Is using another companies trademarked name in the URL and service name and collecting their users names, emails and passwords not likely to lead to some legal action?
Peloton is probably the weakest example possible of this since they took a very common and established word (for a group of people riding together) as their brand.
In more practical terms, back when PTON was still a stock darling, they constantly pushed how engaged their community was via Facebook groups, etc. so going after this would probably be a death knell signal that the magic is completely gone.
Probably not, but if you ever watch a cycling race with commentary on TV then you’ll hear it used. I’d guess since they expanded out from just cycling it’s probably not super unusual for people to come across them first though.
Unfortunately, whether the word has a prior common meaning doesn't have a lot of bearing on a trademark infringement claim. The main test is whether a reasonable consumer would confuse the two marks. Plaid, Simple, Clear, Square are all strong brands and trademarks, for example.
In this case, Peloton would argue that their name in the product name and domain might reasonably confuse someone into thinking that the two services come from the same company.
That said, your final point is the critical one. It would be a poor business move for Peloton to rattle their sabers at someone helping build a community around their product.
> Plaid, Simple, Clear, Square are all strong brands and trademarks, for example.
Sure, those are brands. I agree.
“Screen-scrape”, “I don’t know what simple is so it can’t be that great of a brand”,“Concierge” and “POS” would be bad brands that would likely fail trademark (in the same way peloton is a bad brand with limited trademark ability)
I created a service to track my peloton rides over time. I used the fact that “friends” can see your rides using their undocumented api. So my app just requires you to “friend” a special user in peloton, then that user will “friend” you back automatically.
That way I can pull your stats without your peloton username and password. Kind of a poor man’s oauth flow. You can always revoke the “friendship” later.
We did something similar for VRWorkout where group sessions were available as an external ical calendar.
The problem was that one can not add an external calendar to google calendar from the mobile device. Only from the web calendar, which is kind of annoying.
Not sure if they are using an external calendar, but what would be the best way to update a big group of people (that opt into it) about certain events that happen every few days ?
I've only recently started using a calendar to keep track of my personal schedule (the same way it is normal to do so for one's work schedule). I would like more tools like this to make it more convenient than manually adding everything (though ideally using .ics rather than Google Cal). Either via third party tools or companies allowing you to download .ics files from them.
Flights are an area this would be particularly handy; some airlines allow you to download flight reservations as .ics files, but very few in my experience. I looked into making a script to do this in Python before (based on confirmation emails) and while it would be quite doable, the lack of consistency in how the emails are formatted and the airports are described makes it non-trivial (if you want to properly handle timezones).
TripIt does what you want, and more. (Imports flight confirmation emails automatically, and gives you an iCal feed you can subscribe to in your calendar)
Interestingly, I had a brief look for open source alternatives and found that KDE Itinerary[0] may do a similar thing, and that the same code has been re-used in a Nextcloud Mail extension[1]. I don't use either so haven't been able to test directly yet. But I did use a CLI tool based on the same KDE code[2] and while it doesn't output iCal it does seem to correctly extract the details from a reservation email (I tested on Ryanair).
My partner and I use anylist.com on iOS to plan each week’s meals. It supports creation of a calendar that you can subscribe to in your calendaring app. That calendar has all-day event for all the meals in a day. Handy to see at a glance what we’ll cook for dinner along with the rest of our evening plans.
Calendars are one of those things where I just don't get why tech companies can't work together to make them interoperable.
Maybe in 10 years, once the EU managed to make messengers interoperate, they can do the same for calendars.
I don't understand why I can't just share calendars between iCloud users and Google users, or like here, let Google users easily subscribe to 3rd party calendars.
Lock-in... CalDAV has been a thing for a long time, and many (most) calendar apps outside google's own (and MS) do support this format. It's a bit wonky and sharing/interop are less than great.
In the end, nobody is going to come up with a great server solution to calendar/mail/contacts because in the end, every effort I'm aware of has turned into a commercial solution because it takes a lot of time, effort and support. If I ever won a significant lottery amount, I would probably work on such a thing. Not sure I'd see any big benefactor for this any time soon.
With macOS it's easy to publish¹ and subscribe² to calendars in this standards-based format. AFAIK, there's wide support for the iCalendar in other apps too, including Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and Mozilla Thunderbird.
