Rohan Martin is an embedded and mobile software engineer who has worked on some of the raddest tech in the sports we love. Alongside his passion for coaching and extreme sports, he is also the CTO of BrakeAce, the world's first brake sensor and app combo for mountain bikers. Today Rohan shares his insights from behind the curtain, and we begin the discussion of how the world of sports tech is faring amongst the other tech around us. There's room for improvement, and it starts here.
Follow Rohan on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweaty_techie/
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TRANSCRIPT
00:00.00
Rohan
So stuff. But yeah, that's all good I could I could talk about this forever and I'd probably do a little too much normally today you guys are the right guys to talk to at least.
00:14.67
Matt
All right? Ron welcome to performance vantage podcast.
00:19.00
Rohan
Thanks.
00:21.28
drwill
All right? So Matt said your handle is sweaty ticky. What is that about those 2 things don't go together unless you're like gaming without ear conditioning.
00:27.82
Rohan
Ah, ah, that's because you need something. Ah.
00:36.42
Matt
I'm just thinking about how I sweated all over my my bike yesterday in my wahoo and I got sweat all over my phone because I was watching Youtube on the trainer. So that's what I'm envisioning actually right now.
00:44.69
Rohan
Yeah, oh I'm envisioning myself sitting at the coffee shop for 5 hours on the laptop the other day after my ride thinking I should probably go home for a shower but getting too much done to actually do that. Ah, but yeah, that's pretty much it that facts it. My life is sports and tech and so sweaty techie is is me. It's not the best image but it's the best way to subize how I live my life.
01:14.98
drwill
It's real.
01:17.40
Matt
So how did had you get into all this stuff into tech.
01:21.26
Rohan
Oh how did I get into this bit of luck bit of being in the right place at the right time probably a whole lot of putting myself into places that made me have some opportunities so my background is. I've got a degree in software engineering part of the reason I did that is I like building things like making new stuff and wanted the opportunity to go and live and work somewhere else around the world. So I'm from perth western australia is about as isolated as you can get for a capital city. Always had these intentions of going somewhere else experiencing new things. Our software seemed the right way to do that and started working with mobile originally worked for Motorola back in the days of competing with the first iphone then they shut down didn't do so well.
02:12.69
drwill
Coal.
02:17.41
Rohan
I'd ended up doing a bit of other things before I went to Canada on a working holiday visa thinking I'd enjoyed the mountains and ended up finding a job full-time engineering for dinosstream innovations. It turns out, they'd been bought a couple of years earlier by Garmin.
02:33.92
drwill
Um, ah.
02:35.81
Rohan
They are now in Garmin canada and so I just jumped straight in to working on wireless technology. So for their ant wireless team. What I thought was going to be a you know fun year or so in the canadian rockies and ended up being 4 years working for them getting involved in so not just directly Garmin products more support of other people using ant and ant plus are connecting to mobile phones. So yeah, an example of just getting lucky but also willing to move to Canada and take a random job. Outside of the city. So.
03:15.28
Matt
I guess I wouldn't have happened in Perth then would it.
03:17.94
Rohan
Ah, there is surprising some things happening behind closed doors here. They're really hard to find and usually part of bigger projects elsewhere. But yeah Perth but has stuff happening.
03:32.59
drwill
They' sort I've found I um I like how do these people find these jobs you know like I have um sports scientists I met it. Um, there were similar position to me. You know ph d candidates or like honors masters people that have followed for the last. Halfde or so and then they have these like amazing jobs and like high performance or this new startup or something like where did you where did you find these you know it's like you just I'm going on holiday like oh I worked for Garmin now. Yeah.
04:04.56
Rohan
So yeah, ah it's a lot of once you get to know someone know the right people this Garmin job was basically the only thing I've ever done that was send in a job application with no idea the rest of the time. It's no someone have some connection get involved.
04:16.49
drwill
Yeah.
04:23.95
Rohan
Some way and so that's a big part of so I eventually ended up getting into doing more consulting type work and really that just that wasn't a big risk that was I knew a lot of people people kept asking questions Anyway. So it just naturally became but I started doing things. Or independently.
