speedo strokz - stroke counter

I think finding one will be difficult however if you really want one I have one that I am
willing to sell.

Dave

"JJ" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I recently came across some threads about a speedo stroke counter (strokz), it sounds interesting
but seems to have been discontinued. Does anybody know where I can get one in the UK? And are
speedo launching a replacement? Also, has anybody come across any useful length/lap counters?

"David Hart" <[email hidden]> wrote in message news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

I think finding one will be difficult however if you really want one I have one that I am willing
to sell.

Dave, do you know what's happened to it? All links to it seem to have disappeared. I've read mixed
reports about it how have you found it? How long have you had it and did it/does it work? How much
do you want for your one?

Jan

From what I understand the were not very popular in the UK and Speedo binned it after a short while.
They are reasonable bits of kit the one that I still have is the competition model. The Club that I
used to be Head coach of bought a few and I bought one for myself. They helped a number of swimmers
improve their stroke rate and length. I've not personally swum with it but was happy with them as a
coach. We stopped using them only because we got access to an underwater video facility.

It still works and I have the instruction manual also.

It will tell you:

No of strokes taken for the swim undertaken. Average distance per stroke cycle. Stroke rate
(Strokes/min) Speed in m/sec or yd/sec and a swim efficiency index.

It cost me about £90 when I bought it and it has had little use.

Make me an offer.

Dave You can reply to me direct.

"JJ" <[email hidden]> wrote in message "]news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

"David Hart" <[email hidden]> wrote in message

news:<[email hidden]>...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I think finding one will be difficult however if you really want one I

have

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

one that I am willing to sell.

Dave, do you know what's happened to it? All links to it seem to have disappeared. I've read mixed
reports about it how have you found it? How long have you had it and did it/does it work? How much
do you want for your one?

Jan

Quoted message said:

I recently came across some threads about a speedo stroke counter (strokz), it sounds interesting
but seems to have been discontinued. Does anybody know where I can get one in the UK? And are
speedo launching a replacement? Also, has anybody come across any useful length/lap counters?

You mean the wristwatch thing? I bought one a couple years ago online. It had already been
discontinued. The battery was dead. I sent it back and got another, whose battery died pretty
quickly. I think if you contacted some of these places and said you would accept a returned watch or
one with a dead battery, they might be able to rustle one up. At this point anything still around
would have a dead battery, since they were discontinued a few years back. Replacing the battery
should be done by a professional who has the tools and gasket to maintain the waterproof seal.

There are two slightly different versions: a fitness one and a competitive swimmer one, mostly
overlapping in functions.

I don't really wear the thing when swimming, but it looks cool to wear when you go to swim meets.
(It looks dorky in the water though.)

Bill (Geiser), shouldn't you say something here? You invented it, didn't you?

-- Olivier

Chris <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message :
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

I recently came across some threads about a speedo stroke counter (strokz), it sounds
interesting but seems to have been discontinued. Does anybody know where I can get one in the
UK? And are speedo launching a replacement? Also, has anybody come across any useful length/lap
counters?

You mean the wristwatch thing? I bought one a couple years ago online. It had already been
discontinued. The battery was dead. I sent it back and got another, whose battery died pretty
quickly. I think if you contacted some of these places and said you would accept a returned
watch or one with a dead battery, they might be able to rustle one up. At this point anything
still around would have a dead battery, since they were discontinued a few years back. Replacing
the battery should be done by a professional who has the tools and gasket to maintain the
waterproof seal.

There are two slightly different versions: a fitness one and a competitive swimmer one, mostly
overlapping in functions.

I don't really wear the thing when swimming, but it looks cool to wear when you go to swim meets.
(It looks dorky in the water though.)

Olivier said:

Bill (Geiser), shouldn't you say something here? You invented it, didn't you?

-- Olivier

Yes I did.

