HAC4 / Hactronic TOTAL CONFUSION!

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I bought the above because I wanted to record my HR, not just eyeball it. And I figured it would be fun to see what my HR does overnight once in awhile. Uh, right. That sucker is one seriously user-unfriendly piece of equipment. The box lists 'short instructions' as a feature. Well, it is true. But then of course, the instructions tell you just about nothing. I've never seen something that leaves you on your own so much.

Does anyone have any printable instructions for the software end of this thing, or ANYTHING to get me through this? I have nowhere near the time needed to figure it out via trial and error (mostly the latter). I mostly get how the hardware works... it's the PC part of it that's just unbelievably skimpy!

I share your frustration - have you been able to dwonload ride data to your PC yet? I didn't find that too difficult (and would be happy to suggest a simplke checklist. Or is your difficulty with using the data?

I bought my HAC4+ a couple of weeks ago, and while it's a lot of fun to print of the graphs and data from my rides the software isn't well designed. In fact, the Plus comes with 3 separate software programs (all seemingly by different designers, and all showing their age in terms of look, feel and functionality.) I probably read it on this forum, but someone before me has said that it woiuld be neat to be able to combine the HAC4 hardware with Polar software.

The Ciclosport people are really precious about things too - haven't learned the value of OpenSource.

Here's the thread of an email exchange I had with them, when I got frustrated with the software that came with my HAC4+


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Hello George,

I've tried to export to excel just in the moment and it works on my pc.
Please send me the bug-report (by ? - about - version), then I can ask the developer if he knows this problem.

regards
Iris Stiegler
CICLO SPORT SERVICE
K.W.Hochschorner GmbH


***** RDS - das neuartige Geschwindigkeits- und Distanzmessgerät. Infos auf unserer Homepage www.ciclosport.de *****

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----- Original Message -----
From: George Hill
To: 'Iris Stiegler'
Cc: 'Nic Hides'
Sent: Monday, September 01, 2003 8:31 PM
Subject: RE: HAC

Hello Iris,

When you say "we can't give you the file format" I presume you mean "we choose not to give you the file format".

I would export the data to Excel from CicloTour, however whenever I try that option I get the error message "Microsoft Excel could not be opened". (I am using Microsoft Excel 2002). I get this message regardless of whether Excel is currently open, or not.
Regards
George Hill

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-----Original Message-----
From: Iris Stiegler [mailto:Ciclo-Service@t-online.de]
Sent: Tuesday, 2 September 2003 3:10 a.m.
To: George Hill
Subject: HAC

Hello George,

I'm sorry we can't give you the file format.

But with CicloTour you can make an export of the datas e.g. to Excel. Maybe this can help you.

regards
Iris Stiegler
CICLO SPORT SERVICE
K.W.Hochschorner GmbH

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-----Original Message-----
From: George Hill
Sent: Monday, 1 September 2003 9:25 p.m.
To: info@ciclosport.de

Subject: Reading HAC4 data files


Hi

I've recently bought a HAC4 Plus monitor, and am very pleased with it.... but very disappointed with the software (HACTronic,Ciclotour,Ciclotrainer). I'd like to read the .DAT data files into a database program and do my own analysis. Are you able to supply me with the file format for the raw data files?

Regards
George Hill
Cambridge, New Zealand

Yes, I'm able to get the data out now. But just like you, once it's to the s/w stage, yikes! Did you notice that the box lists 'short instructions' as a feature? I now find that comical.

http://www.hac4.com/downloads/cchac4.pdf

That's for the Hac4 -- I'm looking for guidance on the software.