Nordictrack Ifit Hack
Unlike a lot of other folks who have been posting about this bike since v1 I haven’t had any mechanical problems with the bike, to date, but then again we’ve only put around 200 miles on this trainer in the two years we’ve had it. I primarily like to ride outdoors on a real bike, and to date I really hate riding on any type of trainer.
Still, will heavy snow fall outside I thought it was about time to start using the trainer more regularly. Part of why I chose the TDF was it’s advertised integration with google maps, being able to plan actual routes anywhere in the world online and then downloading the route to the bike, and then seeing the actual road and scenery as you ride using google street maps. As it turns out, the ProForm TDF uses for all its google maps integration and route access. IFit.com basically is a joke – the only way they stay in business, I think, is they have somehow managed to broker deals with various hardware vendors, like ProForm. Otherwise, basically they charge a steep premium membership fee and offer far, far less than what you can get for free from many other cycling & running sites, such as, and others. Furthermore, users of iFit.com can neither import ride data from a Garmin or other GPS device or a file (TCX, GPX, etc), nor can they export anything from the site, either. That’s an essential, bare-minimum feature that every other fitness site has.
The only way, therefore, to create a route to use on your equipment, then, is to go to iFit.com and slowly, painstakingly draw the actual route on a map. And I do mean slowly – their route mapping software seems quite inefficient as it suffers from significant lag. So I got to thinking, the TDF itself is a great piece of equipment, it even has a built in power meter so I can use it for my max threshold testit would probably be well worth my effort and time to try to hack this thing so I can get at the ride data and export it to Strava, at the very least. To that end, so far the only reference I’ve found online where anyone else has hacked it was this one by: If anyone has any additional info on hacking TDF, I’d love to hear about it. Meanwhile I thought I’d start tracking my own attempts on this blog. So, first off, I have been having an issue trying to get the firmware to update. When I first got the trainer, I was able to update the firmware, but for about the last year or so I haven’t been able to get it to update.
I’ve filed a tech support request about this with ProForm, we’ll see if they respond or not. As a side note, I found it interesting (and dismaying) that there is no link from the ProForm site to their support site. Luckily I found the manual to my TDF, which lists their. Then again, that site is also pretty useless, unless you need to download the manual or order parts. Even though the TDF was saying it was connected to my WiFi network, I thought maybe the issue was something in the WiFi configuration. I was able to connect to iFit.com and login from the TDF, but I also couldn’t download my ride – it would get stuck on “Downloading: 0%”.
Setting up the WiFi on the TDF is a ridiculous pain, as the screen is not a touch screen and the interface is quite tedious to use. However, I did discover this gem – the TDF has a WPS setup option. Now, I have a Mac network, and a Verizon FIOS router. I only use the Verizon router for my DNS, but the WiFi is all through an Apple Airport Extreme. Apparently, the Airport Extreme supports WPS, which before tonight I had no idea about.
Choose this if you are at all unsure. 
Anyway, long story short, after doing the WPS setup, I was now able to successfully download a planned ride from iFit.com onto the TDF. However, still no luck with the Firmware update – it just sits there and never downloads any update. Nor does it tell me what the latest firmware version is – I have no idea if my firmware version (2.0.30) is the latest version or not, nor could I find an online resource anywhere that states what the latest version is. Anyway in my next post on this topic I plan to attempt to get to the ride data on the machine from my mac.
I bought my wife a treadmill some months ago. She loves it and I find myself using more than I thought I would. It has iFit capability but it is a bit disappointing to be unable to program your own routines. You can get special music and videos that control the incline and the speed and that works well. But it sure would be nice to be able to design your own. I have done google searches looking for help, but no joy. The iFit web site doesn't offer any help, either.
I am just taking a shot here, hoping that maybe someone has one of these iFit-equipped devices and knows how to do what I need. Officially the iFit people say NO BUT, someone posted a file to Design, copy, or modifty exercise programs for iFit.com equipped treadmills. Requires installation of Visual Basic 6 runtime library. It's freeware, so might only be worth what it costs, but the reviews are good, so I'd think it soemthing to consider. FAQ fom iFit 25.Question: Can I create my own workouts? Answer: At this time we do not have a program available to the public that will allow you to create and modify your own, personalized workouts.
Nordictrack Ifit Hack Tool
The software that creates the workouts is available only to our team of personal trainers. While our Business Development Team has discussed making a software package available to iFIT.com users, it is unlikely that this or a similar package will be made available. To protect our technology, we will continue to only allow our fitness professionals the ability to create iFIT.com workouts. I played with it this weekend and am very impressed.
It allows you to program the speed and incline for any duration you'd like, then save the settings for reuse. Then, if you choose, you can encode the control signals into a.wav or.mp3 music file or files for playback in a CD player. You must, of course, have the signal piped to the treadmill. The author wants $30 for the program and is worth it, IMHO. Also, at his website he has some workouts that you can download.
Ifit Nordictrack App
One of them is for a 10k race prep. I think the iFit folks blew it on this one. They could have made it an option and charge an additional $50 and people would have paid. Then, iFit could have been a central repository for all the workout configurations created by users. What a great marketing angle that would have been. Their loss, our gain.