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I too looked at the time lines and had second thoughts. The deal breaker for me is the claim of 1m water resistance AND charging via micro usb. One of the best devices I’ve ever used (after a custom firmware) was the Motoactv. However I killed four of them with sweat thanks to the silly micro usb charging port. Where are all the induction charged devices? There’s no need for the little copper leads or USB anymore.
Also if this device was to use the TI WiLink system on chip they would get bluetooth 4.0 AND ant+ from one chip.
They’re using CSR because they said the power profile going to the TI chipset would reduce it by half (down to roughly 1.5 hours), and that it didn’t offer the audio quality that the CSR chip does.
Whether or not that’s accurate/true, I don’t have any way to confirm. Just the messenger there…
the micro usb is on the carrying case not the Dash. the Dash has 4 pins to connect to the case. the dash is filled with silicone to make it watertight.
they said induction charging was considered but too slow. probably a combo of too slow or too big.
idefix, also just a messenger ;)
Unless its offered as a addon *TO* MicroUSB induction charging would be the last thing i want.
Having to have another proprietary charger to carry around with me (essentially tied to my hip) is a incredible PITA.
I’m really stunned by the usage of in-earplugs by sporters. I’m only using those old-fashioned earbuds that doesn’t creates a vacuum that is called ‘my head’. This has led to getting that smack/boom! effect every step I took, besides I can’t find these to be very safe.
I don’t know if you’ve already mentioned this, but I find this a good kickstarter-product: link to kickstarter.com. It’s in production and ready to order, though paying 170 euros for a set(!) of lights is way too expensive.
I’ve used for over a year and highly recommend them. They are comfortable and do not isolate from outside noise.
Ah cool, thanks for the link.
On the audio side of things the Dash can switch from passive closed to active open. Meaning it is a passive isolating headphone that can actively mix in surrounding noise/sound if you wish. So you can listen to music on a plane without hearing much engine noise or you can wear them on a bike in traffic listening to music while still hearing the traffic sounds around you.
idefix, still just a messenger ;)
Nice idea, but the wrong place. I must not be the only one who won’t wear headphones out on the road. About the only time I’ll wear them exercising is when I’m skiing laps in the local park. And in ear? No thanks.
But on the other hand, I’d be very interested in something that continuously took as many vitals as possible non invasively.
There is a descent ear phone that measures heart rate and more the Iriver ON.
link to iriverinc.com
Unfortuatnely the apps that support it stink and it costs $200.
Mike
I was going to ask about these! Thanks for the info about the apps, good to know.
Thanks for the comments Koen – I tend to agree with you. I went for a run once with nice headphones and came back in need of replacing them, never again! (I also really liked your link too!)
Now I wear pretty good $6 basic phones that are just north of disposable (though they seem more durable than others I’ve tried).
I’m thinking that this is one of those tools that Ray reviews more for the general athlete rather than the more than serious data junkies out there. After all, who’s going to ditch their Garmin 620 for this? Those folks don’t own a nice Garmin, because they’re already happy with their Track-my-run type app.
Horses for courses…
This is one of the reasons that I both love and hate Kickstarter. I love the idea of helping to fund interesting projects like this with the possibility of getting something tangible out of it. I hate the fact what I get out of it will likely be a not-quite finished product (albeit at a slightly reduced price). Personally, I’d rather get a coupon for a discount on a fully realized retail unit.
The problem that I have with the Dash in particular is that there is no mention of use with a GPS watch. Even if the data it collects is good, audible feedback for general workout data on-the-fly sucks. Try saying the elapsed time, distance, speed, and heart rate out loud and see how long it takes. Unless they have a novel way to hear a specific piece of data you’ll have to hear the whole thing every time. It’s a pain.
Great idea, hope they can make it work
I wonder what the battery life will be. that can really sink a product.
3 hours.
The peak of the ‘bell curve’ for times at any marathon is 4 hours. So much for the casual marathon runner market.
