Hamster Wheel Hacks on Strava

• A physicist created a device to track his hamster’s exercise on Strava.
• The device uses a hall sensor and magnet to track the hamster’s wheel rotations.
• The data is then uploaded to Strava using a Python script.

The Project

The physicist used an ESP32 attached to a hall sensor to track the hamster’s wheel rotations.

The Buzz Score

The Internet’s Verdict: 70% Hyped, 30% Skeptical

Forum Voices

Some people are impressed by the project, with one person saying:

Neat! Not to toot my own horn too much, but I put together a similar project for my cat’s exercise wheel.

Another person is surprised that the owner needed a Strava premium account to auto-upload the hamster’s activities:

I was surprised that the owner said he needed to get a Strava premium account in order to be able to auto-upload the hamster’s activities.

Technical Details

The device gives a timestamp and total distance to each magnet-pass, which is stored on the network.

A python script then retrieves this data in the morning, turns it into a .FIT file, and uploads it to Strava through the Strava API.

Focus Keyword: Hamster Strava