Xperia Active for Fitness! CM10.2?

[ntoqiakt]

I recently bought a used Xperia Active mainly to be used as a cycling computer (with the awesome app OruxMaps) and for recording my runs using Endomondo. The stock ROM was bloated with all sorts so after a few days it just had to go.

First I flashed CM10.1 but apparently the BT stack is borked on that so Ant+ is not working, so I flashed CM10 and everything works great or at least everything that I need. It connects to my BT x-fit headphones, BT Polar HRM and Ant+ B'Twin Speed and Cadence sensor without any major issues - the audio cuts out occasionally but I'm not sure if it's an issue with Google Music/All Access or a 3G connectivity or BT issue and haven't bothered investigating to be honest.

I've read that the BT stack in 4.3 is better and supports BT BLE which I might decide to use for fitness accessories - although reading about Ant+, it sounds a far better option for that sort of thing.

So, is CM10.2 likely to come to the Active? I'm assuming there shouldn't be an issue in terms of hardware, is there?

Also, if there are any fellow runners/cyclists with any app suggestions to motivate/record/map/etc I'd like to hear from you!

My setup as I said is OruxMaps for cycling. I tried IpBike which is not bad either, but didn't like the UI. I also tried a couple of other apps, but haven't seen anything that I liked. Apparently Cyclemeter is great on the i-Devices but their FAQ says: "We do hope to do an Android version of our app, but it’s not in our near term plans. We’ve had a great response from customers on the iPhone, and they provide lots of feedback for us about new features they’d like to see. Wish we could have said otherwise, it would be great to have you as a customer!"

OruxMaps uses MapMyTracks.com for live tracking and you can email the GPX of your ride to Strava straight from the app. BTW, I have no association with OruxMaps!

For running I have a premium subscription with Endomondo. I like the flexibility of the audio coach and I just noticed that they have a new beta feature on their website: 'Training Plans' where you enter your goal, goal date, number of training days, pace, etc and it creates a... Training Plan. Probably not as good as getting a customised training plan from a coach, but it's probably on par to the generic ones you can find online. I also export my runs and import them to Strava.

Regarding Strava, they have a much better looking website than Endomondo, and without a doubt the segments for cycling are awesome, but their apps are a long way from being great. Apart from being much less customisable, they only support Zephyr HxM and have no plans on supporting Polar HRMs. Apparently "there are connectivity issues with Polar HRMs and they want to give their customers the best possible experience!". I have used my Polar HRM with a number of different apps, phones and Android versions and it seems to be working fine 99% of the time, so I don't see why they can't support it. Also, it's hard to justify paying almost double of what Endomondo's premium subscription costs - but perhaps their analysis is better?


NT

 

[optiplus]

Hi,

I can tell you to try the uBike.apk

For me is the best for cycling.

Regards

Joao

 

[tartanblue]

I've been considering buying this device to be used for working out as well, so thanks for confirming that Google Play Music will work on it! I'll be interesting to see if things get better with different ROMs.

 

[laquer09]

Amazing! I thought I was the only one. I was on a year long quest to find the perfect (and better) substitute for the ever popular garmin 800 series. I do a lot of credit card touring, lots of country riding where I create the route using ridewithgps, DL as gpx and off I go. Oruxmaps has proved to be the perfect app for me when I'm doing any real riding/recording, and I use an app called Osmand+ if I'm doing a little bit more exploratory or want better navigation options (its got far better offline POI capabilities, so it helps if you get stuck in a rainstorm and need to find some kind of nearby shelter). I'm pumped to hear someone else went this route as most of my racing buddies are too high brow to get anything other than a garmin.

On a sidenote, I came up with a pretty incredible and simple (read: easy to do if you're a dummy with epoxy) way to get the male bit of the garmin mount on the back of the xperia so I could use all the low profile and cool garmin mounts. If you're interested let me know and I can give you a super easy step by step.

