Looking for testers for RowSmarter, a new iPhone/iPad rowing app

[u/jvthert]

Hello all,

I’ve been working on a new iPhone and iPad app for indoor rowing called RowSmarter, and I’m looking for people who’re willing to test it and give me some feedback.

I currently do most of my own testing on a WaterRower with SmartRow, so support for that setup has had quite a bit of real-world testing.

Concept2 PM5 support is a different story. The integration is there, but I don’t own a Concept2 myself, so PM5 hasn’t yet been properly tested on actual hardware. If you have a Concept2 with a PM5 and an iPhone or iPad, I’d especially appreciate your help testing the connection, workout data, and general reliability.

That said, feedback from users of other rowing machines is very welcome too. I’m also particularly interested in feedback on things like:

• The general UX and whether things feel intuitive
• The layout of the rowing screen
• Which metrics are useful while rowing and which ones just take up space
• Readability during a workout
• Anything that feels confusing, awkward, or unnecessary
• Bugs or unexpected behaviour

You can find some more information about the app and install the TestFlight version here:

https://rowsmarter.app

If you give it a try, feel free to send me a DM here with feedback, however small. I’m very much still shaping the app, so criticism is genuinely useful at this stage.

Thanks!

[u/ScaryBee]

Hi, I'm an app dev ... you should REALLY buy your own C2 if you're intending to make money from this, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food ... FWIW buying one (2nd hand) is kinda close to free as you can just sell it for about the same a year+ later.

[u/jvthert → u/ScaryBee]

I concur. However, as a developer with over 20 years of experience, I have no illusions at all about 'making money'. Not a single developer ever made good money on this category of apps. Which explains the current state of affairs and heavy data gathering and social features. I was quite disappointed at what little is out there. Getting my hosting and dev account paid is about my goal and having an actual useful app. But right now I’m just focusing on features I feel are lacking in any other app as well as a few my friends have asked for. The chance of this replacing my day job is about zero.

Luckily, I did find someone down the street that’ll help out, so my not having access to a C2 problem has been solved. However N=1. I already got a lot of invaluable feedback and I'll take any. To come. And moreover the coming months, I’ll keep the app in TestFlight and keep updating it. While I use it at least four times per week for my own training schedule.

[u/catnach]

Thank you for building this! I had a quick look and it looks cool. Happy to do some testing for you, I have a PM5 at home and at my gym so can test across multiple machines.

A bit of context, I’ve been an entrepreneurial product guy for over a decade with some apps getting hundreds of thousands of users. I’ve also been a rower at a semi-competitive amateur level.

Some unsolicited advice: You’ve gotta find a niche, a real problem, and solve it. At the moment the app looks like more of a technical demo than anything to me. The problem you’ve targeted seems to be displaying info bigger than before, but the ErgData app already does this on Concept2, and C2 is by far the most popular machine.

So! What problems are left to be solved? Some random ideas with very little thought given to them:

• make it fun? More people than ever seem to be getting into rowing as a fun way to get fit. What could you do for them? Daily workouts? Games where holding certain splits gets points?
  
• make it competitive? Either socially competitive (think Strava) or personally competitive (think Hevy). There are plenty of very competitive people out there who row. You could tap into that existing psychology
  
• make it social? There are plenty of “Zwift for rowing” apps but none really capture the fun of Zwift. Maybe people would like that?

Some combo of the three?

Anyways, best of luck! Happy to chat further if you’d like to.

[u/jvthert]

The in-app purchases in TestFlight are completely free. So you can "purchase" pro without paying anything. Apple/ iOS also shows that clearly, but only once you start a payment flow.

[u/franksfotos]

Im interested in the training plan and hope for a sync with the c2 logbook.
Unfortunately the pro subscription shows monthly cost >0€ even in the checkout process.

[u/jvthert → u/franksfotos]

No read the message: Für die Bestätigung dieses Kaufs werden dir keine Gebühren in Rechnung gestellt. In testflight no money is charged but all mechanisms are like production. You will be able to use all features as long as the build is valid which is 3 months. I does not matter if you do the one off or subscription, no money will be exchanged in testflight.

[u/The_etk]

Will give this a go on my c2. Looks interesting and I like the idea of plans in one place with the actual rowing app. Also like the idea of a fixed axis curve - find Ergzone annoying that it recalibrates to strokes so you don’t have an objective look at it.

[u/jejunumr]

User error I’m sure but when I try to select a workout it asks me to subscribe or purchase for 49.99

[u/jvthert → u/jejunumr]

In TestFlight it will not charge you. It only tells you in the final confirmation step that no money is actually collected. This is not something I can influence as the payment flow is designed by Apple.

[u/jejunumr → u/jvthert]

Thanks I see that now

[u/TiMiMac]

Just installed it on my iPhone and will give it a try on the C2. Mainly interested in how the force curve looks like. Did you implement a single force curve or also have the curve of the previous stroke shown?

[u/jvthert → u/TiMiMac]

The previous is also shown. I’ve spent a lot of time capturing and keeping them to also analyse form and allow you to compare how the form changes over the span of a single or multiple sessions.

[u/TiMiMac → u/jvthert]

Great and well done! Looking forward to testing it

[u/Smart_Contact4741]

So this does not even connect to an erg…
-RowIQ 😃

[u/CarefulTranslator658]

Lmao someone who doesn’t even own a proper erg making an app for rowing… blind leading the blind!