WARNING: COMPANY MAY BE IN DIFFICULTIES
April’s update on Kickstarter for BSX’s LVL Hydration monitor shows that BSX are pretty much on schedule…always good news. The original schedule I believe was for a product in June 2017. That’s soon and they are on Alpha devices now.
I was aware sometime ago that some studies had been completed that showed LVL met good levels of validation. However that information now seems to be public on Kickstarter so I have shared it, below. Looks good.
So, as well as being useful it might also be accurate 😉 Always good to hear.
The developers also specifically confirmed that HR WILL be broadcast over existing BLE standards. With some of the newer Garmins also supporting BLE then I can live with that by itself.
My understanding is that the chip is dual ANT+/BLE and that the developers are working on a HYDRATION profile that can be written to a FIT file. I’m not 100% sure if this WILL be in the final specs..anyone?? Also I’m not sure if HR will be broadcast over ANT+. $1.2m was pledged so that did exceed the ANT+ $800k stretch goal by a fair way. Let’s see.
TBH, I’d be happy with no HR and a single Garmin HYDRATION data field. That’s all I need. No apps. No clocks. No notifications. Just hydration.
aetnb
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Did we read the same update? It was heavily implied that it’s going to be late, possibly very late.
They don’t even have alpha units yet. At this point, I would be surprised if it launched in 2017.
“Because of this, we are slightly behind our target for completion of Alpha units but we have completed other steps like scientific validation early. Once we implement the changes to the system design, we’ll receive the new PCBs which we expect to pass validation.”
“The subsequent testing of the Alpha units are an important milestone that once achieved will best enable us to share a clarified path and timeline for shipping Kickstarter units. We look forward to sharing that with you in coming updates.”
“We’re committed to delivering a LVL device of uncompromised quality regardless of what it takes.”
yeah I did read the ‘slightly behind’ bit. that means a month to me not 6 months….but you could well be proved right
It’s likely somewhere in between. Unless they are planning on shipping a beta product to everyone, they are at least several months out since they still don’t have an alpha.
Going by their BSX garmin connectiq data field, I’m not so sure how useful their connection to a garmin device will be. I know its kind of trivial in that people have gotten the moxy data field to work but would give us more confidence in their ability to write a connectiq app that can save custom data out. The number off the hydration sensor may mean something completely different from the mo2 sensor but the coding to support it is the same.
I feel like the sensor will give great hydration information but doing something with that information won’t be anywhere near as good as you expect.
yes I share your concerns on the CIQ field. My understanding is that they are not so hard to do. (which prompts the questions as to why bsx didn’t do it)
why do you think the hydration info won’t be as good as I expect? all I would want to do with it is stay hydrated during harder training and especially during longer races. I guess there are complications around salination of the sweat, rehydration rates, and dehydration rates and states at which performance deteriorates but I would have thought it’s a reasonably actionable metric (if accurate)
Save the data to look at after? Any more advanced way of looking at the data beyond a line graph of the day. Absorption rate vs loss rate may make it tricky to easily say when you should drink or how much. Sort of like heart rate by itself isn’t as good as what you can do with it if you have the tools and guessing hydration is a bit more nuanced.
and a year later, kickstarter supporters are still getting empty promises about delivery. From the latest update on Kickstarter: “For us, this success means there is still work to do but we’re on the right track! Next steps include further testing / development in increasingly wider use cases so that we continue to see this level of performance throughout all regular use. We will also be resuming in earnest the commercial efforts for bringing this technology to market as soon as possible”
The company is still showing summer 2018 as the delivery date for pre-orders, when they know they clearly cannot meet this goal.
Avoid this company and their unethical practices,