Our startup company - Cool Heart Rate Monitor - No ChestStrap Required

A few of you inquired about my start up company awhile back ago on the debate forum. Anyways just wanted to share something I have been working on for a few years now. Four of us started this company back in 2005. We were very fortunate to get funding and five years later we are starting to see it payoff. Not going to go too much into it since you can read about it here www.impactsports.com

We make and sell our own heart rate monitor called the ePulse. I know you may think heart rate monitors have been around forever but ours is different since it's the first real time heart rate monitor that does not require a annoying uncomfortable chest strap. The other really cool part is our technology is going to be used in the upcoming EA Sports EA Active 2 game on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii. Some of you may have already seen the commercials for it.

We have been selling the first version of the ePulse on Amazon for awhile now and our new version the ePulse II will be available soon. Check it out and pick one up directly from our site or check on Amazon when it becomes available.

www.impactsports.com

 

We did do a lot of testing on the wrist and it does work on the wrist for "some" people but not all so we designed and recommend using it on the arm.

We took a lot of feedback from users and tried to incorporate them into the changes in our ePulse II. One of the original complaints was the buttons on the original one. The new one has "big" and easy to push buttons. The other complaint we had on the original was the display (custom made by us originally) was hard to view in direct sunlight. We switched over to a color OLED display that we purchase from another vendor. So the new version shouldn't have any of those issues.

 

haha I'll see what I can do if I meet up with you at the Clippers game next month. Looks like scyang will be in Houston so he wont be able to go. I need to find other SD folks to go otherwise the road trip up is going to be pretty boring.

 

The MSRP on it will be around $99-$129

 

Our main competitor is Polar. Garmin focusses on GPS tracking over heart rate monitoring. The products out on the market that go on the wrist that provide heart rate do not provide "continuous real time monitoring".
What this means is you have to stop running or working out and put your finger or fingers on two metal contact points to get your heart rate. With our product you just wear it and it tracks your heart rate in real time.

 

Nope there are two types of heart rate monitors out there currently today. There is the one with no chest strap like a watch, which does not give you continous heart rate monitoring. You need to put your finger on some sort of sensor when you stop.

For continous heart rate monitoring the only products on the market ALL have chest straps that you wear around chest. Be careful what you buy because they often don't advertise or show the chest strap and only show the fancy watch. The packaging is also cleverly designed to just show the watch and not the chest strap that comes with it. Here is the pic of the garmin mentioned above along with the chest strap.

 

Fitness games like the Wii Fit and EA Activ were two of best selling titles last two years. There is definitely a new demographic of people who enjoy fitness type games. Just look at the PS3 Move and Xbox kinnect. Adding Heart Rate is the next step in the whole fitness/video game experience.

 

Pretty cool. Where did you test out the EA Activ 2?? What system did you try it on?