CycleBridgePhone GPS and a heart rate strap · iPhone
iPhone GPS and a heart rate strap
The setup for finding out whether you want a bike computer at all. The phone locates itself, a standard Bluetooth strap supplies heart rate, and the ride is written to Apple Health with its route when you stop.
What you need
- An iPhone in a handlebar mount, or in a pocket — the recording keeps going with the screen off
- Optionally, any Bluetooth heart rate sensor that speaks the standard Heart Rate service: a chest strap, an armband, or a Garmin watch in broadcast mode
- Location access allowed while riding, and Health access allowed for saving workouts
Setting it up
Choose the phone as the data source
In Settings, set Data source to This Phone.
Allow location
CycleBridge asks for location the first time it needs it. It records at the best accuracy the phone offers and only when a fix has moved at least five metres, which is what keeps the track clean at a standstill.
Put the strap on
The app scans for the standard Bluetooth Heart Rate service and connects to the first sensor it finds. There is no pairing screen and nothing to name; a strap is connected when the heart rate field shows its green dot.
On the ride
- Start, pause and stop on the phone
- The Start capsule begins the ride, and pause and resume are local to the phone. Ride time is the phone’s own pause-aware clock.
- The screen can go off
- Location and Bluetooth keep running in the background on iOS, so the phone can ride in a jersey pocket and the log carries on.
Where the ride ends up
- A cycling workout in Apple Health, with heart rate samples and a workout route, written by the phone when you stop
- A line in CycleBridge’s own ride log, and the route as a GPX file you can export
Battery, in this setup
The rank of each way of riding this setup among the 7 the app’s battery model compares, longest-lasting first. It is an order, not hours: the model adds up component draws, and nothing has been measured yet, so no figure is printed.
- 2Phone mode, phone in a pocketLight drain
Still locating you once a second, but with nothing to light up.
- 4Phone mode, screen onHeavy drain
The phone’s own GNSS running continuously, with a Bluetooth heart rate strap.
- 5Phone mode, screen on, map openHeaviest drain
The most expensive way to ride: GNSS, plus map tiles fetching and redrawing.
Questions
Which heart rate straps work?
Any sensor that advertises the standard Bluetooth Low Energy Heart Rate service — the same one every chest strap, most armbands and a Garmin watch in Broadcast Heart Rate mode use. CycleBridge speaks the standard service and nothing proprietary.
Is the ride saved to Apple Health?
Yes, in this setup only. A ride fed by a watch is recorded by the watch; a phone-only ride has no other record, so the phone writes the workout and its route itself.
How long will the phone last?
Nobody has measured it yet, and the app’s battery model prints no figure rather than a modelled one. What the model does support is the order: with the screen on, the display costs more than the GPS does, so turning the screen off matters more than anything else in this setup.