have but I could be wrong, and it's much too technical for any average person.

I've been slowly moving everything to self hosted to reduce the pain if/when I'm ever randomly banned from Google or some other huge network and can't get it re-enabled.

The downside is that I'm now my own IT department and need to perpetually monitor these things.

agilob• 2 years ago

Alternative https://github.com/aceberg/ExerciseDiary

abusaidm• 2 years ago

This is a great looking project. The combo of single binary Go-lang and the ability to package assets like css, js and html makes this a killed multi platform distributable one click run.

It might be an interesting experiment to have the UI be installable as PWA and thereby not need the electron stack to achieve the common functionality offered by these apps.

turtlebits• 2 years ago

This would a great candidate for https://wails.io/. I've been building a lot of utility desktop apps and the static binary is around 9mb (uses the system webview).

ggpsv• 2 years ago

I'm also eyeing wails for a couple of personal desktop apps that I want to build soon. I built toy app first towards the end of last year to try it out and I was impressed. It felt like a nice middle ground between Electron and Tauri for desktop apps using a web front-end. Looking forward to the release of v3!

tamimio• 2 years ago

Looks good!! On time for the coming spring!

mattegan• 2 years ago

Sweet! Would love to host this myself and get rid of my Strava subscription.

I wrote a Python script that iterates through all of my activities there and downloads the `.gpx` for each - I could share the code if interested! Not sure how you'd integrate it into your app - maybe a "import from Strava" page could handle the Strava API auth?

I also love this idea of self-hosting some web apps (especially if they're containerized). I setup a `util.` subdomain and have started putting a few things there at different root directories. It's fun!

doakes• 2 years ago

I'm interested in your Python script!

jovdg10• 2 years ago

Would you mind cleaning up your script and open-sourcing it? It could be a sort of external component to many such projects...

lapetitejort• 2 years ago

Slightly off topic, but I got tired of looking for a good weight training tracker, so instead I bought a notebook and a pencil and I've been using it for nearly two years. If I want to change up how I long my workouts, I just write them in a different way. I've changed how I log number of sets/reps, weight per set, etc, a few times and I've never had to re-program how the info is displayed. I log how I feel after the workout and use that and the weight from last session to guide what I'll be doing in the current session. I don't need a graph as I can clearly see the values going up or stagnating. I honestly feel like the analog process has helped me keep consistent. It's motivated me to get more notebooks to track stuff like household chores. Sometimes the best app is a piece of paper.

salad-tycoon• 2 years ago

I bought the starting strength app, no subscription and has a couple of quality of life improvements like a timer, plate calculator, graphs etc and some actually helpful no nonsense videos and book excerpts. very little distractions.

Agree with you though, pen and paper is hard to beat and cheaper.

drBonkers• 2 years ago

Can I see your paper template?

What if you want to graph tonnage?

zhivota• 2 years ago

I have a Google Keep note where I record the results from the last workout. I figured out I really only need that. I don't need history, I just need to know how long ago was the last workout, how much did I lift / time under tension, so I can make a decision about today's program.

I love fancy graphs for my endurance work but for lifting, I feel like this is pretty much all I really need.

mangateparu• 2 years ago

In a similar vain but with history and progression, I have a Google Sheet where I track all my lifts. Its easy to spot when I should increase my lift. Maybe every 5-6 weeks I need to make a new sheet so it doesn't get too unruly.

eg. Exercise | SetsReps | Feb 26 | Mar 1

----------------------------------------------------------

Dumbbell Chest Press | 3 x 8 | 65, 8 8 8 | 70, 8 8 5

Dumbbell Chest Fly | 3 x 8 | 16, 8 8 8 | 20, 8 8 6

Exercise | Sets x Reps | Feb 28 | Mar 3

----------------------------------------------------------

Knee Jumps | 3 x 8 | BW, 8 8 8 | BW, 8 8 8

Pull-ups. | 3 x AMRAP | 4, 3, 2. | 3, 3, 2

KB Swings | 10M EMOM | (216) 10M | (2*16) F@7M

Bent DB Row | 3x8. | (swap cable row) 60, 8 8 8 | 40, 8 8 8

nose-wuzzy-pad• 2 years ago

Looks great!

Any chance you plan for it to work with .fit files?

Thanks for making this!

jovdg10• 2 years ago

Yes, as stated in the README... I would love to. There seem to be some libraries to parse the .fit file, so when I have more time, I'll take a look at that.

jovdg10• 2 years ago

https://github.com/jovandeginste/workout-tracker/pull/5

Osiris• 2 years ago

By "Workout" do mean only exercise that can be tracked via GPS (walking, running, cycling)?

It doesn't seem to track any indoor activities like weight lifting.

wredue2• 2 years ago

Yeah. I was also gleefully looking cause lifting trackers are universally garbage.

Diet trackers (Calorie Counters) are also almost universally a pain in the ass, but at least they’re tolerable.

There is not a single combined lifestyle experience that is any “good” IMO.

dominick-cc• 2 years ago

For lifting, check out Gymstro. Free and very good. I recently switched over from FitNotes (also free and good, but quirky).

