FTMS Bluetooth Apps on Fitness Equipment

Many pieces of fitness equipment, like exercise bikes, treadmills and rowing machines, come with Bluetooth, and we get lots of customer questions about how that works.

Firstly, as a reminder, Bluetooth is just an international standard for wireless connection. It's probably how you link your phone to your earbuds and car handsfree. It is different from “wifi” as it uses different technology and different frequencies.

There’s nothing special about the Bluetooth on fitness equipment. The console on the machine simply has a transmitter which connects to other Bluetooth devices.

However, there are some very different purposes for the Bluetooth, and the way to tell is to read the product’s description very carefully.

Music

Many machines (eg. treadmills) simply use Bluetooth to connect to a music player. The treadmill has speakers built into the console, so you open your smartphone or tablet, search for compatible devices, connect to the treadmill, and then you can play music directly from your smartphone to the speakers. It’s actually no different to connecting with Bluetooth speakers you buy from the electronics store.

In this case, there is no other function. The bluetooth connects entirely for the purpose of playing music, so there’s no history or control.

Interactive Apps

Some fitness manufacturers use “FiTness Machine Service protocol” (FTMS), which is an open international standard for the transmission of fitness equipment data. Simply put, your treadmill/bike will send out data (via Bluetooth) and receive back instructions from any app that uses the FTMS protocol. It doesnt matter whether it's iOS, Android, or something else.

So if your machine has FTMS, there is a growing list of apps which you can use with it, including famous apps like Kinomap and Zwift. Be warned though, there is generally only one “house brand” app which is free (often called iConsole), which is pretty basic and largely replicates the experience you already have on the inbuilt console. The 3rd-party apps generally cost money, but as a result, give some amazing insights and entertainment options.

Heart Rate

Occasionally, Bluetooth is used to monitor your heart rate via a wireless chest strap. However, this is less common, and if the specifications for your new machine don’t specifically say that it uses Bluetooth for pulse measurement, then it will use the standard 5.3kHz analogue frequency, which is completely unrelated to Bluetooth.

Final Thoughts

Via FTMS, Bluetooth is presenting an amazing set of potential apps for you to use with your new fitness equipment, but these apps often require a subscription, and the manufacturer of the machine doesn’t generally supply support or warranty for these Apps.