Just like you I thought this was a solved problem, but when I wanted to try it in pactice, I ran into two issues with this:
1) The calendar subscriptions aren't read/write, they are read only for subscribers. You can't share calendars between Google and iCloud read/write.
2) Android apparently doesn't support CalDAV! I tried, but I couldn't get an iCloud published calendar to show on an Android phone, not even read only.
The only way that I managed to use a shared calendar between iPhone and Android was to use a Google account on both phones.
> 2) Android apparently doesn't support CalDAV! I tried, but I couldn't get an iCloud published calendar to show on an Android phone, not even read only.
I have been syncing my Android calendar with NextCloud using CalDAV for years.
In college I put in about 200 miles a week on my bicycle. After I got a fulltime job, got married, and had kids my mileage dropped to around 100 miles a week. I now live rurally the roads are exceptionally narrow and have 60mph speed limits, and so I have not worked up the courage to ride. I have thought about mountain biking instead, between my own 125 acres and the 25,000 acres of national forest I back up to, there is a lot of opportunities there, but I have never loved mountain biking.
Peloton and similar products have piqued my interest but I have never had much love for stationary bikes in gyms. Anyone have experience with Peloton's product? Is it better than the gym bikes? Do the road simulations really match up?
I was a peloton skeptic and now love it. I am not sure road simulation is the real selling point. Yes it's better than looking at a wall but you can as well look at any random video ( including of roads)
The by far chief value of peloton is access to the class library. If you find rising boring and do better w an engaging instructor (as turns out is the case for me) then it's well worth it
Sadly no. Well, probaby depends on person and what you like. But you'll be very disappointed if you consider Peloton to be something more than bike + tablet
I also don't have experience with it, but have heard from friends that a big part of the appeal is that there are certain trainers that you can follow. I guess they're like influencers/trainers, that "ride" along with you and have subscribers or something. It's also a monthly fee. Personally I'd rather use a regular bike and listen to an audiobook.
- Try a gravel bike, which gives you a very road bike like feel, but isn't restricted to paved roads. I use mine to do 95% of the off-road stuff I used to do with my MTB, plus a lot of road.
- I've used my road bike on a smart trainer with Rouvy, Zwift and Wahoo SYSTM lately, and it's by far better than the typical gym bike. I switch between these apps, as they all have their individual strengths and weaknesses. That said, if you already own a road bike, a smart trainer might be better for giving stationary cycling a try. Smaller investment, smaller footprint when not in use.
I have been looking at gravel bikes. They seem like a good compromise. I live on an asphalt road, but there is a hundred or more miles of dirt forestry roads within a mile or two. Might be that a gravel bike can get me to and through the forestry roads.
I've been using it daily since I got it, which was just a couple weeks ago. So I'm very much still in the honeymoon period and shouldn't comment on whether it's worth it in the long view. But in the short view I have been entirely satisfied with the pricing and product. I did renting which is available in my country for the Bike and Bike+ (I chose Bike, and in retrospect don't regret it) and plan to convert to a purchase if I'm still using it in six+ months. I probably wouldn't have gone through with it if the option to rent wasn't there. Even the one month free trial that is offered with the purchase option isn't good enough to reassure me I won't use it for e.g. 40 days then drop it and be out $2000. But with renting I pay ~$100/month and can drop it whenever I notice it's been a month without using it.
Your examples are why I really don't like road riding too much, and much prefer trail riding. Why don't you like MTB?
The big reason I like it is because you need to focus on the now and next, you can't zone out, unlike with road riding. And its alot more dynamic all around, keeps you honest with yourself.
As others have said, gravel biking might be an option for you, if you put wider tires on.
I love that zoning out from riding a road bike. I have some minor autism/adhd issues and riding a bike in one of the few times my mind doesn't go a mile a minute.
I would not recommend Peloton specifically- I don't think it really scratches the road riding itch. It's closer to spin class than a serious biking session. I would look at Zwift for what you used to do.
I say that as a former Peloton employee and current user who is very happy with the bike
Disclosure: did my first Ironman this past year, had more than a few <1 hour and even some 4+ hour rides on a Peloton when the weather didn't cooperate. I am more of a serious rider now, but started with near zero road biking experience.
