Fitness Studio Automation: IoT System

Runner’s High Studio is Chicago’s first automated running studio with smart treadmills that adjust to every runner based on his or her personal characteristics.

The company’s unique approach to running, clever use of technology, and zealous instructors have positioned Runner’s High Studio as an exceptional studio for runners of all strides, leaving competition far behind.

Uniqueness of Running Experience in Studio

From his personal experience, Jeff Levy knew that most fitness studios and gyms relied on numerous tedious manual tasks to operate. So besides making running the focus of his own studio, Jeff also decided to automate all processes as much as possible.

The focus on software tools for the fitness club management and operation could let the startup better engage its early customers and lower administrative costs.

The Client’s Request

After analyzing Jeff’s goals, we identified several components that would contribute to the fitness center software automation process at Runner’s High Studio:

• Consumer website for selling the running classes
• Owner web app for managing the studio
• iPhone app for managing treadmills
• iPad app for client check-in
• CRM system for reporting

How We Did It

Our focus on this fitness studio software project was to make all these pieces work together without overcomplicating the existing processes. Fortunately, we had enough experience in IoT development to make things work.

Consumer Website

Our team started by developing a custom eCommerce website for clients. The site lets them learn about the running classes, see the schedule for the current week, or book a spot on a class.

To personalize their running experience clients have their own profiles where they specify their personal data like age, gender, height, etc. This data is then processed to adjust running exercises for each client individually by calculating their baseline speed.

A client profile is also where clients can review all their training performance stats from the previous running classes.

Owner Web App

The web app managed by Jeff and company’s personnel is the core piece of the fitness studio automation. This is where all parts of a successful running session originate: clients, instructors, workouts, classes, treadmills, etc.

Our team chose to use Umbraco CMS to speed up the development of the owner web app. This open source Microsoft ASP.NET content management system aligned pretty well with the rest of Microsoft technologies used on the project, such as IIS and .NET Core.

The web app connects all other parts of the fitness studio automation framework via an API: the consumer website, the CMS for reporting, the mobile apps, and the Worldpay POS (formerly Vantiv) for processing payments on the counter.

Treadmill App

To fine-tune every single running workout to individual client characteristics, all treadmills need to be able to run a custom workout that would take into account the client’s personal details. The treadmill iPhone app serves this very purpose.

The app loads the client’s data to the treadmill before the class starts, and once it’s finished, the app gathers the stats on the client’s performance and sends them to the server.

Check-in App

The check-in app was originally just a mobile-optimized web page, but since iOS apps provide far better user experience compared to mobile web pages, it was decided to develop a standalone mobile app for this purpose.

The check-in app offers a convenient way for the client to check in for a class in the reception area. They just enter their personal code into the iPad app on the counter to confirm their attendance.

CRM System

Like all startups, Runner’s High Studio was looking for not only the most effective way of blending technology with their business — they were also after the most cost-effective way to do so.

So when we tackled the necessity of dashboards and reports on different classes, revenue, and other fitness center activities we immediately came forward with a low-code customer management software Creatio.

This CRM and BPM platform is easy to customize and set up in a way that speaks to your business needs. We implemented a Creatio instance for the fitness studio and configured all required dashboards for workouts, classes, revenue, etc.

Velvetech is a recognized Creatio development partner, and so setting up the owner web app to synch with the CRM Creatio instance went smoothly.

Challenges

One of the major challenges we faced on this fitness software project was the lack of the web API for the treadmills that Runner’s High Studio owned. The only way to transfer data to or from a treadmill is a Bluetooth connection.

To address that, we developed an IoT mobile app for iOS that connected to a treadmill via Bluetooth and transferred data between the treadmill and the server.

Another point where we had to show our best was setting up the logic on the consumer website and synching it with the owner web app so that:

• A price for a booked class cannot be edited
• A repeated class would suggest saving edits for this class only or for all other instances too
• An admin could register an offline user on the counter

The biggest challenge though proved the fact that we had our QA engineer test the entire process from A to Z, including running on the treadmill.

The API for connecting to treadmills via Bluetooth was scarce, and so we had to double-check everything ourselves. Despite all the fitness club software automation, running remained the hardest challenge in this project.

Outcome

Runner’s High Studio sets high standards for all the rest running studios in Chicago, being the first to automate its processes in a meaningful way. The fitness studio clients get a highly personal experience and focus on the running while process management algorithms and custom software take care of the rest.

What Now

Velvetech keeps providing maintenance and support services to Runner’s High Studio as it keeps conquering the fitness landscape in Chicago.

There are plans to expand the developed system beyond Runner’s High Studio to hotels and apartment complexes that host mini gyms with treadmills. Velvetech will be responsible for integrating the fitness club management software solution with new types of treadmills and hotel websites.