For all practical purposes, that product is no longer commercially available. I wish it had been
more successful, it wasn't. There's not much more to say other than my objective was to build
someting new and exciting for the swim market, I gave it my best effort, and it didn't pan out. As
I've said in recent posts - entreprenuerial ventures are risky.

I have since moved on to other business ventures, but visit RSS every now and then to defend truth,
justice, and the American Way (settle down, Martin...that's a joke).

The units that were built and sold should continue to operate for quite some time, providing the
battery is replaced and the user makes sure the electrodes get wiped off frequently, as grime in
pool water will interfere with its ability to electronically detect the occurance of a stroke.

In time I may revisit this market and product concept. If or when that happens, I would incorporate
many new technologies that weren't available in the mid-90's when Strokz was developed. Most
importantly, I'd apply the many lessons learned from this previous experience.

Swim Smart!

Bill

Bill Geiser [email protected] said:

The units that were built and sold should continue to operate for quite some time,

Mine still works fairly well, except that in 1000+ backstroke swims it always reverts to time-of-day
mode. Doesn't do that in crawl. Weird.

What I like best about the Stroke Monitor is that it gives me a record of my daily swim (up to 30
swims). I don't simply get in and swim a mile of crawl, I do all sorts of things.

Donal Fagan AIA Donal@DonalO'Fagan.com (Anglicise the name to reply by e-mail)

Donal Fagan said:

Mine still works fairly well, except that in 1000+ backstroke swims it always reverts to
time-of-day mode. Doesn't do that in crawl. Weird.

When in 'swim mode', when the CPU in the watch senses no stroke activity for something like 2+
minutes, it automatically switches back to time mode in an effort to save battery life. Therefore,
I'm assuming somewhere during the swim the electrodes are slowly, but surely getting coated with
something in the water (oil, chemical residue, etc.). It doesn't take much...once they get coated,
they are not capable of electronically detecting a stroke, until you wipe them off.

The difficultly is there is no uniformity to pool water - some pools are spotless...others are
HAZMAT candidates. Strokz ability to provide useful data will be influenced by the environment in
which its used. In fact, you might be able to swim a 1000 freestyle but not a 1000 backstroke
because you are faster in freestyle and the extra time and exposure in backstoke is enough to push
the monitor over the edge.

There's no simple solution to give you...wish there was. My only recommendation would be to swim
a broken 1000 vs. 1000 straight and make sure you wipe the electrodes with your finger between
each swim.

Bill

Bill Geiser sbcglobal.net> <wpgeiser@<nospam> a écrit dans le message :
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Donal Fagan said:

Mine still works fairly well, except that in 1000+ backstroke swims it always reverts to
time-of-day mode. Doesn't do that in crawl. Weird.

When in 'swim mode', when the CPU in the watch senses no stroke activity for something like 2+
minutes, it automatically switches back to time mode in an effort to save battery life. Therefore,
I'm assuming somewhere

during

Quoted message said:

the swim the electrodes are slowly, but surely getting coated with something in the water (oil,
chemical residue, etc.). It doesn't take much...once they get coated, they are not capable of
electronically detecting a stroke, until you wipe them off.

This is the key point: you have to wipe it as much as possible, after each repeat or set. No more
than 400m without wiping. Since I understood that (Bill explained it to me), I'm happy with it.

For the reason of the market failure, I may have some hints:
- Speedo didn't push it very strongly. I could never find it in France for example (I had to go to
St Martin, FWI, 4 years ago, to find it)
- difficulty to service it: sport shops were not accustomed to service watches, watch shop didn't
know Speedo as a watch manufacturer and didn't want to take the responsability to change the
battery (and guarranty it would remain waterproof). You had to send it to Parsec
(parsecent.comSpeedomon.htmlOpen ↗), quite difficult when outside USA. I finally asked a
watch shop to change the battery on my own responsability, and had no problem with it. Sport shops
are now used to sell a lot of watches (Polar, Casio, Suunto...), I guess things have changed
regarding this....

-- Olivier