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Incus Nova Run

The Incus sensor has been doing the rounds in media circles in the UK for the best part of a year. Today the Core Run version is officially launched and that follows the swim launch in Feb 2020.

What Is Incus Nova Run?

Eventually intended for training in all the triathlon sports, Incus Nova is a high-precision motion sensor that you wear at the top of your spine inside custom clothing. It currently has 2 retail versions, this one for Core Running and another for Swim+Run, each retailing at £199 which includes clothing.

From what I can see Incus gathers motion data as you workout and then uploads that to the cloud where various learning algorithms decipher insights that you can then view, post-workout, on the proprietary app.

I have some concerns about gait tools in general; the non-live nature of the data; and the requirement of a proprietary app. That said, the Incus marketing materials point to a tech expansion of the platform later this year where iOS is supported as well as ANT+ – rather than just BLE on Android as at present. The compatibility with ANT+ implies to me that there will be live integration with the Garmin environment and FIT files. Other than the Apple environment I would very much doubt Incus would support the likes of Polar.

These are two lists of the currently supported metrics

Running Metrics (available at launch):

• Total distance
• Pace
• Running power
• Average pace (min/km) (session and splits)
• Session duration
• Cadence (session and splits)
• Take off acceleration
• Landing deceleration
• Elevation profile
• Total elevation
• Run/Walk/Rest breakdown
• Digital logbook
• Pain monitoring (qualitative)
• GPS syncing (phone only)

Swimming Metrics:

• Swim stroke recognition
• Automatic set/rep/length detection and structuring
• Overall session duration
• Total distance
• Swim time
• Split times (reps/lengths)
• Stroke rate
• Pace
• Body roll
• Body pitch angles
• Velocity gain (left/right)
• Digital logbook
• Pain monitoring (qualitative)
• Navigation by sets average
• Navigation by reps average
• Navigation length-by-length
• Automatic swim/non-swim detection

Take Out

There seems to be a novel new gait sensor every year. Normally this year’s novel sensor is quite similar to last year’s novel sensor. Yet, Incus DOES seem more ambitious in scope, so much so that Alistair Brownlee is an investor.

These products seem to fall by the wayside if they just focus on technique. Kinematix Tune and, to a degree, Runscribe illustrate that. Stryd was a little bit different in that it delivered accuracy improvements for PACE and DISTANCE alongside a novel way of training ie RUN POWER. The fact that Stryd also offered some interesting gait metrics was just icing on the cake rather than the core of the product offering.

Questions

• How tempted would YOU be by novel insights into your technique for the triathlon disciplines? Or even insights just for running?
• How important would integration to the Garmin environment be to you?
• To what degree do you think the need for custom clothing will hold this product back?

More: Incus Performance