The interesting thing about all of this to me is the integration with phone based GPS. Why aren’t the apps related to Fitbit, Jawbone and Basis taking advantage of this? Runkeeper has been doing it for years. Polar is rumored to be doing it with Flow but it seems that might cannibalize sales of their wrist based GPS products like the V800.
Polar have been selling heart rate monitors for use with phones for many years. I personally use a Polar Wearlink Bluetooth model with Sportstracklive on Android; some more recent Polar watches even use the Bluetooth Smart (low energy) version of the strap. IIRC the first bluetooth model was sold in a Nokia bundle at first.
I wish I could be optimistic on this one, but even setting the timeline issues aside — and at this point pretty much everyone should be aware that Crowdfunding project timelines should never be taken seriously — I feel like they’re likely *vastly* over-promising compared to what they’re ultimately going to deliver.
Vastly.
They may be able to overcome some of the problems others have run into trying to accomplish some of these goals, but overcome all of them simultaneously whilst maintaining a tiny form factor and multiple conflicting functions?
Just don’t see it.
Not just trying to do too much, but trying to do too much that has been shown to be problematic before in a form factor that is itself problematic.
I would need to see these in the flesh before putting that kind of money down. Nice concept though.
http://www.velovitaveritas.com
link to drop-kicker.com
Cool stuff, especially since they dive much more into the electrical/chipset engineering side. In many ways, these two posts compliment each other. They give a really solid deep insight there, whereas I’m more focused on the realities of the fitness portions. Thanks for sharing!
In addition to ANT+ and probably more importantly what they are missing and what would have made this perfect is FM radio with RDS *and* FM Transmitter.
Being able to use the RDS stream to send that back to a iPhone would give you a always on singlecast connection for news, weather, forecast information and other useful alerts. Then being able to send that information BACK to the mobile device makes that 10x more powerful.
iPhone users want to cut the cord with cellular companies. This would have empowered them to take one step closer to doing that.
Instead its just another bluetooth headset on steroids. Not a true AIO.
You can buy a biometric sports Bluetooth headset today — the iriverON. It uses sensor technology by a startup named Valencell. I own one, and it’s quite impressively accurate. There is a neckpiece on this one which is different than most Bluetooth headsets, but the neck controls are nice. Have you tried it?
LG, Intel, and Blaupunkt have announced that they will be launching products with this same tech. Have you tried any of these products? (Might be harder to get hold of since I do not think they’ve launched yet.) I’m not certain if Dash is using Valencell’s stuff as well, but if not, I suspect they will at some point in order to not be blocked by Valencell’s patents. Also, the Valencell guys talk about how getting this stuff to work accurately during running (and on multiple ears) took thousands and thousands of datasets to figure out.
At one point there was a Hong Kong company with in-ear (ear canal) technology, and I think they licensed it to Motorola, but I presume their tech must have not worked well since Motorola halted production without shipping any units. Did you ever try this one out?
Yup, I’ve played with the iRiver unit a bit as well as the native Valencell stuff, and spent quite a bit of time talking to them.
As for LG/Intel/etc, they were only on display at CES. And even Intel pulled their units by 11AM the first day (just an hour after they put them out).
Thus, in many ways, with the exception of iRiver, everyone else is solidily in the camp of ‘still need to prove it’. With Motorola, they had prototype units, but never scaled to production due to accuracy issues they were seeing (from my understanding). Looking at the iRiver and the Dash, the significant differences are not just the size, but also the sheer quantity of things that Dash believes they can accomplish in addition to just monitoring HR. I believe they’ll get there – but I don’t believe they’ll do it in the timeframes they speculate.
Apple have just received a patent for similar functionality…
link to appleinsider.com
Looks like this patent is limited to monitoring biometric and activity information and identifying actions associated with them to replicate those actions on a portable communication device. That is actually a very narrow patent. I don’t think Dash is doing this, are they claiming so?
