Internal Mono(b)log

Just before I went to Panama a box containing a beta unit of the Sportiiiis Heads Up Display for Athletes arrived at my door.  The timing couldn’t have been better for me to give the device a thorough testing in my lead up and racing in Ironman 70.3 Panama.

I’m happy to say that the Sportiiiis are… well… AWESOME!  They performed flawlessly in both my training in Panama and racing.

When I first unpacked the unit and installed the software, I experienced a few early-release glitches with the software/firmware and a corruption of the audio prompting on the device.  A subsequent update of the firmware and software resolved these problems, polished the desktop software and since then I’ve had absolutely no issues with the device.

Using the desktop software you can set target ranges for power, cadence, heart rate and speed for bike and run modes.  Using the capacitive touch button and a tap-selector as your 2 input methods you can change what the unit is reporting, the mode or get an immediate report of your current output in the sensor it’s monitoring.

Because of the minimalistic interface it takes a little practice and memory work to remember how to interact with the Sportiiiis, to change modes and settings.  I, also, initially found the touch sensor a bit difficult to find and interact with consistently, but like drinking from a water bottle when riding, it just takes a little practice and development of personal style 😉

The Sportiiiis reports to you in 2 outputs: a row of 5 7 coloured LEDs on the boom in your peripheral view and also through a mini-speaker at the back of the unit.  The speaker alerts you audibly if you’re out of zone and, at a configurable interval, reports the values for all the sensors the Sportiiiis is monitoring.

The Sportiiiis generated a fair bit of interest during IMPanama.  I showed them to a number of athletes and a couple of the race officials.  The race officials initially thought that they may be illegal because they thought that the Sportiiiis would act as a pace coach (beeping off a cadence to take), but once I explained to them that the sportiiiis were just a reporting device (like a Garmin watch), and they were satisfied that the speaker did not obscure your hearing or prevent any kind of coaching advise or safety hazard, they were happy with the Sportiiiis and thought they were pretty neat!  [yes that was a bit of a tense few minutes of explanation 🙂 ]

One thing I really love about the Sportiiiis is that my Garmin becomes a data recorder and the Sportiiiis replace it for current output display.  This gives me 2 things: race-day backup (if the Sportiiiis or Garmin crap-out during a race, I still have the other for pacing/monitoring output), not having to take my eyes off the road when riding or running to find, focus on and process the information on the little Garmin display.  Both big plusses in my books.  [Edit: Also 4iiiis tells me that in the future they’ll be recording data from the various ANT+ tethered devices and be able to upload that data to sites like TrainingPeaks.com (that’s pretty neat!).]

Sportiiiis are now available from their website, I love them, and think that anyone who trains and/or races based on data rather than feel will love them too!