All that said, I'm really struggling to find a reason to root/mod the phone. I use it purely as a cycling computer right now (but plan to probably get my music on there too depending on battery life). It performs amazingly at this task as-is. Super snappy, the only thing I hate is having to look at the extra icons of the apps I'll never use. One thing I really wanted to get from rooting was the ability to skip the lock screen as that gets pretty annoying during a ride and potentially so I could remap the hardware buttons to something more useful while cycling (perhaps have it cycle through all the available apps? dunno, but it sounds cool). But, I found an app that lets you skip the lockscreen, so that major requirement has already been met.

Aside from the bloatware, have you found any nice advantages to rooting and putting on CM? Thanks in advance -

Rick

 

[optiplus]

Hi Rick,

If is possible for you to send this to mu email acount ([email protected]) I thank you very much.

Regards

On a sidenote, I came up with a pretty incredible and simple (read: easy to do if you're a dummy with epoxy) way to get the male bit of the garmin mount on the back of the xperia so I could use all the low profile and cool garmin mounts. If you're interested let me know and I can give you a super easy step by step.

 

[ntoqiakt]

Thanks for the replies guys! I was sure that there must've been other Active users/fans!

@optiplus Thanks, had a look and looks interesting! I'll have to give it ago!

@tartanblue @laquer09 What I found when I flashed CM10 was that the phone is snappier and the battery lasts a lot longer. Although I didn't do any scientific testing, with the stock ROM I would ride for an hour or so, leave it unplugged overnight and that was that pretty much. (no other usage, just on standby) With CM10 I was really surprised that it lasted a similar ride and more than 48 hours on standby. It's not a huge achievement in the sense that I have turned off all syncing, there's no Facebook or anything running, but the stock ROM has a lot of stuff running. Another thing that CM10 fixed was the super annoying flickering issue and also, at full brightness at CM10 is a lot brighter than stock, which seemed to go very bright as soon as I unlocked it and then dim. I checked the setting and it was not on auto brightness and tried with the Bravia engine on and off. Didn't work. CM10 fixed it.

I like having the screen on during the right to check cadence, speed, etc as I ride, so on the odd occasion that we were graced with a sunny day, increased brightness helped! Although I think OruxMaps has a setting to keep the screen on I use Screebl (I've linked to the paid version, but there's a free Lite version too which works well, but I found it so useful, that I just had to support the dev. I've been using it since the days of my HTC Magic - Oh how far we've come!!)

Also, as a stock Nexus user, Sony's software is just... revolting! Even the little things like the toggles in the notifications drawer is great. (and I prefer the CM way to the Google way... but what can you do?)

Having said that, for purely cycling purposes I guess stock or CM10 doesn't make a huge difference. Also, flashing the Active was a bit more complicated than I would've liked.

Regarding mounts, I got the xperia active bike holder from SportyPal (Review) and it's simple, solid and having the Active on it really looks like it's a Garmin. (when I read it back it looked like I was embarrassed about using the Active instead of the Garmin, but I didn't mean it like that!! Just that the whole mount+Active combo is quite diminutive!)

I also recently heard about the Finn and thought for 12 euros it'd be rude not to get one. When the weather is good I'd like to try recording with OruxMaps on the Active and maybe the Strava Cycling app on the Nexus 4 and see how different the results are.

Honestly though I do wish Strava pulled their finger out and sorted out their apps. How cool (and I imagine relatively easy for developers who are worth their salt) it would be to have proper BT/Ant+ support, customisable dashboard and segment notifier which would buzz to let you know that you're entering a segment!! And they would totally kill it if they added track creation capabilities on their website! But I'm just dreaming!

 

[laquer09]

Hi Rick,

If is possible for you to send this to mu email acount ([email protected]) I thank you very much.

Regards

I can email you as well, but I kinda thought other folks might like to see this so I posted it up here. Let me know if you still need the email.

