The Next Mass-Adoption Tech Trend for Sporting Gadgets

Bear with me on this one. It will positively affect your sporting tech life, whether you own a Trek, Garmin, Fitbit, 4iiii or just a set of keys.

Here we are talking about the mechanism that has fallen in place to enable an existing technology to be enabled by large chunks of the population.

Apple Find My

This new tech sounds totally UNsporty and it is an extension of Apple’s “Find My…”features  and I think it will change the world albeit in a small and positive way.

I first used Chipolo back in 2016. It’s a locating-disk and an app. You put the disk on your keyring or wherever you want to attach it. When it comes within range of an active Chipolo app, anyone’s Chipolo app, then the location of that link-up is logged on the net.

You can perhaps then imagine an infrastructure that helps you find lost stuff.

Chipolo kinda worked and I still have one or two. However, there are problems with that

However, a coin-sized device WILL be appropriately sized for a high-value item like a bike power meter. Indeed gplama covered 4iiii’s integration of Chipolo’s tech over two years ago and I think he tried to track the air shipment of one of the devices over the Qantas network but I never followed up reading the results as I imagined that not enough baggage handlers would have the app on their phones.

I guess the problem here is that Chipolo might have the vision to take over the world and be on everyone’s phones but that probably isn’t going to happen.

Moving on to the Apple Watch 6 from 2020.

Whilst reviewers talked about the new optical HR sensor, the always-on screen and many other trivialities, what few of them talked about in any detail was the new UWB chip. The UWB chip is not used at all by the AW6 as far as I know. This is strange as clearly, Apple didn’t include that on a whim.

Indeed not.

Rumours soon surfaced of an Apple AirTag device, which is probably highly similar to a Chipolo in many respects. Obviously, Apple has plans that include taking over what Chipolo has already started. My understanding of how UWB works is that it has directional abilities to locate nearby objects and so will be ideal for finding that tag on the set of keys you always lose, perhaps better than Bluetooth.

So there we have Phase 1 for 2020.  A very uninspiring mechanism for Apple to replace what Chipolo started 5 years ago.

You’re not very excited about that as you’re thinking of your Garmin, or your car, or your Trek or whatever. Something a little more exciting than phoning your keys to make them ring in the bathroom.

Bear with…

Apple Find My…

Apple’s inbuilt Find My app is nothing new. You’ve been able to find your kids, your phone and your friends for quite some time. But what is new today is that Apple has announced they are opening up “Find My” to third party compatible Bluetooth devices via the Find My network accessory program, itself part of the Made for iPhone (MFi) Program. Initial third-party products that support this are these:

Clearly, Apple chose these 3 launch partners VERY carefully. Chipolo demonstrates that Apple wants to link to their existing, large network. VanMoof demonstrates compatibility with large movable eco devices and Belkin demonstrates compatibility with stuff you might lose around the house.

What Next For Sport

If you are buying a $1000 bike then the unit cost to the manufacturer of integrating a chip to support “Find My” is going to be tiny. $5 tops.

Similarly, a tweak to a Bluetooth chip inside a Garmin or Fitbit might also cost very little from a hardware point of view.

As a ballpark figure, perhaps anything costing over $200 can easily justify compatibility.

The Benefits

The benefits and usages here are VERY wide-ranging.

In a nutshell: this will make finding & protecting both stuff and people much easier.

On the downside, we’re going to soon get into the civil liberties vs ‘I’ve got nothing to hide’ brigade. Yet, my understanding is that Apple (obviously) has designed this tech to protect your privacy. I’m not sure how Apple’s designs will stop a stalker putting a chip into someone’s coat pocket nor stop an over-zealous parent tracking their child by a similar means once the child has figured out how to make their iPhone location private.

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