I was a little skeptical of them saying “ANT+ would consume too much power” as ANT+ is lower power than BLE, but it’s probably due to the fact that they’d have to switch to a TI chipset which at the moment isn’t as low power as the CSR chipset.
Correct, it was in reference to switching from the CSR to TI chipset (or, Nordic).
Yes, I was also surprised to hear they were not using ANT+ with it’s ultra-low power. I went out to dinner here in Munich with one of the technical developers and he confirmed it was also for this reason, that they are using BLE. Hmmm, is ANT listening? It might not take a Google or Apple throwing their weight behind BLE to squash ANT+ (BetaMax vs VHS!).
The time line also doesn’t take into account the Oktoberfest in September and all the drinking that will be done!!
I wonder about claimed battery capacity of 100mAh. It seems to be almost impossible to place such a battery in their tiny package.
This does seem to be a potentially very good product, for which I would likely obtain a set for multiple reasons, all of which Bragi covered in their website.
My only question/concern(complaint?) is:
“The USB connection. Bragi is using BT v4 but staying behind w/USB v2 – why didn’t they go to USB v3 for the faster data transfer speeds that ‘everyone’ wants or would like to have? Is there some kind of patent/license cost overhead or something preventing them from doing so?”
Ahh, more technological snake oil. No way this company will deliver a reliable product with that level of integration under those harsh environments. Even in 2015. I hope those kickstarters feel good about making those donations because they won’t be getting anything close to what Bragi is claiming.
Seriously…would just like a pair of good quality noise cancelling in ear wireless headphones (I fly a lot). Don’t need the rest, why not aim slightly lower and deliver at least that…. and then progress up from there.
There is now a working prototype of the Dash that performs as expected. Looks like all you naysayers were wrong.
Yup, not exactly.
First, they’ve just got all the parts to fit in your ear. But they haven’t shown that it actually works. Seriously, it’s ‘easy’ to jam all stuff in your ear if it doesn’t yet work and be accurate.
Second, they’ve already delayed the project – and that was before the first prototypes were done this week, which was supposed to be back in June and handed off to beta folks then.
Again, I really want them to succeed – I think it’s great. But I also see them as promising the world in a timeline they can’t deliver. If I’m wrong about the first point above, then they would have no problem showing me a functional demo. It’s only a few hour train ride/45 minute flight. I’d be happy to go over and demo it and post about it. The CEO has my cell number…
I’ve always wondered why such devices never became popular. I had one at least ten years ago, but it finally broke down. It had a strap around the chest connected to the headphone by cable. You would set your desired workout range and at a desired frequency, a girls’s voice would say something like, “You’re slowing down-95,” or, “You’re working too hard-140”. To me, nothing could be better, but I guess the world disagreed, because that company is now out of business, and no one else manufactures such a product today. Why? You tell me. Come to think of it, I have more than the device I bought originally. They worked about the same way, but their quality was lacking. I think I still may have them, and I’m going to go looking for them, because I recently started hill-climbing for exercise, and they would be very useful.
The price? Well it was a long time ago, but I’d say around $40.00.
Actually there have been 3 earbuds that can track heart rate:LG HRM, SMS audio using Intel sensor,and Jabra. They will become popular soon.
At the time I wrote this, those simply didn’t exist.
Which, of course, still doesn’t change the fact that the Dash is fairly well delayed, with the initial beta/prototypes now set for early January according to their update yesterday.
Delayed, sure, but still less then others like Sensoria
Just ordered it, current delivery expected April. I am very curious about the useability in combination with iBeacon kind of products to support indoor orientation, steering and monitoring of personnel. Anyone anticipating on this or want to team up?
If these could replace the Garmin HRM and still sync with Garmin Connect with some watch app, that combo would be my ultimate “this is the future” product combo.
Ray, have you already had a chance to get in touch with the dash?
It is out now, and what I could read from a couple of reviews, they have to sort out a lot of problems with connectivity (bluetooth), heart rate accuracy, usb uplink speed, connectivity between both earplugs…
Any plans to review the dash in near future?