Eight things I wish Strava Developed, instead of introducing DM's...
As a regular, and enthusiastic, user of Strava, here are a few things I wish they'd do instead of adding the DM function...
This writing is definitely a departure from what I have been writing on this Substack, but as a regular user of Strava and a data-lover, I thought I’d share some ideas prompted by a meme I saw the other day (included below). I walk hundreds of kilometers a year for this photography project and have used Strava to track it the majority of the time. As always, I started this Sub to be able to write things like this, without the requirements to “fit” into my project I typically write about.
I would self classify as a “novice runner”, “commuter biker”, and “avid walker” and maybe most importantly for this piece and introduction, I am a long time data nerd. I’ve found it fascinating to use fitness apps to enhance my workout experience, using a variety over the past 10 years, from “MyFitnessPal” to “Nike Run Club” and now “Strava”. The ability to have a data archive to compare results and analyze over a period of time has always been great to follow progress or realize over training. I’ve even been able to link my HR to how many photos I take during my street photography sessions as my HR regularly spikes. It is safe to say I am the target demographic for Strava and when they recently announced that they added DM’s into their platform, I, like a lot of other people, was a bit confused. Of all the apps I’ve used, Strava does do a lot right up to this point, and the social aspect is one of the things that have kept me engaged with it the longest.
Some questions immediately entered my mind. Why is this feature needed if you can simply comment on on someone’s workout? Do we really need ANOTHER messaging app for people to not check? (Also, considering the recent increase in their monthly subscription cost, I of course become a bit more critical of what I am paying for, and my “pain points” with the app become magnified a bit). Maybe it is because the majority of people I follow on Strava are close friends/family and I would just send them a text if needed, and/or, I find the “comment” feature good enough if I want to give more “kudos” than the thumbs up offered on the app prior to integrating DMs.
That being said, I did some quick research and there are, apparently, many “good” applications of the new feature which have been talked about on forums like Reddit.
As a long time user, and premium subscriber, I could easily think of a few features I’d rather see than the ability to DM other users… so I will explore a few of them here.
They land into three general categories; better watch/HUD displays, additional user challenges/achievements, and appearance.
1. Watch & Phone App Displays
As mentioned in the introduction, the entire reason I use Strava is to collect data about my workout. Being able to track where I am currently with regards to my fitness and to ensure I am training in the right zone, is key to reaching my goals and staying healthy. Being able to quickly glance at my watch allows the process to be seamless so I am not fighting with my technology before, during, or after my run. I am a firm believer that the tech we buy should be a seamless integration, or else it’s not worth doing. One of the most frustrating things I find with the Apple-Strava interface is the fact that you can’t see your workout on your watch if you start recording on your phone.
There are two specific applications/examples in which this is frustrating.
1a) When Riding a Bike
Currently, if you are starting a bike ride and want to use your phone as a HUD while you workout, you need to start the workout from the app, rather than your watch so that your phone app knows you are working out and can display the workout HUD. I don’t overly have a problem with the phone HUD, it is sufficient, although I believe more data could be on the screen, or at least we should have options to customize what data is being displayed, but having them not pair negates having both a watch and phone combination.
Now, to further this pain point, suppose you wanted to use your watch as your HR monitor with your workout to collect better data, you would have to start a separate workout on your watch, and your watch HR will not show up on your phone HUD. This inability for the watch and phone app to communicate real-time causes problems later on as well.
With the limited amount of data on the HUD, it would also be useful to have additional or secondary data displayed on the watch as an option, while your HUD could have a map, elapsed time, distance, etc.
The inability for the phone app and watch app to “speak” to one another is annoying to start with, but things get even more complex when you try to solve this problem by buying a HR monitor that is not on your wrist…
1b) Using a Chest-Strap
This point is tied to the section above. I was recently having problems with the HR data on my Apple Watch SE, so I invested in a Polar H10 chest strap to see if I could get more accurate data. It’s been working great and is much closer to what I thought it should be. Now, while you can use the “Polar Beat” app, which syncs with “Polar Flow” app, which then syncs with Strava…(a bit bulky, but it works), you can’t use the Apple Watch Strava app with the secondary HR monitor, you have to use the Strava Phone app.
Again, without the ability for the Watch to see what is going on on your phone, there is no way to view your HR data from your Strava phone app on your wrist while you run, quite useless as you have to take out your phone to check your HR while running; bulky, annoying and not fun.
In both scenarios above, all I would want is the ability for your watch to display whatever the app is running, even if it is three simple lines “Elapsed time, pace, HR”. I believe the app used to be able to do this, so maybe there were some stability issues they weren’t able to solve, but I would love this feature.
1c) Customizable Watch display
The current Strava watch display is fine, but a bit limiting. When you are running, the only customization you have is to look at your run split or your average pace. With the app able to collect way more information, it’s a bit surprising that those are the only two options. A recent update that the Apple workout app did was to allow users to select what they would want on their watch while they were working out, and create multiple display screens by scrolling on the crown. For running, it’s amazing to have access to multiple displays so depending on the workout, you can display different sets of data, such as HR zones, pacing, distance, laps, etc…
This was written about two years ago on Medium and I have seen complaints on the Strava forums, and still to this day there has been no update.
