OK, In my ongoing quest to edukate myself in all things tech I’ve been experimenting with creating Amazon Alexa skills (voice activated apps).

I’ve figured out how to integrate Amazon Alexa with a user’s Strava account and so can get Alexa to interrogate all your Strava stats etc.

The question is, what, if anything, would be useful requests to make to Alexa such that she/it could respond accordingly ?

“Alexa, make me KOM on everyfink” might be a stretch but sensible suggestions welcome.

Plus, anyone interested in Beta testing the resultant skill before it is published make yourselves known.

Ta.

I’m struggling to think of anything I’d use that for.

What level of interrogation do you mean?

Can it give you (say) segments where you’re in the top 5? Or segments you’re within 5 seconds of the KOM?

Or is it just the data on rides, in your calendar etc?

Ask for a morning status report where it tells you if you’ve lost a KOM or someone has come close? Or if one of your Strava friends has posted a better time than you on something

For the super-competitive, ask them how many hours your friends have ridden this week…

Anything which can be determined from knowing your “athlete” details I guess.

Miles ridden, recent activities, KOMs, events etc.

Couldn’t work out which segments you’re in the top “n” though, the API ( https://strava.github.io/api/ ) doesn’t support that.

How about Alexa shouts how much ‘fitness’ you will lose today unless you exercise (i.e. the fitness/freshness feature).

Just before you go out for a ride “Alexa, what’s the KOM time for the Galibier” so you’re super-pumped to go after it.

When you get back from a ride “Alexa, what was my average power on that ride”
“Alexa, how many calories did that ride burn?” so you know how many pies to eat

I think it would be best post-ride. You could interogate Alexa whilst prepping post-ride food/beer more quickly as you wouldn’t be staring at your phone.

Can you you ask Alexa for a post-ride summary in the form of music? It would play Loser by Beck if you didn’t get a KOM…

Alexa tells some quite good Knock Knock jokes if you ask it.

Good stuff chaps 🙂

richard: some good food for thought there.

Weekly targets would be good, i.e. “Alexa how many miles/hours left on my weekly goal?” . As above, whats the gap between your PB and KOM.

Fitness and freshness interrogation may be handy if anyone uses them.

Would love to Beta test it!

Nice one.

Potential beta testers, PM me your Email addy which you use to access Amazon [not dodgy, I need to add you to the list of Beta testers which Amazon will recognise and allow you to install the skill while still in beta]

Alexa… How many of my KOM remain?

The stats for the week would be useful.

Alexa… Give me a summary of my last ride.

How many miles have I rode this week?
How long is it since I rode my bike?
Give X Kudos for his/her last ride.

I’m happy to beta test. I’d like how far am I from my weekly goal/annual goal.

Alexa, was my time on suchandsuch today faster than wotsisname?

Alexa, do you work for the CIA?

timidwheeler
I’m happy to beta test. I’d like how far am I from my weekly goal/annual goal.

Even better would be “how far do I have to ride each day/week/month” to hit !y annual goal IMHO. Although !y view might be skewed by getting massively behind due to injury.

Check wind advise of which Koms to go for. You can send my 10% paypal gift

Some good suggestions. I like the update on goals thing and stats about the last ride.

Ask it “Am I really an athlete or is Strava taking the piss?”

“Alexa? Can you check fly-by to see who that girl was that overtook me coming through Kendal?”

^^
“Yes, that was Long-haired Steve…would you like me to open his strava profile for you??”

DrP

😆

“Alexa, are there any good routes near here that i’ve not ridden?”

Not sure if people create routes on Strava much…

“Alexa? Why do I keep getting chicked by a chick with a dick?”

I can see it now;
“Alexa, any KOM?”
“nope, you should be embarrassed with yourself”
😥

Hmmm, the reporting updates in goals/challenges is dead in the water I’m afraid. Strava don’t expose that data in their public API so I can’t access it 👿 Info about your last activity is available though, as is KOM data.

There’s a club that have a Strava linked skill for their weekly segment.

Beta version is now ready.

Any Beta test volunteers, PM me your EMail addy you use for Amazon (has to be this one so you can enable the skill while it’s in Beta) and I’ll add you to the tester list.

Any takers ?

As an update, the skill is now in the Amazon skill store.

It’s called “Bike Stats” and has some basic commands:

Alexa, Ask Bike Stats …..

• about my weekly stats
• about my last ride
• about my summary
• to get my achievements
• to get my details
• to set units to <miles/kilometres/metric/imperial>
• to set height to <metric/imperial>

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0773WGK4R

Feedback welcome.

I’m working on a couple of additional features.

A skill leaderboard whereby you can see how you’re doing relative to all other users of the skill in weekly and all time stats (distance).

The ability to set a weekly/monthly goal in the skill and see how your doing i.e. how many more miles to reach the goal.