In elite professional sport, athletes, coaches and sports scientists are always looking for the extra one percent performance improvements to get ahead of the competition. Wearable technology is becoming more widely used in sports and many in the industry are looking to inertial measurement unit (IMU) sensors to answer some of the most intricate questions.

IMeasureU’s Blue Trident sensor is the most advanced on the market, empowering athletes, sports teams, coaches, practitioners and researchers to collect real-world data that has previously been unquantifiable. Kicking, sprinting, springboard diving, and many more sports have now been opened to the world of athlete tracking. Blue Trident does so through a variety of technological innovations and market firsts, featuring:

A high g accelerometer, capable of capturing the peaks of physical movement up to 200g.
An IP68 waterproof rating, for use in water sports, adverse weather conditions or underwater treadmills.
The latest Bluetooth 5 wireless protocol technology for live streaming data straight to a mobile device.
A human-centered form factor for an invisible feel.
A 12-hour battery life when recording high fidelity data, or a 1 month battery life when idle.

When an athlete is presented with a new piece of wearable technology, it is often the size, weight and wearability of the hardware which determines whether it’s ultimately adopted. Blue Trident has been designed to provide an “invisible feel” for any athlete, allowing them to perform without impeding or changing their natural form or technique.

Blue Trident is the smallest and lightest IMU on the market. This enables IMeasureU to measure the truest representation of an athlete’s motion in the wild, and as a result, report the most accurate and reliable feedback on that athlete’s motion possible. The custom hypoallergenic silicone strap positions Blue Trident as close to the body as possible, whilst providing a stable and secure fit - ensuring the collection of high precision, accurate data.

One of Blue Trident’s novel features is the coupled high g accelerometer, capable of measuring up to 200g in any direction. Paired with a second accelerometer which tracks lower stress movements, both sensors measure action simultaneously, ensuring the highest fidelity data and a complete representation of an athlete’s body motion. The ability to measure across the full spectrum of body motion means that Blue Trident can provide workload monitoring and performance insights for any sport.

The Blue Trident sensors and new generation software combine to visualise performance in real time, so users can gain actionable insights from their movements to assist with optimal recovery and training procedures to get the most out of the athletes’ capabilities. The new live app has capabilities to overlay video on the sensor data to trace post-session feedback, identifying exactly where high-intensity actions occurred, all streamed from the sensor via the latest Bluetooth 5 technology.

Two or more sensors can be paired with one another, for data visualisation and comparison. Body symmetry or player comparison can be analysed to understand the finer biomechanics of the athlete. During the pairing and athlete attachment process, an ‘invisible’ LED indicator on each side of the device helps the user orient the sensor on the body.

When used under adverse environmental conditions, it is imperative that technology used with athletes not only continues to collect reliable data but also ensures the safety of the user. For this reason, Blue Trident is fully waterproof - confirmed with an ingress protection rating of IP68.

The Blue Trident sensor can be worn in water up to 3m deep for up to an hour, which opens up a number of possibilities for practitioners and athletes alike - for example, underwater treadmills are often used during rehabilitation to reduce the body weight of the participant, minimizing the loads an injured limb is being exposed to. Blue Trident measures these loads and provides rehabilitation and loading information that previously wouldn’t have been possible.

Finally, 12 hours of battery life and storage of high sample rate data opens up new possible applications for endurance sports, the military, and activities where the duration can be long and uncertain such as baseball practice or when a basketball game goes into triple overtime.

The advancement in sports wearable technology is happening at a rapid rate with exponential increases in power and decreases in hardware size. The user-centric and ergonomic design of Blue Trident combines cutting edge hardware, intuitive software and cloud computing with gold standard motion capture science, enabling a true next-generation wearable, giving athletes, coaches and practitioners the ability to precisely quantify movement in the field like never before.

An assortment of prototypes and ideas tested in the development of the device

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