It is a basically designed stationary bike with above average classes and <60 minute fitness exercise. It does not act as a great substitute to road biking and because the front bars don't adjust, your "fit" can only be so good. That being said, it gets the job done and the music, classes, etc. are all very well designed.
Based on what you are looking for, this is not the right bike. The Peloton "free ride" capabilities are very basic and doesn't do what Zwift and other trainers do where they let you "bike" the virtual course and provide feedback. It also isn't great if you are going for more than 60 minutes as it is designed for spin classes, not over the bars, leaned in road riding.
Peloton is fine if you want a spin class experience. It has nothing to do with road cycling, except that there are pedals.
Zwift, Rouvy, RGT, and similar apps combined with a direct-drive smart trainer (Wahoo Kickr, etc) are closer. They attempt to simulate road cycling. There are routes, hills, group rides, races, workouts.
But I find the indoor cycling experience to be unpleasant. I am constantly reminded that I'm doing a pointless activity indoors. It's not a VR experience where you think you're somewhere else. You're working hard but not going anywhere. Most of the things that make cycling pleasant are missing: fresh air, nice weather, a sense of exploration, the satisfaction of going somewhere and making it back to where you started. I frequently ask myself "why should I keep going, I can just stop now and I'm already home" and there is no good answer.
If you can't go road biking, and your choices are mountain biking or indoor cycling, it seems bizarre to go with indoor cycling.
You don't have to risk life and limb riding difficult trails on a MTB. You can just ride on logging roads in the forest. Or ride easy trails.
I actually don't mind mtb, at least from a danger issue. I'm even sort of decent at the sport, did it a lot in high school before I got into road. What I don't like about mtb is that it's not meditative. I can spin on a road bike for hours and a small part of me is managing the ride, the rest of me is free to think deeply. With mtb it requires a lot more mental capacity and I am unable to achieve the same meditative state I love.
yeah, if you zone out on a trail ride, you're getting dumped off the bike very quickly. For me, its the opposite, I find that just focusing on the trail (now and next) has the same mental effect.
Grabbing the Peleton user credentials through PelotonCal? Seriously?
Peloton should just make an oAuth2-API, offering the workouts in Garmin FIT format, so users off 3rd-party platforms like Tredict can easily and most important legally access this data. In the end the last word is spoken by the user. But I fear users do not care enough anymore about their data accessibility, although it is the users data, not Peletons.
42 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 88.8 ms ] threadhttps://pzpack.com/ Being the one I’m aware of as it can analyze past rides.
In more practical terms, back when PTON was still a stock darling, they constantly pushed how engaged their community was via Facebook groups, etc. so going after this would probably be a death knell signal that the magic is completely gone.
In this case, Peloton would argue that their name in the product name and domain might reasonably confuse someone into thinking that the two services come from the same company.
That said, your final point is the critical one. It would be a poor business move for Peloton to rattle their sabers at someone helping build a community around their product.
Sure, those are brands. I agree.
“Screen-scrape”, “I don’t know what simple is so it can’t be that great of a brand”,“Concierge” and “POS” would be bad brands that would likely fail trademark (in the same way peloton is a bad brand with limited trademark ability)
That way I can pull your stats without your peloton username and password. Kind of a poor man’s oauth flow. You can always revoke the “friendship” later.
Not sure if they are using an external calendar, but what would be the best way to update a big group of people (that opt into it) about certain events that happen every few days ?
Flights are an area this would be particularly handy; some airlines allow you to download flight reservations as .ics files, but very few in my experience. I looked into making a script to do this in Python before (based on confirmation emails) and while it would be quite doable, the lack of consistency in how the emails are formatted and the airports are described makes it non-trivial (if you want to properly handle timezones).
Interestingly, I had a brief look for open source alternatives and found that KDE Itinerary[0] may do a similar thing, and that the same code has been re-used in a Nextcloud Mail extension[1]. I don't use either so haven't been able to test directly yet. But I did use a CLI tool based on the same KDE code[2] and while it doesn't output iCal it does seem to correctly extract the details from a reservation email (I tested on Ryanair).
0: https://apps.kde.org/itinerary/
1: https://www.volkerkrause.eu/2020/01/18/kde-itinerary-nextclo...
