New Swim Watch - Finis Swimsense Live

Well, watch spotters. You missed this one a while back. It was the mystery watch from <this> post back in July.

It will be interesting to see how this stacks up against many of the other watches that claim to be able to provide swimming stats – some of them rudimentary devices, others MUCH more advanced high-end devices.

finis-swimsense-live With the pedigree of FINIS clearly they will be aiming for the higher end swimmer ability market, so we are hoping for accuracy. Accuracy of course which will help the improver too.

The accompanying app seems to be geared towards coaches, enabling them to quickly view the data from multiple athletes – the same speed of feedback applies to the individual athlete by the same token.

The app also supports integration with other major online sports data platforms.

Several sports watch device companies target team/squad markets. Some of those are not as trivial as you might have thought and clearly sports scientists need comprehensive data to work with.

So be able to handle a squad’s worth of data, the app will be required to have a rigorous ability to handle and securely connect with many networked devices. The app appears to have considered that. For example a national squad training with Garmin’s ANT+ devices are publically transmitting all such data over the ANT+ protocol.

One potentially interesting area for further investigation on this sports device is the ability to provide detailed, post-workout metrics for strokes other than crawl.

This model comes in at $180 and does NOT have optical HR – that comes in a follow-up FINIS watch to be announced more formally soon (no big secret as both have been exhibited in the past).

Summary: Interesting; hopefully for FINIS, this model and the subsequent oHR one will NOT face competition from a new iteration of the Garmin SWIM (2).

Tech Sheet: Link

Manual: Link

—— Press Release Below ——————————

FINIS, Inc., a worldwide leader in technical swimming innovation, is proud to announce the long-awaited release of the Swimsense™ Live, a waterproof fitness-tracking device that allows swimmers to get their workouts down to a science.

The Swimsense™ Live is the next generation of the original FINIS Swimsense™, and is updated with more accurate tracking systems, new swim-specific data, and Bluetooth® technology for real-time results. Under the leadership of Head Industrial Designer, David Beittel, the FINIS product development team worked extensively at the FINIS Stroke Lab in California to develop a wearable that was the best of its kind.

“I am very proud of the product that our team developed,” says Beittel, “The Swimsense™ Live provides statistics that can help the beginner swimmer as well as the best swimmers in the world.”

Engineered to capture stroke count, total distance, pace, calories burned, distance per stroke, SWOLF (efficiency score), and much more, this swim watch utilizes proprietary algorithms to track in-depth data from your swim. With an OLED screen, users can view custom stats during their workouts to track their data in real time.

“We wanted to develop a device that delivered accurate swim data to swimmers of all ages and abilities,” says FINIS CEO, John Mix. “We developed new technology that will allow the swimmer to get more data, while still keeping the device simple and easy to use.”

In today’s modern technology age, FINIS wanted to develop a new mobile application that would allow users to view all their data immediately following a workout. Under the direction of Creative Manager, Rachel Westerhoff, and with the help of Intellectsoft, a Silicon Valley based software development company, FINIS mobilized its workout tracker with the intuitive mobile application, FINIS Live™.

“When developing FINIS Live™, our primary focus was to offer a simple and intuitive mobile application that enabled users to sync, manage, and pair device summary data in real time,” says Westerhoff.

FINIS wanted a software development kit to sync the Swimsense™ Live with mobile devices, giving users information as quickly as possible. Intellectsoft and FINIS developed and launched a new iOS and Android application, which pairs with the Swimsense™ Live. Now swimmers can track workout times, laps, calories burned, stroke specific analytics, and more, then immediately sync it with their FINIS Live™ mobile application.

Using the mobile application, a user can track multiple devices at once, making the Swimsense™ Live a great device for coaches to use with their swimmers so they can track their stroke count, pace, distance per stroke, and other essential swim data.

“We developed a mobile application that could grow with FINIS and dynamically evolve to encompass future products and services. We’re excited about this launch milestone and the opportunity to further submerge ourselves into the tech and wearable space,” says Westerhoff.

FINIS also developed a web platform so users can view and track their workouts. From here, users can upload workout data directly to Swim.com, TrainingPeaks, RunKeeper, SportTracks, 2Peak and other fitness tracking software.

“Given how much technology has immersed itself in our everyday lives, we wanted to make it easy for anyone to get their swim data at the quick and convenient click of a button,” concluded Mix.

“With the Swimsense™ Live and FINIS Live™ mobile application, we are going to help all swimmers make the most of their swim.”

Visit http://www.FINISinc.com/Swimsense-Live or your local swim dealer.