Things you need:

1. The male bit of the garmin mount. These are not easy to find because for the most part, the male bit is part of the plastic mold on garmin devices. However, I found this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006BACP6A/ref=pe_385040_30332190_pe_175190_21431760_3p_M3T1_ST1_dp_i1
2. Epoxy putty - http://spasandmore.com/catalog/quic...ts-to-repair-your-pool-spa-hot-tub-59502.html
3. A razor blade or hobby knife...something pretty dang sharp and fairly rigid. This will be used for cutting the male bit.
4. Like 45 minutes of time

What to do:

1. Take the male bit thingy from the package of stuff - image attached. Cut it around the raised edge. You can see where I cut mine in one of the attached images. The plastic was actually not difficult to cut, at all.
2. Score both the back of the xperia and the male bit pretty good. I used the edge of a scissor to do it and it worked fine.
3. Take out that epoxy, cut a bit of it off, and knead it with your fingers (basically, read the instructions on how to use it. I am not awesome at this kind of stuff and it was really straightforward).
4. Put the kneaded putty on the back of the phone, then simply press that male bit into the putty. Wait the recommended amount of time for setting (pretty sure its between 1-2 hours)

You're done. Go get whatever garmin mount you like (I really like the SRAM one that sits out in front of the bars, but you can use any of their mounts or the sweet looking barfly one.

Couple things to note

- I waaay overused the putty here. This was supposed to be my test case so I was overdoing it on purpose. Functionally its totally fine, but it is a tad ugly. After you plop the male bit onto the putty, you could probably trim a bunch of it.
- Scared its not going to hold? Don't worry, I was too. This is where that what-I-thought-was-completely-useless-lanyard comes into play. I actually put the lanyard in the phone and then ran the lanyard over my bars. I did this maybe for the first week, but I live in Chicago and I tested it using my cross bike / commuter over some really really really crappy roads with my tires at 110. I was pretty convinced after a week and stopped using the lanyard. And then I lowered my psi back to normal chicago 90 so my butt wouldn't hurt anymore Still, better safe than sorry right.
- One cool side benefit, among 100s of others, is the flashlight feature of the phone. Now, I just set it to strobe and turn it on at night...boom, no longer need a bike light
- Using bluetooth headphones and whatever music app you want rules. I didn't know how much I'd adore it before I tried...but having the ability to cycle through songs, albums, playlists....amazing.
- My xperia came with 2 backs...one black and one white. This, my supposed to be test case, is the white one. As you can see, it gets dirty. Might want to use the black one and maybe paint/marker up the putty so it matches.

Let me know if you've got any questions, and good luck. I could not be flipping happier about the way this all turned out, and my racing buddies are starting to get jealous. Lets see...a garmin 810 for 600 bucks, or a phone that has multiple options for mapping/tracking (free), can be your music player and emergency phone call maker (or anything else you can do with the android platform) for a whopping 188 bucks and maybe 20 bucks on the mount stuff.

Win

Rick

 

[ntoqiakt]

Thanks so much for posting this. I wanted to ask you in my previous post to put it somewhere like G+ or a cycling blog or something but I guess here is just fine!

I can email you as well, but I kinda thought other folks might like to see this so I posted it up here. Let me know if you still need the email.

Things you need:

1. The male bit of the garmin mount. These are not easy to find because for the most part, the male bit is part of the plastic mold on garmin devices. However, I found this: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B006BACP6A/ref=pe_385040_30332190_pe_175190_21431760_3p_M3T1_ST1_dp_i1
2. Epoxy putty - http://spasandmore.com/catalog/quic...ts-to-repair-your-pool-spa-hot-tub-59502.html
3. A razor blade or hobby knife...something pretty dang sharp and fairly rigid. This will be used for cutting the male bit.
4. Like 45 minutes of time

What to do:

1. Take the male bit thingy from the package of stuff - image attached. Cut it around the raised edge. You can see where I cut mine in one of the attached images. The plastic was actually not difficult to cut, at all.
2. Score both the back of the xperia and the male bit pretty good. I used the edge of a scissor to do it and it worked fine.
3. Take out that epoxy, cut a bit of it off, and knead it with your fingers (basically, read the instructions on how to use it. I am not awesome at this kind of stuff and it was really straightforward).
4. Put the kneaded putty on the back of the phone, then simply press that male bit into the putty. Wait the recommended amount of time for setting (pretty sure its between 1-2 hours)

You're done. Go get whatever garmin mount you like (I really like the SRAM one that sits out in front of the bars, but you can use any of their mounts or the sweet looking barfly one.

