Hi.

I'm on Android 8.1. I've been using MapMaWalk from the MapMyFitness lot, but they seem to have removed features in the free version.

I want a track of distance, minutes per km (I'm a stroke victim) with a pause & resume function. MapMyWalk used to do this with geolocation on google maps or some such, but no more. The geolocation is a pretty high priority, as the longer way home might have more distance or obstacles than I'm game for.

Suggestions?

Hello, Consider the new Apple Watch,Series 6, available with GPS, exercise programs, all the necessary bells & whistles,etc.

i realize those were probably free and maybe you dont want to pay but the BEST thing you can get is a garmin fenix (5 or 3 or the 6 is coming out soon). it will give you more info than you need (as if that is bad) but in case you think that is bad, it gives you the absolute most accurate vitals via the chest strap then you will find. that is the important thing for someone who has gone through something like that or a ha. then, on top of that, you get very accurate distance info as well. you can view it via connect.garmin via auto upload or bluetooth to a phone. it is the best you can get bar none!

one other thing i just wanted to throw in. i exercise a lot and have for a lot of years. those light based hrm (heart rate monitors) are not really all that accurate. the only way to accurately measure your heart rate is with a chest strap. with garmin, you buy the chest strap and along with a more accurate hrm, you get a more accurate calorie count and things like oxygenation levels, exertion and things like that...the important things you want to monitor.

In my opnion, "Walking" app in the Google Play store is the best choice for all your requirments

Thanks for the replies.

I'm definitely not into fitness, but unfitness. My left arm is ≥95% dead, the left leg has about 30% if I'm generous. I did have a Garmin GPS before, and definitely developed a love/hate, or even hate/hate relationship. We spent a lot of time driving through open fields @120kph (=75mph) because Garmin hadn't charted our latest motorways. Many roads it thought were open were truncated or one way. It's one useful feature was to be able to dodge toll points (the ones on their maps), but that was counter productive as you had to drive for 30km (≅20 miles) on 4th or 5th class roads the way they sent you.

The 2 walking apps make a big thing of pedometers, which are a pain in the face for me. They're meaningless, as my stride varies a lot. I may take a handful of very small strides to do something like sit down, and I'm liable to 'double bounce' the phone on downhills.

The best I've found is the Caynax sports tracker app. I'm using that and trying to figure it. It insists on doing a countdown

You are worried about bluetooth yet you are using apps that are guaranteed to communicate your most private data to a server somewhere?

I tend to agree with ondoho.

I was a fat little kid (I got fat after I had my tonsils out at age eight) and have fought the fight against ever again wearing "Sears Husky"--remember Sears?--for most of my life by exercising regularly, except when I had house full of so many kids that they sucked up all my time.

I've found the key to regular exercise is not counting steps or monitoring heart rates, but making exercise into a habit. And when I've been off exercising for a while, for whatever reason, I've found that it takes about three months to turn it from a chore into a habit.

I keep track of my exercising with something called a "Mead Composition Book." I've used the current one for ten years and suffered no data loss whatsoever.

I'll take note of "Mead Composition Book." I have landed two other apps,

• Caynax Sports Tracker
• Track My Trails.

They're both installed to see what has the better interface. The Caynax thing has the irritating habit of giving a 10 second countdown, as if I was going somewhere fast, but the interface seems better. Track my trails seems more aimed at guys whose idea of fun is to get themselves wet, frozen and windblown on the hills & dales of inhospitable places like Ireland. I never upload data. That's for nerds and professional athletes imho. I pass or fail myself.

whatever garmin was, that is not what it is. i have been using the fenix for at least 7 years now and this thing is an absolute piece of art it is so good. but, you go with what meets your needs. oh, and i track my workouts on a spreadsheet...or a modern mead notebook.

I didn't want to say anything, but this is just so true.

In my case I've never seen the need for an app - a working dog and a mountain bike provides all the exercise and freedom I can handle. And yes I did see the special circumstances here.

I feel in that other thread business_kid was merely citing information, true or false, that they found about the BlueZ stack.

I don't feel that they expressed any specific concerns about using Bluetooth.

Not for us to judge how someone chooses to perform their workouts, in fact given the specialty of their situation, stroke victim, there typically are a lot of targeted technologies in use by the therapists their selves to aid tracking improvement in cognition and motor activities.

I've worked with people who have had seizure problems, strokes, and traumatic brain injuries, where their abilities have been impaired by their situation. Sometimes changes or improvements are very subtle. In fact, a lot of times facial expression photos are taken over time with some patients to gauge how their facial muscles are responding. It is a big indicator as to whether or not their system is improving or degrading.

business_kid I didn't have any app suggestions, most of the ones I've worked with were for research and many are coupled with medical equipment. My suggestion would be that if you are still under treatment, that you ask your neurologist if they have any recommendations. Further to that, they may have access to some things which are very costly, but they can get supplied to you as part of a treatment regime, since you fall under a patient classification.

Thanks for the reply. I'm not still under treatment.

We have a 'Nanny State' here in Ireland. If you earn anything much, you pay punitive taxes. But then you're paid for being unemployed, decrepit, or ancient. There's also Insurance schemes and company pensions, so it's a two-tier system. I'm in the lower tier, so medics don't care. As for finding me apps?

For a while I've been my own medic, as the real interest is lacking, because the system is under funded. Nobody cares or will do anything if I degrade over time, except perhaps me. My face is ok, I have slight paralysis in the very left corner of my mouth, but my speech is basically unimpaired. I walked 5.4km (=3.2 miles) on Thursday, which is fairly good for me uphills, downhills and grass are not an issue for me. I couldn't do as far in grass, as it's like a marsh usually, but that's ok. I'm not improving much, not degrading greatly, and I concentrate on stopping the rot.

I've found Caynax Sports Tracker, and Track My Trails are fairly good. They give me a voice announcement every km, and let me find a route in territory I'm not familiar with. I can't really afford to keep on walking forever.

@ondoho: I flagged the bluetooth thing because it was interesting. It's only on for the Government Covid App.