In the unlikely event that my missus reads this, actually she may be the only one who does, I want one of these for my early morning swim at the Billingshurst swimming pool.
It is is the Pool-Mate, a fully automatic lap and stroke counter watch for swimmers, and if you are wondering what it's doing in the disti blog, I can tell you its development was very much aided by Arrow Advantage.
In case you haven't been paying attention Arrow Advantage was established to support start-up companies. It staged a training day with Texas Instruments, which the execs from Swimovate, the developers of Pool-Mate attended. From the development kits, training tools, software and sample components emerged the product now being taken to market based around TI's MSP430 low power, 16-bit microcontroller.
The Pool-Mate will automatically count the number of laps, I still call them lengths, which is a Godsend as it is easy to lose count, as well as counting the average strokes per length (not so good for me). Other data it can accumulate includes time, speed, distance and even the amount of calories burned in one session.
Lisa Irlam, chief executive officer of Swimovate was full of praise for Arrow Advantage. "They assisted us with the road mapping of the product and advised us what products we needed to get the best technical result and at the lowest cost. We are now able to offer triathletes an automatic wrist device at an affordable price."
"We listened to Swimovate's needs and offered the advice and technical support they required to make this exciting new products a reality," added Dean Hassell , general manager of Arrow UK.
Fortunately a pic of the author in his Speedos was not available so you'll have to make do with one of the watch.
Comments