2: https://www.volkerkrause.eu/2019/09/21/kde-itinerary-cli-ext...
Maybe in 10 years, once the EU managed to make messengers interoperate, they can do the same for calendars.
I don't understand why I can't just share calendars between iCloud users and Google users, or like here, let Google users easily subscribe to 3rd party calendars.
In the end, nobody is going to come up with a great server solution to calendar/mail/contacts because in the end, every effort I'm aware of has turned into a commercial solution because it takes a lot of time, effort and support. If I ever won a significant lottery amount, I would probably work on such a thing. Not sure I'd see any big benefactor for this any time soon.
iCalendar standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICalendar (RFC for iCalendar standard: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/rfc5545/)
With macOS it's easy to publish¹ and subscribe² to calendars in this standards-based format. AFAIK, there's wide support for the iCalendar in other apps too, including Google Calendar, Microsoft Outlook, and Mozilla Thunderbird.
¹ https://support.apple.com/guide/calendar/publish-or-unpublis... ² https://support.apple.com/guide/calendar/subscribe-to-calend...
1) The calendar subscriptions aren't read/write, they are read only for subscribers. You can't share calendars between Google and iCloud read/write.
2) Android apparently doesn't support CalDAV! I tried, but I couldn't get an iCloud published calendar to show on an Android phone, not even read only.
The only way that I managed to use a shared calendar between iPhone and Android was to use a Google account on both phones.
I have been syncing my Android calendar with NextCloud using CalDAV for years.
I use DAVx⁵ - https://f-droid.org/packages/at.bitfire.davdroid
Peloton and similar products have piqued my interest but I have never had much love for stationary bikes in gyms. Anyone have experience with Peloton's product? Is it better than the gym bikes? Do the road simulations really match up?
The by far chief value of peloton is access to the class library. If you find rising boring and do better w an engaging instructor (as turns out is the case for me) then it's well worth it
- Try a gravel bike, which gives you a very road bike like feel, but isn't restricted to paved roads. I use mine to do 95% of the off-road stuff I used to do with my MTB, plus a lot of road.
- I've used my road bike on a smart trainer with Rouvy, Zwift and Wahoo SYSTM lately, and it's by far better than the typical gym bike. I switch between these apps, as they all have their individual strengths and weaknesses. That said, if you already own a road bike, a smart trainer might be better for giving stationary cycling a try. Smaller investment, smaller footprint when not in use.
The big reason I like it is because you need to focus on the now and next, you can't zone out, unlike with road riding. And its alot more dynamic all around, keeps you honest with yourself.
As others have said, gravel biking might be an option for you, if you put wider tires on.
I say that as a former Peloton employee and current user who is very happy with the bike
It is a basically designed stationary bike with above average classes and <60 minute fitness exercise. It does not act as a great substitute to road biking and because the front bars don't adjust, your "fit" can only be so good. That being said, it gets the job done and the music, classes, etc. are all very well designed.
Based on what you are looking for, this is not the right bike. The Peloton "free ride" capabilities are very basic and doesn't do what Zwift and other trainers do where they let you "bike" the virtual course and provide feedback. It also isn't great if you are going for more than 60 minutes as it is designed for spin classes, not over the bars, leaned in road riding.
Zwift, Rouvy, RGT, and similar apps combined with a direct-drive smart trainer (Wahoo Kickr, etc) are closer. They attempt to simulate road cycling. There are routes, hills, group rides, races, workouts.
But I find the indoor cycling experience to be unpleasant. I am constantly reminded that I'm doing a pointless activity indoors. It's not a VR experience where you think you're somewhere else. You're working hard but not going anywhere. Most of the things that make cycling pleasant are missing: fresh air, nice weather, a sense of exploration, the satisfaction of going somewhere and making it back to where you started. I frequently ask myself "why should I keep going, I can just stop now and I'm already home" and there is no good answer.
If you can't go road biking, and your choices are mountain biking or indoor cycling, it seems bizarre to go with indoor cycling.
You don't have to risk life and limb riding difficult trails on a MTB. You can just ride on logging roads in the forest. Or ride easy trails.
Peloton classes involve a lot of music and shouting by the instructor. It remains to be seen whether that would work for you.