Whilst land based sports such as running and cycling are inundated with wearable technologies to track performance, water based sports such as swimming have been left in the dark in comparison.
This led Hind Hobeika to develop a wearable technology for swimmers, based on her own desire to track her heart rate whilst swimming. In Lebanon, a region not renowned for swimming, she started the company Instabeat, which developed the device now known as Instabeat.
The streamlined device attaches to one side of any swimming goggles, and measures heart rate via the temporal artery, therefore no need for anymore heart rate straps. It then projects one of three colours in real time on to your goggle lense to let you know if you are in the lower, middle, or upper limit of your heart rate training zone. It also measures calorie expenditure, breathing pattern, and number of flip turns and laps which can be viewed when connect to a computer.
This is first type of wearable swimming technology which can store data, and also visually feedback data in real time, finally helping amateur and professional swimmers to optimise their training and achieve peak performance. It’s already received several awards for its innovation before reaching the market.
After a successful round of crowd funding, Instabeat will be available later in the year for $149(£90).
Faye Prior (Researcher)
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