Hi there,
I'm an engineering student looking at doing a triathlon related capstone project, and I'm looking at doing a project that would automatically count the number of laps you've swum in the pool.
Considering that there are already watches that can do this, I'm looking at creating a solution that you don't have to wear on your wrist.
From a fundamental functionality standpoint there are two things my solution must do:
So far I've come up with an idea that uses the proximity functionality of Bluetooth
This involves a Bluetooth chip that would replace the plastic adjustment piece for your goggle straps. The Bluetooth chip would be similar to a 'Tile' or 'Trackr' and would be able to transmit how far away it is from the device it is paired to.
The Bluetooth chip would be paired to a display unit (a phone or a waterproof device). The idea is that the user would press a button on the chip to indicate when and where they are starting to swim. This would start a timer on the display unit and send a position reference point from swimmer to the display unit. Whenever the swimmer returns to this reference point, the display unit would increment a counter indicating that they have completed a lap. When the swimmer is done swimming laps and wants to record their time, they could simply press the button on the chip again to tell the display unit to stop the timer.
The main issue with this idea is that Bluetooth does not transmit underwater. So it relies on the Bluetooth chip periodically coming out of the water and pairing with the display unit. I've tried this out with 'Tile' at the pool with a friend looking for it on my phone and it only really worked with my freestyle (not fly, back, or breaststroke).
With this idea I am wondering if this provides much advantage over a watch, or if wearing a watch something that only bothers me?
I'm also wondering if you would be willing to use your phone as the display unit or if you would prefer to spend an extra $40-$80 to use a waterproof display clock that you could put on the pool deck?
Note: your phone could probably sit in your swim bag ~20ft away from the edge of the pool and still be able to count laps, but you would have to pull your phone out of your bag to see any data.
If you have any other idea on how I could count laps I would love to hear those ideas.
I'd also like to hear any thoughts you have on this idea, and what you think could be improved.
Thanks,
Foster
I'm an engineering student looking at doing a triathlon related capstone project, and I'm looking at doing a project that would automatically count the number of laps you've swum in the pool.
Considering that there are already watches that can do this, I'm looking at creating a solution that you don't have to wear on your wrist.
From a fundamental functionality standpoint there are two things my solution must do:
- Count laps and record time for each lap
- Display lap count and lap timing information to the swimmer
So far I've come up with an idea that uses the proximity functionality of Bluetooth
This involves a Bluetooth chip that would replace the plastic adjustment piece for your goggle straps. The Bluetooth chip would be similar to a 'Tile' or 'Trackr' and would be able to transmit how far away it is from the device it is paired to.
The Bluetooth chip would be paired to a display unit (a phone or a waterproof device). The idea is that the user would press a button on the chip to indicate when and where they are starting to swim. This would start a timer on the display unit and send a position reference point from swimmer to the display unit. Whenever the swimmer returns to this reference point, the display unit would increment a counter indicating that they have completed a lap. When the swimmer is done swimming laps and wants to record their time, they could simply press the button on the chip again to tell the display unit to stop the timer.
The main issue with this idea is that Bluetooth does not transmit underwater. So it relies on the Bluetooth chip periodically coming out of the water and pairing with the display unit. I've tried this out with 'Tile' at the pool with a friend looking for it on my phone and it only really worked with my freestyle (not fly, back, or breaststroke).
With this idea I am wondering if this provides much advantage over a watch, or if wearing a watch something that only bothers me?
I'm also wondering if you would be willing to use your phone as the display unit or if you would prefer to spend an extra $40-$80 to use a waterproof display clock that you could put on the pool deck?
Note: your phone could probably sit in your swim bag ~20ft away from the edge of the pool and still be able to count laps, but you would have to pull your phone out of your bag to see any data.
If you have any other idea on how I could count laps I would love to hear those ideas.
I'd also like to hear any thoughts you have on this idea, and what you think could be improved.
Thanks,
Foster