INDUSTRY SECTOR: WEARABLE TECH
Tekt Industries and Sports Performance Tracking reveal a partnership to create wearable tech for emerging athletes.
Tekt Industries is the product design house of choice for Sports Performance Tracking (SPT), a Melbourne-based company specialising in wearable metrics for high-impact based sports.
While there is an array of wearable devices on the market for professional athletes, amateur and emerging athletes have struggled to find devices that suit their needs. Sports Performance Tracking has recognised this and in response have partnered with Tekt Industries to create SPT2, a wearable device that provides unprecedented access to game-changing metrics for emerging athletes.
SPT2 will be replacing Sports Performance Tracking’s previous product, an off-shore OEM designed product, which only provided basic information on players’ GPS locations. Still in production, SPT2 will give athletes a detailed picture of their movements on the field, through integration of a magnetometer, gyroscope, and accelerometer, as well as GPS.
SPT2 will integrate Bluetooth for instant access to player statistics, which will allow coaches to use the data during a game to ensure players perform to the best of their ability. Players and coaches can instantly access stats like distance run, number of sprints, max acceleration, length of time on the field, and the number of impacts a player has had.
After the game, players and coaches will be able to download all of the raw data captured during the game. Here, the device will be able to give unprecedented accuracy on player movement during the game with its high acuity data logging capability. This is because the Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU; the magnetometer, gyroscope, and accelerometer) combined with the GPS in SPT2 allow for sensor fusion, which essentially means that the combination of the various measurements give a sum greater than their parts. This data will give endless opportunities for analysis and learnings for teams, with sports scientists at SPT working now on the companion software for SPT2 (GameTraka) so teams can understand and make the most out of the plethora of data the device will provide.
This light-weight device (27 grams) contains a lot under the hood. When designing the PCB (printed circuit board) for SPT2, Tekt used a patented configuration of microcontrollers. This clever bit of engineering means SPT2 has a dedicated microcontroller for Bluetooth as well as a separate microcontroller to give fast and flexible data transfer over USB.
The SPT2 hardware is capable of logging for 6 full hours (or two AFL games) between charges, it is water-resistant to IP65, and integrated a unique hinged air-tight seal designed to keep out liquids and dust. It will be able to be charged both as an individual unit (via a micro-USB cable), or as a whole team of units, with the custom-built charging case capable of charging and transferring data for 15 SPT2 units simultaneously.
Tekt Industries are providing end-to-end development services for SPT, including extensive concept design, sourcing of parts, circuit board design, firmware development, thorough in-house testing, creation of all prototypes for field testing, and initial pilot production at Tekt’s Melbourne fabrication facility.
Tekt Industries and Sports Performance Tracking expect the product to be released around December 2017. Go check out the product range from Sports Performance Tracking today as we believe they offer a world-class product.