04:41.94
drwill
So is that when you ah was there after the four years you'd been at Garmin Canada
04:46.30
Rohan
Yes, so that was another case of just getting pretty lucky I told them hey okay I've been here four years before it gets to 5 I've decided I'm not going to stay forever I should leave I'm going to head back to Australia and my boss is like no. Don't quit take a laptop. We'll find some work for you and so that just got me started working remotely and those first few months slowly traveling back home making the most of a bit of freedom and flexibility started to set the precedent for the next few years ah but I was the only the technical person in the company working remotely so I kept sort of changing through a bit of what I was doing. Um how I'd fit into the team. So I had been running the team and so that very much changed things. Ah but I've been trying to. Increase adoption of amplus into mobile phones. So I was working directly with a lot of external companies and so I became basically the guy doing support to get more people involved. For example I just ah, Strava. Is a big one so identifying if you wanted to have wireless connectivity to amp plus devices in mobile strava is getting bigger and bigger. So I reached out to them saying hey or 2013 but then thirteen fourteen yeah
06:09.90
drwill
So when was this where like year were we told me oh yeah, yeah.
06:17.83
Matt
Strabo is just getting star I guess so it had been around for a bit. Yeah Wow you were an early adopter.
06:19.57
drwill
Now that was stole and.
06:21.40
Rohan
Yeah, like I started using them 2010 or 11 and things. Yeah, that's I owe so many apps that because I was the app guy I was constantly on the lookout for apps and so I met my ride ride to Gps there was a Google. My maps or actually there's lots of these apps that's like yep I just had you know all of them installed and so just for work purposes. However, Strava was one that I very quickly got hooked on for good or for bad I just I did lose my original tracks though. I was signed up with a work account and I don't have that email anymore. So if you're at Strava and you can tell me I want to see how poor was my writing back then? yeah I'm I'm sure I could yeah I'm in there somewhere.
07:00.63
Matt
Oh no, Ah, that's the will would be destroyed. You could probably go back and find that guy you know like search him.
07:00.94
drwill
Ah, no.
07:16.83
drwill
Oh man I went back through my training peaks account in like around 2000 and I don't know 11 I think I got my first Gps watch and I just recorded everything in run mode.
07:17.38
Matt
But.
07:32.73
drwill
And even just the like the tags that would come that were pushed through it was all manual upload and it's just all the data is just ridiculous like it's just it's like no elevation data. It's like it's like just ah, a Gps like pace track like.
07:49.39
Rohan
Yeah, absolutely that that data geek thing of must record everything. It's going to be useful one day until you look back at it and there's no context like yeah.
07:50.16
drwill
And just like where I went and and how fast I ran and that they're like that's it and like man.
07:59.50
drwill
Yeah, and yeah, like I didn't comment to it I can have a lot was I doing intervals or have to try and remember a session from I was probably I know I wasn't doing it I was just going hard the whole time. Um, but.
08:08.70
Matt
Probably you probably were.
08:08.41
Rohan
Yeah, yeah.
08:19.10
drwill
Yeah, yeah, ah yeah, so striver did you get them? Did you get them on Ant plus.
08:20.20
Rohan
Yeah I did so that was an interesting one so they were using an external library for their connectivity at that point. So this is they were built on top of the wahoo library. Interface which is how they had Iphone and Ios and so wahoo back in the day their very first product was a dongle for iphones to let you connect to m plus sensors.
08:47.22
drwill
Yes, I was gonna ask you about this because I had the first um kicker wahoo kicker so I got one of those like as soon as they came out and I used it to control training when I was doing my my research collecting. Um, participant data and I had to control their training I was like these things are amazing and then yeah I was like as over those years I was collecting the data news and the kickers it was like you had to have this external dongle and then I saw in the forums that actually no ant plus was supported inside the phone but you had to like. Unlock it or use ah as an apk with Android or something as so you can tell fill us in fill the gaps there.
09:26.77
Rohan
Yeah, also that is exactly the work I did getting ant plus into Android that was sort of again being in a bit of luck so bluetooth low energy. The future of wireless. Was this big planned announced technology switching from the the classic bluetooth used a lot of power. Yes, it was able to stream all of your your audio high high bandwidth usage and there's Bluetooth low energy. Totally different technology. And actually almost the same as amplus and so someone at ant and realized that well there's all of these chips being output by the radio silicon manufacturers and they've got this space for bluetooth low energy. Can we just put. Ant on there and so ampplus managed to sort of sneak on to phones because there was all of these chips in there waiting for bluetooth low energy and so it wasn't advertised by a lot of phones and it needed.