InitialLastName2• 2 years ago

I've only been using it since I saw it recommended a few weeks ago, but for Hacker's Diet[RIP, 0]-style diet tracking MacroFactor has been unbeatable. Nothing dumb or meaninglessly social, just weight+nutrition tracking. In recognition that humans are imperfect and that both sides of CI/CO are more complicated than is apparent, they have built the system around a "best effort" vibe; systematic bias gets filtered out through feedback (if you regularly underestimate the calories you actually eat, the system will feed back by lowering your limits).

[0] https://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

ralfhn• 2 years ago

Checkout Fitbod for lifting. It's pretty good!

gejose• 2 years ago

Very curious about what you dislike about lifting trackers.

I built a weightlifting tracker primarily for myself a little while ago and also published it. I tried to keep the UX as simple as possible. If you're ever looking to try out another app, give it a shot! https://titangymapp.com.

jovdg10• 2 years ago

Yes, GPX based workouts. Did you look at FitoTrack?

e12e• 2 years ago

https://codeberg.org/jannis/FitoTrack ?

wly_cdgr2• 2 years ago

Heck yeah, this is awesome.

Any chance of some kind of social features? I want to control my data, but I also do want to be able to share my fitness stats & journey with a specific self-selected group of people: friends, running club mates, etc

Thank you for making this!

jovdg10• 2 years ago

Do you mean some kind of "share with Social" button? Or do you mean anonymous access to your recent activities?

wly_cdgr2• 2 years ago

I mean an integrated social feed for just your couple dozen hand-picked fitness friends, and ability to see each other's stats etc.

freedomben3• 2 years ago

This looks super neat and would be very useful. What apps/devices do people use to collec the GPX information? I found a few in the Play Store but they don't look very privacy respecting...

Edit: Currently eyeing GPSLogger: https://gpslogger.app/

jovdg10• 2 years ago

Check out FitoTrack

nexle• 2 years ago

If you have a Galaxy Watch you can export workout as GPX file through the Samsung Health app

Otek• 2 years ago

Anyone has good resources on importing such data from apple - I’m using Apple Watch but would love to visualize raw data myself with grafana

klaushardt• 2 years ago

HealthFit can export Workouts as .gpx or .fit files.

mikestew• 2 years ago

Sibling mentions HealthFit, and there's RunGap as well. I use RunGap simply because HealthFit doesn't do Garmin. With the exception of Garmin, either could be a good choice.

eitally• 2 years ago

I came into the github not expecting to like this, but you've done a great job so far! I currently use a combination of Garmin Connect (track on watch & head unit), Intervals.icu (for fitness/freshness and more obvious tracking of performance improvement over time via various power & HR metrics), Strava (for segment and route performance change over time, and of course the social aspect... and routing), Komoot (only for cycling routing), and Elevate for Strava (just testing now, but it looks like a crappier version of intervals.icu so far), and Smashrun for running-only tracking. Oh, and Veloviewer for cycling-only performance/history and route visualizations.

It's a lot.

The problem is that there isn't a single place where you can get both the holistic metrics and the plan in a way that most users will want (which almost mandates a Strava interface). Apps like Veloviewer or Elevate already have this, but both either fall very short functionally or specifically only target a subset of features.

When I complete a run or ride, the first thing is to check Garmin to see how it related to, or impacted, my physiological health metrics, since I rely on Garmin for things like sleep quality, training readiness, and load tracking. Then to Strava to see how it went compared the previous times on the route and look at segments, or perhaps to give kudos to someone I was with. Then to intervals.icu to dig into the performance metrics (power, HR).

Intervals.icu is great because it handles workout planning, too, but the one big thing it's missing is routes & segments for IRL activities. Veloviewer has this, but it is missing all of the training/planning/fitness features. Imho, the killer app in the space is going to be whoever is able to augment the planning/tracking pieces, which are largely grunt work to develop, with the social bits that Strava has. The existential risk for indy devs is that your product is just a feature for Strava, and you could easily become disintermediated (or they shut down or charge exorbitant rates for API access -- it's already highly rate limited).

You're doing great work, but I'll keep paying for intervals.icu, Strava & Veloviewer for now because they all do slightly different things, even if there's significant overlap.

pcchristie2• 2 years ago

I just can't get past the Intervals design. Wanted to like it but it's an absolute cluster for me.

mgl• 2 years ago

I use a similar mix but with runanalyze.com

Solvency• 2 years ago

I exercises like a fiend yet your slavish adherence to logging and scrutinizing these numbers sounds exhausting in comparison. Are you a world class athlete trying to shave .02 seconds off a 10K? If not, try just going outside for a jog or mountain bike with some friends and go home and relax once. I bet your biometrics end up the same, if not better, and you don't even need to check.

idiotsecant• 2 years ago

That's pretty condescending. For some people the data is not just a means to an end. Its an end itself.

LandR• 2 years ago

I wonder how the accurate the biometrics even are on things like smarth watches ?

Abishek_Muthian• 2 years ago

Piggybacking on the top comment to mention Gadgetbridge[1] A FOSS, cloudless replacement for the proprietary android apps of the fitness trackers. It can export the data as .gpx files which seems to be format used by Workout Tracker as well.

Those who want to use fitness trackers but are put off by trade off with privacy, Gadgetbridge and self-hosted applications like Workout Tracker are great alternatives.

[1] https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge

matthewhartmans• 2 years ago

Well done and congratulations on the launch! Looks incredible mate!

Show HN: Workout Tracker – self-hosted, single binary web application

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