Incus Nova Run Sensor Finally Available

Alistair Brownlee is a financial backer of Incus. Headline names like his make the media sit up and listen to the related product story.

The Incus triathlon/swim/run sensor is now available to pre-order through the company’s website Incus Performance, so you can find out for yourself what the excitement might be.

The sensor does produce some unusual and innovative metrics that are made possible by the custom sports clothing that is needed to use it. This was a list released a while back and it should be indicative of what is available now, for running at least.

Running Metrics:

• 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)

Check Out: Mo Farah’s Run Technique in slow motion

Swimming Metrics (to follow):

• 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

The swimming metrics seem novel to me and beyond anything available in the mainstream. The only other mainstream product/app that stands out here to me was the Swim Smooth Swimming Dynamics app for Apple Watch 6 which I used a few months back. That had quite amazing stats that tracked detailed hand & arm motions.

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. Incus DOES seem more ambitious in scope.

These products seem to fall by the wayside if they just focus on technique metrics. 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 (check out the Stryd Review). The fact that Stryd also offered some interesting gait metrics was just icing on the cake rather than the core of the product offering. What was particularly attractive with Stryd was (and is) its ability to work with your existing watch. Literally, all you need is the Stryd sensor and it simply plugs into your existing sports ecosystem without you having to change anything. Incus looks like it has its own data platform and also requires you to buy its clothing.

Some recreational/age group athletes are intrigued by an occasional glance at advanced metrics and a smaller number might even understand what to do to change an adverse number. Other athletes and coaches really delve into the details to fine-tune peak performers. I think the latter camp is where this product’s success might lie. I can’t see it gaining widespread adoption for non-professional athletes.