Starling Fitness: Daily writings on Fitness, Diet, and Health

The folks at Motion Lingo were nice enough to send me an Adeo GPS Training Device to review on Starling Fitness. I worked out with it until it got too cold and polluted in Salt Lake City to run outside. I don’t know which will clear up first, the air quality or the freezing temperatures. Either way, I am stuck indoors.

The Adeo is a very simple gadget that you plug your iPod (or ANY MP3 player) into and you plug your headphones into it. You can hear your music, but a voice will give you updates about your run. Similar to the Nike+iPod, it’s actually a very cool gadget. Here is a list of its best features:

• It measures everything, not just running: The disadvantage of gadgets like the Nike+iPod is that they only track your runs. The Adeo can track your runs, your bike rides, your ski runs and your hikes (with elevation tracking). Their software tracks all of your workouts in one place.

• The MotionTrak Software doesn’t need to be online: My biggest beef with the Nike+iPod setup is that all my stuff is online. I can’t just save all those cool graphs and charts on my own computer.

• It gives you updates how YOU want them: Using their MotionTrak software, you tell the Adeo how often you want updates and what kind. If you want to hear how far you’ve run every two minutes, you can set it. I have my demonstration unit set to give me a different update every few minutes: total time, distance run, time of the day, current speed, etc. Also, you can tell it to stop telling you things. I don’t care about my elevation on my runs because it doesn’t change, but if I was skiing or hiking, elevation might be pretty important. You can set up different update modes based on which activity you are doing.

• It works with any MP3 Player: I really like that I can use any MP3 player with the Adeo. I tried it with my Treo, and it worked just as well with it as my Nano. This is not just another iPod accessory. It works with any music player, even your old cassette player or CD player. That’s a far cry from so many products who are jumping on the bandwagon to work with the iPods. The Adeo is completely backward compatible.

• It’s more accurate than accelerometers: Running shoe pods like the Nike+iPod depend on accelerometers and other devices to measure the distance. For some people they can be horribly inaccurate. Once the Adeo locks onto its satellites, you have a perfectly accurate measurement of the distance you ran (or rode your bike, etc.).

• You don’t have to look at anything: Since the totals and the updates are spoken over your music, you never have to check your watch or iPod to see how far you’ve gone. This is especially cool if you are skiing and couldn’t possibly check your watch even if you wanted to.

There are some disadvantages to this unit:

• It’s kind of big: Seriously, it’s amazingly small for what it does, but it is a little big to carry around. I worked out using the Adeo in the fall, so I had a coat with many pockets to stuff it and my Nano into, but during the summer, I’m suddenly pocketless and I would have to carry it in my hands.

• It takes about five minutes or so to lock on to the satellites: You can’t start locking onto the satellites while you’re in your house, so you have to go outside and just stand around waiting for it to fall into its routine. If you start running before it gets a good lock on the satellites, it won’t be an accurate measurement of your workout. I don’t spend five full minutes stretching before my workout. Do you? Even if I did, I don’t like to do those stretches outside. So, I just ended up standing like a fool outside just waiting for it to do its thing with the satellites.

• It doesn’t work on a treadmill: This is a no-brainer. Since GPS systems track how far on the Earth you’ve moved, they really are useless if you’re running on the treadmill. To the Adeo, it just looks like you’re running in place because you are. For some people, this isn’t an issue, but there are a good six months every year where I’m not going to run outside. It’s just not going to happen, especially when I have a comfortable treadmill calling to me. None of those treadmill workouts are recorded on the MotionTrak software.

• You can’t look at anything: You ONLY get updates spoken over the music, so if you want to hurry and check your mileage, you really can’t. You have to wait until the next pre-measured update. It would have been really helpful sometimes to have a screen to glance at. Auditory feedback isn’t enough sometimes.

I didn’t know the cost of this unit when I was testing it. I had assumed it was about three hundred dollars because that’s the going cost for a good GPS tracking device. When I saw that the Adeo was only $150 at Amazon, I was shocked. Suddenly, all those little complaints I had for it went right out the window. At $150, you’re getting way more than your money’s worth.

On the whole, the Adeo is a great gadget. If you already own a iPod Nano, then the Nike+iPod Sport Kit is a cheaper option for you and almost as accurate. If you own ANY other MP3 player, including a Video iPod, then you should definitely go with the Adeo instead of buying a Nano just to run with. It’s not only cheaper, but you get more accurate readings. Just make sure you have running shorts with pockets.