Looks pretty cool, how do you "set" the target on the device so that it knows where to guide you?

Hello stephenholm and All,

Sounds like a winning idea!

Wishing you luck in bringing it to fruition.



Cheers,

Neal

+1 mph Faster

After actually learning to sight in open water I can't tell you how much calmer I am during the swim and how much energy it can really save.

The biggest problem with not being able to swim in a straight line is not the effect on calmness, effort, or time, but the fact that your stroke has flaws that cause you to swim to one side or the other (or both). Fixing that solves the problem; using a device (akin to having a black line on the bottom of the pool) to keep you on a line does nothing to fix that problem.

Best of luck with your business venture, in any case.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Is it legal to use in competitions?

sparkysfat - You can set the target in two ways. First is freestyle - while using freestyle IOLITE tracks the direction you are swimming dynamically, so no "setting" is needed. Then as you veer off your target direction you are notified real-time. When you make an obvious turn the LEDs flash indicating a new swim segment and IOLITE then starts to figure out your new direction.

The second mode is a Pre-Saved course. In our software you can draw a course that IOLITE will direct you on. The is done from a previous swim if you have one, or from a shared swim from someone else, or just drawn from the map. If it was a previous swim you can clean up the swim to just where you want to swim.

Steve

Stephen Holm
Co-Founder IOLITE

Perhaps one day we'll all have the perfect swim stroke.

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Pete Githens
Reading, PA

Klehner - congrats on your swimming improvement!

You are absolutely correct that as you learn to sight better you swim better! Same with learning to swim straight. For many swimmers, they mostly swim in a pool and learn to rely on that black line. It does take a lot of time to improve you swimming as well. I don't want that to be as big of a hurdle for new-comers to the sport.

Also, there are times where even experiences swimmers could benefit - times like when you are drafting, just to realize after the fact that the swimmer you are drafting is going off course!

I'd also like to mention that guidance for swimming off course is not the only feature of IOLITE. It also has speed indicators so you can train, then race at the same speed. In a long swim it can be very difficult to identify how fast you are swimming. Especially race day with all the distractions and the tendency to go out faster than how you trained. You also can have a cadence light to help you meet a target cadence.

Finally the detailed training reports are helpful and very fun! I can swim in a race with my buddy then afterwards play back both at the same time, to see how/where each of us made mistakes and how close we really were during the swim.

Thanks for bringing up some very valuable concerns!

Steve

Stephen Holm
Co-Founder IOLITE

Once in a while there's a race with a current that's not parallel to the course.

Andreasjs - Is it legal?

Great question! As of right now it IS legal. It offers no outside help, and breaks no rules. Having said that we are working on getting approval so that it won't ever be banned. Based off the precedent of devices during running and biking we are confident it should be approved. Also as it can really help new swimmers we believe it will help runners and bikers make the transition to triathlon easier, that there is a good business case for them to approve it.

Steve

Stephen Holm
Co-Founder IOLITE

Ahh, it's starting to sound pretty cool to me. I was thinking how nice to have the device augmented with speed and distance indicators. My thought was waterproof headphones with a voice every so often reporting yards/meters traveled/remaining, time spent/remaining, segment pace, overall pace, on/off pace; all programmable, of course.

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Proud member of FISHTWITCH: doing a bit more than fish exercise now.

I could see that saving a huge amount of time and energy in a half Ironman. Good luck with the project!

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-Alex

I suck at sighting. So I will use any help available. Last month I swam 1.2 miles in Galveston and the waves and swells were horrendous. The swells would turn you and within 4 or 5 stroke sighing you might be swimming 90 degrees away from the next buoy. It was rough conditions. Afterwards, several good swimmers told me they had to sight every 2nd of 3rd stroke otherwise they would be off course.

corneliused wrote:

Once in a while there's a race with a current that's not parallel to the course.

Of course. That's why you do the following on race morning:

1. Warmup on the course and judge the conditions. Look for and memorize landmarks to sight on.
2. Watch earlier waves to see how the swimmers are affected by the conditions.
3. Depend on the above to keep on course.

I don't have a perfect stroke by any measure. But it's good enough, and I've practiced enough, to be able to swim in a straight enough line so as to not be seriously geometrically penalized.


I think this product is very clever, and I seriously wish them luck. But it is a tool to augment one's skill, not to replace it. As Halfspeed indicated, the pacing and downloadability of the race data is where I see value.

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"Go yell at an M&M"

Very impressive idea. Good luck on the execution.

And, even if you have a great swim stroke, it only takes one asymmetrical stroke to get you way off course (if you're not able to sight, and I've been in races where big ocean swells totally obscured the course buoys during most of my sighting attempts).

Some feedback:

Your ks video doesn't show how the device keeps you on track. I want to know what do you see in the led display when off track; what do you see in the display when back on track? what does each led dot indicate? 1 meter off line? 5 meters off line? `10 meters off line?

Can you use a more precise lcd display line to show on course/off course indications instead of stepped individual leds? If possible, that would be far better.

