Oct 1, 2012 7:00 AM

Product Review: Wahoo Fitness Run/Gym Pack for iPhone

The Run/Gym Pack for iPhone by Wahoo Fitness has come to my rescue for integrating everything I want in my geeky running workout! I have reviewed numerous other fitness apps and each of them held a slice of a puzzle of gadgetry that I have come to know and love. Wahoo Fitness put everything together for me! The company has found a niche in coming up with iOS-device-compatible fitness technologies, including Bluetooth-enabled cadence and pace sensors, ANT+ transmitters and receivers, and bike computers.

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The Run/Gym Pack for iPhone by Wahoo Fitness has come to my rescue for integrating everything I want in my geeky running workout. I have reviewed numerous other fitness apps and each of them held a slice of a puzzle of gadgetry that I have come to know and love. Wahoo Fitness put everything together for me!

The company has found a niche in coming up with iOS-device-compatible fitness technologies, including Bluetooth-enabled cadence and pace sensors, ANT+ transmitters and receivers, and bike computers.

Wahoo's free fitness app brings together numerous statistics, GPS-mapping and now the heart rate monitor into a one-stop shop for all the data you could ever dream of! I've reviewed many of these parts separately, from the Nike+ Running and iMapMyFitness apps, to the Sportiiiis heart rate monitor, to the Bluetooth headphones that give you plenty of freedom from cables. Everything together has been heavenly!

I tested the Wahoo Fitness Pack on my iPhone 4S. It will also work with other generations of iPhones, iPod Touches and even the iPad. The ANT+ key will not be compatible with the new iPhone 5, but might work with a charger adapter.

NOTE: Do you have an iPhone 5? Check out their Bluetooth-enabled heart rate strap, which has been deemed iPhone 5-compatible.

Let's take a tour, shall we?

What Comes in the Box

Wahoo "Fisica Key", the ANT+ receiver that plugs into the iOS device's charging port
Wahoo Fitness soft heart rate belt and sensor
Instruction leaflet

Setup

There are batteries in the heart rate monitor already, and the key is powered by the iOS device, so everything arrives ready to go. But first, download the free Wahoo Fitness App from the iTunes store. Once you install this, you're set to plug in your Wahoo key and put on the soft heart rate belt/sensor.

Plugging in the Wahoo key to your iPhone and selecting the "Connect" button to read it is very easy. Screen capture: Patricia Vollmer.

Connecting your Wahoo key to the app is incredibly easy: when you start the app, you'll be able to choose what kind of workout you're doing. I selected "Running". Then under the "Quick Settings", I selected the "Running Settings". You can customize the properties of the running workout, and also select the "Add New" option under "Sensors Used". Select "Heart Rate" and wait for the app to recognize the Wahoo sensor. When it recognizes the heart rate sensor it will immediately display the current reading, as shown in the screen capture above.

From the same "Running Settings" menu you can customize what statistics you want displayed during your workout. There's an incredible variety of options here: GPS pace and speed data, current/average heart rate data, and map data.

This is also where you can set up "Triggers" that will notify you when you hit customized break points in the workout, such as high heart rates, slow speeds or certain distances.

When you go back to the homepage, it's as simple as hitting the giant green button at the bottom of the home screen to start your workout.

This is the data listing I chose. I also asked the app to notify me verbally at every mile. I know I had just started running, but I like how it's showing that I'm running fast. Screen capture: Patricia Vollmer.

Swiping the screens during your workout will give you this real-time mapping option. Screen capture: Patricia Vollmer.

This is one of the screen options during your workout. You can add an iTunes playlist to your Wahoo app to manage during your workout. If you want to play a streaming music app (such as Pandora or iHeartRadio, my personal preferences) during the workout, you can be done, but you cannot manage the music from within the app. Simply browse to the music app to manage it. It's less convenient when you're trying to do it in the middle of a workout, but it can be done. Screen capture: Patricia Vollmer.

Share Your Workout with Other Apps

Another thing that I love about the Wahoo Fitness app is how it has integrated with the most popular fitness social networks, to include the ever-resistant-to-sharing Nike+ network.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Wahoo Fitness is the first app I have used that allows me to share my workout with Nike+. Screen capture: Patricia Vollmer.

Sharing the workouts is very easy. After you finish, simply select the upper right hand button on the workout summary page and you can quickly upload the data to the apps that you've already authenticated.

I would like to share the one and only thing that I didn't like about this app: Wahoo keeps the entire time of the workout, to include any paused times. One of the review workouts I did included a one-hour stop while I chatted with a friend who was also running in the neighborhood. I hit "Pause" on the app, and the Wahoo workout summary seemed to appropriately calculate the average pace based on the active part of the workout, but not the paused part.

However, uploading it to Nike+ transmitted the full time that the app was recording a workout, so the 4 mile run I took in 37 minutes came across as a 1:46 hour run on Nike+. Compare the two data points here:

Staff Sgt. Eduardo Ausmann observes Kyrgyz Republic Lt. Salamat Temirbekov search for simulated contaminated materials as part a chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosives training scenario during Exercise Regional Cooperation 12 at the Koi Tash Military Academy, June 22, 2012. Service members from the Transit Center at Manas participated in the exercise to help strengthen relationships and cooperation of attending nations. Regional Cooperation 12 is a multinational exercise designed to strengthen relationships and promote regional cooperation among the participating nations while offering coordinated, rapid response scenarios in the event of a disaster affecting multiple countries within the region. Ausmann is a 376th Expeditionary Medical Group biomedical engineer deployed out of Wright Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio and is a native of Jacksonville, Fla. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Brett Clashman)

Compare the Wahoo total workout time on the left with what got transmitted to Nike+. Nike only received the total workout time, not the active time. The moral of the story is to not stop on your runs! Image: Patricia Vollmer.

To conclude, I'm very impressed with the simplicity of this system and have been thrilled to finally have an impressively geeky workout data-collection empire!

The Wahoo Fitness ANT+ Run/Gym Pack for the iPod Touch, iPhone and iPad is available through Wahoo Fitness for $99.99 or through Amazon at $99.95. If you have a soft-strap heart rate monitor already from another product, you can buy the Wahoo ANT+ key only for an MSRP of $59.99.

A complimentary sample of this product was provided for review purposes.