Sick of the incessant Strava updates

Just me?

Gone mad today, pinging notifications everytime one of my follows posts an activity.

Settings look fine…

Maybe the calm before all the posts from folk saying their notifications have fallen silent due to the upcoming 3rd party data sharing (or lack of) updates.

Yeah I got that, an invitation to give kudos to each of half a dozen people all doing bloody Zwift squiggles…

Easy enough to ignore though, I guess I’ve set it not to buzz my phone every time.

Not sure what they have done, but I just went into the push notifications settings and have hopefully turned it off.

DickBarton

Full Member

Maybe the calm before all the posts from folk saying their notifications have fallen silent due to the upcoming 3rd party data sharing (or lack of) updates.

Seems like another case of Strava deliberately pissing off their users (AGAIN!):

https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2024/11/stravas-changes-to-kill-off-apps.html

Thought this was going to be about “local legend” update emails

Will have a proper read of the API stuff, but I pretty much only use it to keep in touch with a few folk I don’t see very often…that said I’m sure there’s probably something syncing with something else that I’ve forgotten about.

Tbh I’d be happy to ditch it if it were not for the ‘social’ side.

Great opportunity for  the likes of Garmin and Wahoo to cut out the middleman by improving their analytics and socials so that more people are just content to look at their rides on Connect etc, alongside providing connectivity for third-party apps.

Strava seems to take quite a high-handed approach to third-party apps, but in the end they are just an app themselves, and they can’t  just assume people will stick with them if there is another way to do the things they want.

Obviously the leaderboards are the killer feature, but I increasingly don’t bother looking at segment times (mainly because I’ve been bloody slow for the last couple of years), so won’t be bothering to renew the paid version next year. The app feels a bit stale to me, the routeplanning bit is mediocre, and the endless pointless notifications are irritating.

Great opportunity for  the likes of Garmin and Wahoo to cut out the middleman by improving their analytics and socials

Sounds good but Strava’s USP is that it is independent of the recording device so it gives the best social experience.  To replicate this someone like Garmin would have to expand their app to seamlessly accept input from non Garmin devices- as Strava does now.  Doesn’t sound very likely.

I’m not sure, I think a decent app experience that allowed uploads from phones as well as proprietary devices would drive sales of those devices. But that relies on Garmin etc being bothered. At the moment their app is limited because Strava is so dominant.

Garmin does all the stats for free – but relies on you having a Garmin device. I think you can manually upload to a Garmin connect account but there isn’t an easy way for that to be done.
I think Strava has lost the way…I suspect there are plenty who track directly through Strava app, but there will be plenty who don’t. If everyone who doesn’t decides to stop using Strava then that will be a big hit on data available for Strava to use (and not share).

I’m not sure, I think a decent app experience that allowed uploads from phones as well as proprietary devices would drive sales of those devices. But that relies on Garmin etc being bothered. At the moment their app is limited because Strava is so dominant.

Strava are ubiquitous but are they actual “dominant” just how much revenue do they actually generate (from user supplied data) vs the costs of maintaining their app and services?

Garmin does all the stats for free

No they don’t, lots of their “analysis” tools are behind the paywall now.

Edit: I don’t know why I put that, you clearly typed Garmin but I read Strava, sorry.

Garmin does all the stats for free

They do, but only for activities on Garmin devices. Which means you’ve paid upfront for that functionality.

For example if I do a workout on MyWhoosh (and I assume the same applies to Zwift or any other indoor training app) that won’t sync to Garmin connect, so doesn’t get factored into all their clever metrics.  The workaround is to record the session on my watch as well, then log into Strava and delete the duplicate.

Zwift does sync to Garmin Connect – and gives you Training Status etc. The only thing it doesn’t do is record the activities against the Badges/Challenges (if you’re into that).

Zwift does and I think TrainerRoad were allowed but it’s since been a closed shop…so no MyWhoosh or TrainingPeaks Virtual, and apparently not keen to change stance.

In a day and age when training data is often gathered from a multitude of sources it kind of undermines their model a little?

Garmin provide Connect free* to users of their devices. Open it up completely and it would become another subscription service.

* well, you’re arguably paying for it up front when you buy your watch/computer/trainer.

There’s an option using fitfiletools.com to hack any fit file to change the device type. Anyone so interested could mimic a Garmin Edge 540 (for instance) and then upload said fit file to Garmin to get all the Garmin stats they want.

It’s not automatic though so a PITA unless you’re dedicated…