For me, knowing my true translational open water swim pace is not that useful. Water moves way too much for one to rely on degree of progress through it for an indicator of pace. Perceived exertion is way better.

But having an indicator of straight line distance without having to sight: now that is a killer app.

Greg @ dsw

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Additional question:

You show up at a race, they've thrown some buys out there (without gps or lat/longs) for a approx triangular course, how do you program those 2 in-water waypoints on the spot in your device?

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+1 for the bolded section. Knowing pace in open water is akin to knowing bike speed on a windy day; it isn't an accurate enough indication of my efforts to be useful. Is there a swim power meter function in this device?

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Jed

"If you want to ride by the Force, you had better make sure that you are a real Jedi." - FastYellow (6/13/2011)

DarkSpeedWorks - Many races, including most shorter races are like this. The buoys are placed last minute. For those types of races, you would use "Freestyle" mode. You sight a few times per leg to get a decent bearing, then IOLITE figures out the direction you are attempting to swim. It then keeps you on that line until you make a turn around a buoy. At that point we start a new leg looking at your new direction.

If you can swim/boat the course beforehand with an IOLITE, you then can take the result and create a swim map for it right where the buoys are.

Steve
Co-Founder IOLITE

Klehner - you are spot on. It's like aero bars - they are not a replacement for training, they just help give you an edge.

This is a very good point. If you are familiar with the body of water and will know the currents. You can take advantage of this in freestyle or pre-saved course mode. When trying to swim with a current, you have to CHANGE where you are sighting as you get closer to the buoy, otherwise you still have to swim against the current. With a pre-saved course, you can pre plan how to handle the current and you will follow the path you wanted. In freestyle, if you know half way out there is a wicked cross current, you initially sight outside the buoy, and when you get to about that section you can "ride" the edge of the LEDs to start cutting back over. If the current ends up stronger/softer than you thought it will immediately reflect in the LED information coming in!

Steve
Co-Founder IOLITE

DSW - The main one does not. There is another video lower down with a quite example of the device in use!



The spread of the LEDs is configurable. Instead of how many meters off, it is how many degrees you are off. I like it set to around 5 degrees left or right for yellow, and 15 degrees left or right for red. This gives me a few false positives on the yellows that quickly resolve, but I know I can do just one wide arm if it stays longer than a few seconds. If I'm clipping red, I will do one or two wide arms to straighten me out.

This can really be affected by your swim speed, and some of the other settings, but it should give you an idea.


This is interesting! A normal LCD display cannot be focused that close to your eye. You would need a display like google glass. That would drastically increase the cost! However, I find the LEDs easier in the fact you don't have to process hardly anything. You don't have to think too much. As the light comes on it naturally just lets you know what you have to do - very easy!


Phew! - lots of ideas on here! In a moving body of water, you have a good point. However a majority of the races I've been in do not have significant currents. You can always turn off any feature you don't want. Having said that - have you ever been drafting and thought something like "This feels too easy, is it because I'm drafting, or am I going to slow?" Unless there is significant currents there can be some benefit here! Just know the body of water before you head out so you have the correct settings.

We are even playing around with allowing you to change speed targets through the swim. For example, if you wanted to Sprint out 200 meters, then calm down - we could really help. Then after 300 meters, lets say that is where there are currents, you could have it turn off at that point. That way you get the initial information you needed, then turn it off for when it does not work.

Steve
Co-Founder IOLITE

I love the idea, but I'm convinced it should be banned in competition

Why? More people swimming on-course instead of swimming perpendicular or diagonally across? More people stopping to figure out where they are? Sure . . we can technology things to death but I'm not sure what harm this product does to a competition.

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Pete Githens
Reading, PA

Why are the leds programmed to show degrees off course? Why not linear distance like 5 meters off course etc ? With degrees, if you're far from the waypoint, even 1 degree off could have you way off course..

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DSW - this is exactly the kind of feedback we are looking for - challenge our assumptions! We are in the process right now of testing multiple algorithms and approaches to determine the most effective. Degree happens to be the one I used in the video on the Kickstarter. One benefit of degree is we can get a very real time number. However I understand your point of # of meters off course. If we have a pre-programmed course this is absolutely something we could do. We have a line from start to the first way point and we could know exactly how far off you are. If we did that, the number of meters "off" would still be a user setting.

If we used a large value like 5 meters off course, and did not use degrees, you could still do a lot of swimming back and forth adding distance. Also, once you are "off course", we do not want you to swim back into the "channel", we want you to swim towards the buoy. If we have a pre-set course, no problem! But in freestyle mode this begins to add problems.

We also think "changing" the way it works between different modes could be very confusing to the end user. So we have to find something that will work with freestyle mode as well. With freestyle, we have no idea of the end point. We make an assumption that it extends off straight for a good distance and then still show how far off the line we are. However, we do not have a 100% confidence in the far target, because as you mentioned, just a couple degrees off can have you way off course. So we need to be able to improve our confidence in that far point as you swim.

I love the feedback, and I'll report back more of our findings as we do more testing!