RunScribe Red – next Generation Gait Analysis

Both the RunScribe pods and the company have gone through a few iterations and the latest is a step forward with improved performance capabilities.

A Quick History

RunScribe’s dual pod solution was always interesting and potentially superior to the market leader, STRYD, which has only ever used one-sided data collection from the pod.

RunScribe certainly IS power-capable but instead, they decided to focus more on delivering the widest range of marketing-leading gait metrics. If you are a gait geek or happen to own a gait lab then RunScribe will almost certainly be the product for you.

As well as a pod for each foot, a further hip (sacral) pod was also added last year, just in case you needed a few more metrics 😉

• 2016 – RunScribe Pro
• 2018 – RunScribe Plus
• 2019 – A move to the pro lab market
• 2020 – Adds the sacral sensor
• 2021 – RunScribe RED – improved hardware
• Continually improved analysis platform throughout

However, RunScribe has had to contend with various technical issues, not necessarily of their making. The earlier pods weren’t always great to pair to your smartphone and the PLUS model suffered a teething problem when Garmin released the Fenix 5/5s which weren’t really up to the job of receiving data from several sensors…RunScribe being one.

If I recall correctly the Plus model wasn’t quite powerful enough to transmit dual-sided power along with all the other data. Presumably, that has now changed?

You can now pre-order RunScribe RED for delivery later in 2021 and it boasts some quite significant improvements in the internal hardware spec, including

• Battery Life – a 3-4x improvement over RS Plus
• Processor – 2x Program
• RAM – 4x
• Flash Memory – 2x (to 32MB)
• Bluetooth Sync Speed – 8-16x speed improvement
• Sensor
  • 4x improvement in Gyro/Accel noise/drift
  • 1000Hz capable
  • 2x Pressure sensor resolution

Realworld Differences

Often new improved tech doesn’t deliver too much in real-world usage. However these specs DO look to be significantly improved and RunScribe hopes to be able to extract more detailed/frequent data and, of course, a longer battery life.

Gait-Cynic

You may have noticed that I am a little cynical of several gait products, every year there seems to be a special insole or shoe that can measure footstrike metrics. Those products tend to be insular and require you to use THEIR app with no initial Garmin CIQ integration…just a promise. Furthermore, they seem to be somewhat of a risky purchase when you consider how long they might survive as an insole.

Runscribe and footpods in general ARE DIFFERENT…I’m definitely behind pod-based solutions to running problems and definitely hope that RunScribe now has a market-beating gait product.

Pre-Order: HERE, for £299