Designing a device that fits every head shape is extremely tricky. Designing a device that mounts on every single goggle on the market (over 90+) and that also fits every head shape is an ordeal (of course one that we truly enjoy overcoming).
As you know, we have been working tenaciously for the past two years to find the “perfect” design, and we were extremely close, so close. We felt we could keep on iterating forever, so we gave ourselves a challenge to spend one more week testing on as many people as possible and with as many goggles as possible to refine the design and make the final modifications before moving to the next phase. Our team was on deck all hands-on with goggles testing two different designs with tens of swimmers. Over five days, our testers swam more than 2,500 minutes covering over 20,000 meters!!
This crunch deadline was thrilling and Instabeat team worked persistently with supportive and wonderful local swimmers.
By the end of the week, we had enough data to support our design choice. We have finally reached a design that has a 91% success rate on any goggle/head shape combination. This number is slightly higher than the target we had set ourselves (90%) and goes a long way from 57% success rate we previously had.
Progress highlight: Industrial design + ergonomics testing is done!
Next milestone: Functional testing! We have started a series of functional tests to validate our component choices for the electrical design and the accuracy of our sensors (already previously successfully tested in the past, but not in the new form factor!).
The momentum we picked up from the series of successes is going to make the following busy weeks and months of more tests sail through smoothly. Anchor up and follow us getting in even better shape from all the swimming and running around we will be doing to create the best product for you.
If you are in San Francisco or know swimmers in this area fill out this short questionnaire for a chance to be selected as a test panelist.
Stay tuned for some more functional updates soon!
Instantly yours,
Team Instabeat