2. Additional User Challenges/Achievements
One of the things I’ve always loved about any fitness app is having access to rewards/challenges/achievements. It’s probably the “gamer” in me, but I love having something to “win” for my efforts. Even if it is simply a collection of badges like on the Apple Workout App, Nike Ru Club, or Strava, having that extrinsic award that you can look back on to your trophy case gives that extra dose of dopamine, but also is a way to enhance the user experience. Again, Strava has the essence of that, but is currently leaving large gaps in engagement.
There are two main areas I am going to explore below, first the “groups” in which people can join “clubs” with friends and fellow athletes, as well as the “walking” workout. There is such a unique opportunity to reach more people, but they aren’t currently pursuing any of it.
2a) Crew vs. Crew Mode
My running club currently has a “club” on Strava and I think that feature is very under-utilized. A friend of mine often will throw “club challenges” into our running group chat. We always appreciate his effort but I believe it would be so much fun to integrate actual club challenges into the app.
I think the ability to have your running or riding club challenge another club to a distance challenge over the week, or a time trial challenge for certain routes. These challenges could have customizable banners, could be sponsored by local shops or brands, and could engage large groups of people at a time.
This could also work its way into some sort of “bracket” where crews battle for distance challenges over a period of time and rack up points over a couple of months against each other and one crew could be crowned at the end of a time period.
Another interesting spin could be points for how many people run together in a club group run at a time. City running crews could be battling for the largest runs on a particular night, or in a particular month.
2b) Inner Club Stats
Within a club, it would also be fun for people to create custom challenges with custom badges, designed by members. These could be unique to your club, maybe a challenge on a specific segment or route that you all run consistently. The “inner crew competition” always gets fired up on Strava these days with people trying to be the top of our group, but at the end of the week, the stats reset with no real staying power, rewards, or engagement. How about a feature which shows total stats for the year? Or total weeks won? Or a points system depending on where you land each week. At this point, after Sunday passes, you can’t even go back and see the results from the previous week. Also, the ability to specify which workouts would really help my friend who believes walking shouldn’t count as total kms for the week…
Regardless, with the amount of data Strava collects, why can’t we access it in a way that makes the app more engaging for all of us?
2c) More Walking Challenges
This one is simple; as someone who personally uses Strava for walks, I would love to see more distance challenges, and just data in general. At this point, you can’t even get km splits. Maybe that’s not important for everyone, but again, the data is there, why not let us have access? For running challenges there are usually 100, 200, 300km challenges, biking there is also a ton of options. Monthly for walking, there are usually only one, (usually only 30km). At the end of the day, this is not that engaging for walkers.
2d) Avatars/Gamification
In addition to more engaging challenges, I see a real gap in terms of the “rewards” for the challenges and achievements. I do appreciate the brands offering discounts and prizes, and think that is a great incentive, but there doesn’t even necessarily need to be monetary incentives to engage people.
This one is a bit of a reach, but I have used other fitness apps and websites that do this so much better than Strava. It likely is beyond the scope of what Strava wants to do, but in other apps and programs, I’ve found this very engaging and kept me coming back to those apps for more. For example, Zwift or Run As You Are both have attempted to “gamify” the running experience, both still have work to be done, but Strava, I think, has all the data and abilities to do this in a big way and has the audience wanting more as well.
My idea would be to have monthly challenges with “apparel” that your avatar could wear, similar to the Zwift achievements. Earning shoes, shirts, shorts, sponsored by the same brands that sponsor the challenges for the month. Instead of LeCol sending me 200 emails that I completed their distance challenge, why not let my avatar wear the newest LeCol jersey…seems like free advertising to me? People would/could change their profile photos to their avatars sporting their newest winnings based on the previous months challenges. Think of it like the “yellow jersey of Strava”, with the biggest and hardest challenges having the most coveted apparel items.
3. Night Mode
Last, and definitely not least, it’s shocking that this app still does not have night mode. I was not going to write about this one, as it has been covered by many blogs and in so many different forums, and yet, we still don’t have it. I don’t overly care about this one, but for me, it just signals a lack of caring about what their community says, even though they have an open forum where this stuff is encouraged to be shared.
Conclusions
I definitely will be submitting this into the forum I linked above, as I would love to see some of these features integrated, but I imagine things like this take a lot of time and potentially an entire development team dedicated to running them.
I will say though, the “premium” version is losing its appeal slowly as more and more apps are requiring me to pay a monthly fee for their services, it is getting closer to the budget chopping block as at the end of the day, once I’ve earned the badges a few months in a row, I am less inclined to continue to add them.
Thanks as always for reading, would love to get some feedback if you have the time!
What features would you like to see?
Do you agree or disagree with any of my thoughts here?
Which feature would you be most inclined to want to see?
Feel free to let me know in the comments below!
The solution to all of your 1) issues is: *do* *not* *use* *the* *strava* *app* *to* *record*!
It’s garbage, just use the built in Apple Health/Fitness app. it’s loads better and has mirroring form the watch to the phone for bike rides.
Afterwards just import the workout to Strava.
For added convenience use RunGap.
All my “good habit apps” (Duolingo for language learning, Hevy for gym) have some sort of community building aspect to them whether its likes/comments/following. I feel like each of them has to balance a “does this build a community that novices enjoy” while not becoming another social media/communication app and bombarding people with notifications.
The badges are so sick btw.