One maker's Pico is another maker's exercise bike controller board! This project was made by a maker known on Reddit as Pubudeux. After spinning their wheels, Pubudeux decided to use a Raspberry Pi Pico to help monitor exercise bike sessions and provide audio output for cycling classes.
The project is designed to be housed inside a case with the various sensors necessary to accurately monitor things like speed and duration on the bike. It will also house the speakers.
The Raspberry Pi Pico is used in tandem with a Pam 8403 amplifier board. It's also using a battery voltage sensor, an infrared sensor and is connected to an LCD screen via I2C.
These sensors are used to count how many pedal strokes are occurring per minute and at what resistance. Once the cadence is determined, the data can be parsed to read out information about the rider's performance in real-time.
This project is still in progress. You can read more about how it works and what developments are underway in the full thread on Reddit. In the meantime, check out our list of Best Raspberry Pi Projects for more cool creations from the maker community.
