There’s new management at Strava, they usually need everybody to know the platform is about to get a bunch of recent options, beginning with the extremely requested darkish mode, a household subscription plan, night time heatmaps, and, after all, AI.
Darkish mode as an idea has been round for ages, nevertheless it’s been a recurring supply of consternation for Strava customers on Reddit boards. For these people, the excellent news is darkish mode will arrive later this summer season, and customers can select between completely retaining the app in darkish mode or matching a consumer’s telephone settings. Extra excellent news: it’ll be out there for each subscribers and free customers.
“There’s been a number of funding that needed to go in for an app that launched in 2009 to have the ability to get to a spot the place we might launch darkish mode,” says Matt Salazar, Strava’s chief product officer. “I believe one of many issues I’d need our group to know is, hey, we heard you on all of your function wishes. We’re dedicated to accelerating the tempo of that and getting these options out sooner.”
As for AI-enabled options, there are fairly just a few. The massive one is the Athlete Intelligence Beta, which creates digestible summaries of your coaching knowledge. In keeping with Salazar, it makes use of giant language fashions to interpret your knowledge and “give it to you in plain English.” As in, it’ll give customers insights into how effectively they did on a specific exercise, parsing what particular person stats imply in relation to general targets, and offering some options on learn how to get higher. It’ll additionally consider whether or not you’re attempting to organize for a race or get well from an harm.
“It’s not a chatbot state of affairs,” Salazar says, noting that Strava made a deliberate alternative to not implement a chatbot. For context, Whoop added a ChatGPT-powered coach to its app final 12 months, whereas then-Fitbit CEO James Park additionally teased an AI chatbot for Fitbit at Made by Google in October. “It’s extra of a abstract facet, however I believe that’s actually the place athletes are going to search out worth.”
Strava’s additionally including one thing known as AI-enabled Leaderboard Integrity. In a nutshell, it’ll weed out the cheaters through the use of machine studying to flag “irregular, inconceivable, or unimaginable” actions recorded on the platform. As an example, it would provide you with a warning that an impossibly quick e-bike trip has been mislabeled as an everyday bike trip and nudge you to right it.
Making Strava extra interesting to ladies can also be on the agenda. On that entrance, the app is including night time heatmaps. (Heatmaps present fashionable routes amongst a health app’s customers.) The filter lets athletes see which roads, trails, and paths are well-trafficked between the hours of sundown and dawn. It’s not an ideal answer, as many feminine athletes, myself included, typically select to keep away from working or biking at night time for security causes. This solely tells you if a route is fashionable — it’d be barely extra useful in case you might additionally see data on how well-lit that route is or if it’s in a extremely populated space. Nevertheless, the transfer is aimed toward serving to athletes who do select to partake in nighttime actions to be extra knowledgeable.
Lastly, Strava can also be including a household subscription plan in order that premium options may be extra reasonably priced. You may add as much as three different folks on a plan, and there aren’t any restrictions as to who you possibly can add. Salazar mentioned the corporate continues to be figuring out pricing, nevertheless, and there’s an opportunity that the ultimate subscription value will fluctuate relying on area. The plan will launch in just a few take a look at markets this summer season, with a deliberate world rollout by the top of the 12 months.