Ive just come across this app for the iphone from Speed Coach.
It uses GPS for the speed calcs, and has some nice features such as stoke rate, total stroke count, check and bounce. "Check" is a measure of how smooth you are in the recovery phase of the stoke. "Bounce" shows a number that indicates the relative amount of verticle dispalcement during the stroke. Great feedback for flatwater technique training.
Being GPS based it is great for flat water where their is no current or tidal flow.
www.performancephones.com/2010/06/speedcoach-mobile-1-2-0-approved-by-apple/
$60 for an app... Ouch.
It looks like a nice tool and it's cheap considering what polar or garmin are charging but it is an expensive app!
Looks good but so far as I can make out, there is no voice recording feedback of statistics so you can only check your performance at the end of a session. The phone needs to be mounted facing the bow or stern and can't swing around in a bag. That's not insurmountable, but if the only feedback is on screen, then I can't use it. GPS Motion X gives distance, average speed and current speed read outs ever 60 seconds through my headphones. The only thing it doesn't offer is stroke rate, which I would love to have.
Fair points.
The app is expensive at $60.00 but was cheaper than $300 dedicated GPS. The speedcoach guys do know their stuff, and the unit is more accurate the any of ther other GPS apps I have used.
I use it strapped to the deck of my board, and it works pretty well.
The screen display can be altered, so my display looks like this:
- Speeed m/s
- SPM - strokes per minute
- Ave Speed m/s
-Total Time
- Bounce
- Check (recovery stroke)
Cheers
JGo1
Have you tried MotionX-GPS for the iPhone? I find it quite useful for my paddles up here in Santa Barbara, California. Cost $2.99 US$. Can't beat it for the price. It tracks your paddles and sends you an email link to Goggle Earth where you find your track and data. One of the things I think I like the most about it is the voice feedback (a very motivating female voice, by the way). I've set mine up to report my elapsed time, distance, and speed every minute. I keep the phone in a waterproof bag on a short loop of rope that I hang around my neck. I drop the phone under the back of my shirt between my shoulder blades. I can hear the aural reports of speed, distance, and time as I paddle. Here is a screen shot of a recent paddle off of the University of California Santa Barbara. I was on my Bark 14 custom and doing some sprint work to see what kind of speeds I could hit: 8.8 mph or 14.16 kph on the downwind.