10:32.82
drwill
Ah.
10:41.19
Rohan
The actual operating system. So your Android system needs to be updated and so that was the piece I did so make some changes try and convince different manufacturers potentially Google to enable that and so originally. 2000 and let's see in the 2010 tour de frances. There was a bunch of writers having a htc phone under their saddle that allowed live streaming of their data just because it was an off-the-shelf phone that had one of these trips that we could put. And plus into and that was the first sort of like real life proof of concept and it's definitely It's grown so now things aren't done that way but just that proof of hey people are interested in seeing live data. We can do that if we've got a phone that directly connects. And so then from there sort of trying to push in different ways. Samsung is the big one that ended up adopting and plus in most of their top end phones but not as super advertised feature so they did integrate it into s health.
11:48.59
Matt
Yeah I was just ah I was wondering that I was like do we know that our phones have am plus in there I didn't actually know and right.
11:57.70
Rohan
Yeah, very few very few do that's ah, it's because I left didn't finish that project. Oh yeah, so yeah, it's one of those things that you can if you really wanted to.
12:06.17
Matt
Ah, like forget it.
12:15.58
Rohan
You can plan to have your phone find the ones that do support it but they have sort of gone a different route for the and and plus side of things Anyway, bluetooth low energy is now there that is the the standard approach you take to getting something to a phone.
12:32.71
drwill
And what's better.
12:35.98
Rohan
Ah, different so similar sort of battery life usages but very different so from a developer standpoint There's definitely yeah, the available things you can implement is different. However, it's all about the ecosystem. What are you trying to connect to. So if you're a if you're a Garmin wahoo whoever making a head unit. You need to have amplus just because there are so many sensors out there that people have from before there was be a lead that work and it's broadcast. So you can connect to you know you have zwift on your Apple Tv and for years you then couldn't connect your bluetooth also to your Garland at the same time because it was only one single to single connection. 1 point to point single connection. And so for them to allow that they've had to add the ability to have a second connection whereas amplus right from the beginning just broadcasts to anyone that's listening so from a consumer point of view. The best is the one that works with whatever else, you've already got there isn't really that much difference once you've got it.
13:43.66
drwill
Right.
13:49.67
Rohan
You can make them both work. You just can't make it work if you've got something that doesn't integrate with the previous bits. You've got and so that's been sort of so a long time. Garmin was very much sticking to and plus it just worked and then.
13:56.58
drwill
Yes.
14:09.10
Rohan
Other companies the other way not adopting amplus so like suntu.
14:11.56
Matt
That would have been a bit of competition between the companies wouldn't it like ah now we're not going to do that because you guys do that.
14:18.13
Rohan
Ah, yes, and no I think a lot of it is also those existing products so there's a lot the sensors sell significant number more than you know the head units and watches and so if you're someone who's got 3 bikes you might have.
14:21.88
Matt
Here.
14:37.93
Rohan
Ah, just simple cadence speed distance on a couple of those you know, maybe power meter but you only have one head unit that you use across all of them. So there's a lot of sales there in the additional sensors and so if you create something new. You want it to keep working with your old stuff that people have so that they're tied in ah Apple approach make everything that just works. You thought you've got then once someone gets in you've got them.
15:08.27
Matt
I was just thinking about actually ah the bikes I have and the sensors I have and then because obviously all my bikes have power meter and then I only had the 1 hen unit and the one head unit I had for some reason it would only connect to 1 power meter at a time and then I'd have to search and find it. But now I have one of those newer wahoos. And it remembers all my power meters which is great because I just like get that bike and I go for a ride and it knows which power meters on and it reads my power that was like 1 of the greatest things ever has ah just made my life so much easier.
15:40.50
Rohan
Yeah, so I did work on the original element from wahoo and that was one of those big discussions how to make pairing to sensors easier and so that had been something I've been dealing with for a long time is sort of the technical how it works. But that user interaction. So the traditional approach before that had been the Garmin did bike profiles you would choose which bike you had and it would connect to the sensors you had assigned to that and then get. But yeah, exactly no read. It was an extra step and like why would you bother.
16:08.74