Skiing is a sport with fun and adventure. Who doesn’t love snow and sliding on it? We are in middle of this year´s ski season and hopefully you already improved our skills. There are a number of measurables in skiing that would be useful to benchmark progress and evaluate performance on the mountain, including the basics like distance, vertical, speed and time. Especially wearable sensors make it possible to provide all kinds of different data we need to improve our skills. So check out which products you can use.
PIQ Robot + Hero Master
PIQ ROBOT is a ski sensor device by Rossignol which provides real-time actionable information that will allow you to improve your runs. Thanks to the power of the PIQ ROBOT and its incredible precision in measuring motions and angles, users get access to an intelligence never seen before on the mountains. It analyses the carving style by the millisecond. Thanks to its computing power, you get to know how explosive you were from one edge to the other, how much angle and force you’ve put into each of your turns: angle, transition, and G-Force. Because skiing is also about the occasional jump, Rossignol and PIQ has an integrated jump analyzer. Your PIQ ROBOT records all of your jumps with jump-specific performance metrics like rotations, airtime, and G-Force at landing.
Rossignol and PIQ also announced that they have created the world’s first “connected” ski, called the Hero Master. The ski got a PIQ nano-computer and LED readout in front of the bindings and collects and analyzes a swath of performance metrics from speed and turn angle to G-forces and lateral momentum. The AI system then analyzes this data, down to “microscopic variations in skiing movements” according to the company’s press release, and displays it on the ski’s LED screen. This presumably gives the skier immediate, actionable feedback which they can use to improve their technique. The Hero Master is just a one-off prototype but let´s wait what will happen with this product. Maybe it will be ready for ski season 2017/2018.
Pomo-Cup
PomoCup is a ski mountaineering device from GaitUp developed in partnership with POMOCA and winner of the WT Innovation World Cup 2016/2017 in category Sports&Fitness. It has a smart clipping system to attach to your gear conveniently and provides the user with important facts like distance, speed, number of kick turns and other useful data. It has an OLED display to show the data without a phone.It measures up to 1,400 data points per second. These include temperature, slope angle, ascent time, ascent speed and number of kick turns. It can be used either with a display controlled by gestures or a smartphone app. Afterwards all data can be analyzed on your computer at home. In the future, other wearables like smartwatches could be connected with the Pomocup.
Trace
Trace is a wearable sensor which is mounted near one of your bindings. Trace helps by tracking and analyzing your runs. With a combination of a 9-axis IMU and GPS, the device shows stats on total airtime, max jump height, vertical distance, max speed, calories burned, max slope angle and ride time. Furthermore, The other aspect to the little device is its GoPro video integration. Trace will auto-edit all of your GoPro footage without you having to lift a finger. Just sync your camera before you start filming, and when you get back, upload the raw footage to your PC or Mac. In just a few minutes, all your footage will be organized into individual clips of just your runs — with color correction, stats overlay, and easily shareable.
Carv
Carv is the first wearable dedicated to skiing that speaks to you as you ski – it’s your digital ski coach. Carv connects wirelessly to your smartphone to give simple, actionable and detailed feedback to casual skiers and analysis for advanced and professional skiers. The unit also houses an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a magnetometer which provides the Carv system with information of the motion and orientation of the skis. The Carv tracker coordinates data collection, performs calculations for pressure and motion at high frequencies, and oversees wireless communications with the smartphone. As you ski, Carv processes your data on the go and spurs you ontoards becoming a better skier. Keep track of your achievements, and personal bests for each ski run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzKF_7FJjdg
So use the last chance to improve your ski skills with the power of wearable technology. Have a good remaining ski season!!
