Smart shoes aren’t something totally new. Some brands have already developed footwear that would give you information on the activity it was able to track while you were wearing it. But most of them focused on running activities only. Salted Venture, a startup that spun off from Samsung, is ready to unveil their IOFIT, a smart shoe that has the goal of helping both athletes and coaches analyze their training regimen in order to improve their performance, and this time, it’s for all kinds of sports.
The IOFIT was first developed in the C-Lab, one of the in-house innovation programs of Samsung where employees can pitch and then create their ideas that may be a little far from the company’s core competencies. The team that created the smart shoe then left the OEM to create their own startup and that became Salted Venture. What they’ve created is a wearable that has sensors embedded in each shoe that will give insights (real time at that) to both the one doing the training, and if they have a coach who wants to analyze the data, then that too.
The information includes the amount of force being used on several parts of the foot, which will then determine the balance, center of gravity, weight shift, etc. The data can be streamed directly to the app on your smartphone or tablet. It also has a built-in recording feature that can sync the footage that you film from your phone to the captured data from the shoes. As mentioned earlier, this isn’t just for running but also for other sports like weightlifting, weight training, and even golf.
The IOFIT will be on display at the upcoming Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. There will be a crowdfunding campaign for it later this year and they’re looking a price range of $149 for the general fitness version and $199 for the golf version.
SOURCE: Samsung
