If you have not heard about Strava2Hive, it's a small service that
- Lets you register with your Hive and Strava account
- Add an activity on Strava like this
- Add a description to your Strava activity(As well as Image)
- Creates and automated post on Hive using that activity details
- Get rewarded for your efforts via weekly rewards leader board.
The service has been running for about 4 years and has handed out about $1000 HBD in rewards over the past four years.
You may have seen me talking about setting up a new Strava2Hive Service and it has been a long few months. The work is almost complete with only about 15 users still using the old code, but I am slowly bringing them over to the new service.
The set up is very similar and also has most of the features that you are used to...If you have any requests or see any issues with the new service please let me know. Feel free to message me directly on Strava to user "Vince Sesto".
Why Did All This Need to Happen?
Strava, which we use heavily as part of the Strava2Hive service(Of course), has been cracking down on usage, specifically on accessing the API. No longer will you be able to access the API without being a paid user, which is fair, and they also advised that the service was in breach of there policies of externally hosting user data. I thought I had the deadline of the end of September to change everything, but they actually started enforcing paid access to the API at the end of July, so I quickly signed up to Strava to get things working normally again.
Another service I actually rely heavily on is an application called Pipedream. I started using the service when it was free and the services I use as part of Strava2Hive, I just got notification that these services will be shut down in March 2027. This is great cause it is also costing me a lot of money compared to coding this up myself.
Combined with all this, the old Strava2Hive was partly being run on spreadsheets, with part of the hosting on Amazon Web Services, Pipedream(like I mentioned above) and being triggered every hour from CircleCI. The sign up and registration was also not the best for users as it was being hosted on Google Forms, before being routed through to HiveSigner and Strava.
Fortunately, we have AI that can help us these days, so it was easier to start from scratch and rebuild everything on Amazon Web Services, which has reduced the costs, but will also scale a lot better if more people are wanting to use the service.
I was a little annoyed with the way Strava was claiming ownership over other peoples data and originally looked to completely remove Strava from the process. This was easier said than done. For now we are still using Strava, but I may look for a different option in the coming months as well, as there are some other options but didn't want to completely change the user experience at the moment.
So All The Work Has Improved The Following
- Improved Registration And Sign Up
I know this was a little bit crap and I am sure it is not perfect, but should be a little better now. If someone is already registered, it should not be an issue, and won't cause problems like it did in the past. - All Code Running On AWS
Hopefully this means any changes or improvements can be done a lot easier. The processing still runs every hour and only takes about 2 minutes for the 57 users that are currently on there, compared to over an hour in the old system. - Removal Of Legacy Platforms
No more spreadsheets or Pipedream services that are going to close down some time soon - Removed Full Maps
On the new activity card, this combines the map and activity details, in case anyone has issues with privacy of there maps being distributed. - Automated Rewards Process
The weekly rewards process is now automated and saves me a little bit of time now.
[This is what the new registration page looks like]
So What Still Needs To Happen
The service is live and ready for new users to sign up. In the following weeks, I'll send out some more posts just letting people know and also updating all the FAQ's to match what the new service does. The 15 or so users will be brought over and I will be able to shutdown things like Pipedream and CircleCI, and hopefully keep Strava happy.
For now the new registration page can be found here:
https://stravahivestack-frontendbucketefe2e19c-e7utbfteopyj.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/index.html
I've been thinking about how the service could be extended, for example training plans, rewards for most popular post(voted by users), Run Bet? of if anyone else people want. I am happy to take requests and like I said, it should be easier to implement now.
I should also look at updating the logo too.