Couple things to note

- I waaay overused the putty here. This was supposed to be my test case so I was overdoing it on purpose. Functionally its totally fine, but it is a tad ugly. After you plop the male bit onto the putty, you could probably trim a bunch of it.
- Scared its not going to hold? Don't worry, I was too. This is where that what-I-thought-was-completely-useless-lanyard comes into play. I actually put the lanyard in the phone and then ran the lanyard over my bars. I did this maybe for the first week, but I live in Chicago and I tested it using my cross bike / commuter over some really really really crappy roads with my tires at 110. I was pretty convinced after a week and stopped using the lanyard. And then I lowered my psi back to normal chicago 90 so my butt wouldn't hurt anymore Still, better safe than sorry right.
- One cool side benefit, among 100s of others, is the flashlight feature of the phone. Now, I just set it to strobe and turn it on at night...boom, no longer need a bike light
- Using bluetooth headphones and whatever music app you want rules. I didn't know how much I'd adore it before I tried...but having the ability to cycle through songs, albums, playlists....amazing.
- My xperia came with 2 backs...one black and one white. This, my supposed to be test case, is the white one. As you can see, it gets dirty. Might want to use the black one and maybe paint/marker up the putty so it matches.

Let me know if you've got any questions, and good luck. I could not be flipping happier about the way this all turned out, and my racing buddies are starting to get jealous. Lets see...a garmin 810 for 600 bucks, or a phone that has multiple options for mapping/tracking (free), can be your music player and emergency phone call maker (or anything else you can do with the android platform) for a whopping 188 bucks and maybe 20 bucks on the mount stuff.

Win

Rick

 

[laquer09]

Thanks so much for posting this. I wanted to ask you in my previous post to put it somewhere like G+ or a cycling blog or something but I guess here is just fine!

No problem - I'd love to post it on a cycling blog/forum if you can point me to the right one. There are so many out there...I've never actually joined any. I could also put it on G+...PM me your email address and I'll add you into one of my groups and post it there. Even though this solution was simple, it took me a darn long time to come up with and I'd love to save folks the time/effort/money/despair.

FWIW, I used it on a 60mi custom route I made this weekend and it was friggin flawless. Not a single missed turn and the route was perfect. I've recently started listening to music using it via my BT headphones. That is so much win I can barely handle it.

Rick

 

[bloszek]

I recently bought a used Xperia Active mainly to be used as a cycling computer (with the awesome app OruxMaps) and for recording my runs using Endomondo. The stock ROM was bloated with all sorts so after a few days it just had to go.

First I flashed CM10.1 but apparently the BT stack is borked on that so Ant+ is not working, so I flashed CM10 and everything works great or at least everything that I need. It connects to my BT x-fit headphones, BT Polar HRM and Ant+ B'Twin Speed and Cadence sensor without any major issues - the audio cuts out occasionally but I'm not sure if it's an issue with Google Music/All Access or a 3G connectivity or BT issue and haven't bothered investigating to be honest.



NT

Hello,
at the begining i would like say "hello" im new member on xda so BTW...
I'm looking for CM10 working with SE Xperia Active ST17I.
I saw that upgrade was succesfull.
Could You tell me where download (all links "died") or share package of working files to upgrade Xperia Active to CM10 and android 4.1.2?
I ve upgraded xperia to 4.0.4 and I would like try highest version of software. It is great device for active Cyclists.

Please help. Thank You for reply :good:
Regards