[Sportsandrec] Sport-IIII Update

[Kelly Thornbury]

Well, all, the Sport-IIII (pronounced "Sport-Eyes") have begun to ship, and I've been able to play with mine about 40 hours now. Here are my quick thoughts. 

In the box: In the e box was the Sport-IIII unit (about the size of my little finger minus the last knuckle, with an LED boom about the full length of my middle finger), the USB charging cord (no AC plug, but the techs confirmed that any USB wall plug will work for those with Garmin units), and two sunglass mounts with about 10 zip ties (the installation is much cleaner than it sounds with zip ties). The software and instruction manuals must be downloaded from the 4IIII ("Four Eyes") website. 
The Downloads: I had no problem downloading the Mac version of the software, but for some reason I had to play around with the JAWS cursor to get the PC version to download. The virtual cursor recognized the links easy enough, but wouldn't open them. I found the instruction manuals to be equally user unfriendly, despite being PDF files. 4IIII tech support emailed me the files which were much more usable than the downloads were. 
The software, both in Mac and PC versions, were pretty much inaccessible. VoiceOver (Mac) only recognized the application as "Unknown" on the toolbar. When using JAWS, I could read some of the application using the OCR cursor, but I'm not very good at navigating the OCR and managed to type in my last name in the "First Name" field, and my weight under the email one. Fortunately, if you have some sight, or any sighted assistant who can poke a keyboard, the software is simple to navigate. 4IIII tech support has said they are working on more accessible software. 

Installing the unit: Installation is pretty straight forward. Loosely attach the zip ties to the mounting bracket; attach the unit; position the unit where you like it (with the LED boom located inside or outside your lenses); tighten the zip ties and trim. The unit is quite small, and in 4 spin classes no one has even noticed the unit on my glasses (maybe its me???). 

Using the unit: The first thing to do is charge the unit, which takes about 75 minutes if the unit is completely dead. The unit reads all of my ANT+ sensors, and pairing the sensors couldn't be easier (and is faster than any unit I've ever used, taking only a couple seconds to pair my HR strap, bike speed and cadence, and PowerTap). I haven't tried a FootPod for running yet (mine recently died). Once you turn on hr unit, it informes you which sensors it has found and starts giving you your exercise metrics in real time. You can modify the frequency and type of information you receive; if you have some sight you can program the LEDs to give exercise zones, the brightness of the LEDs, and the blink rates; and the programmability of the unit is constantly being expanded. Simply tapping the side of the unit (known as the "TipTap") allows you to choose between sensors (with audible cues as to which sensor you are on), and to get current data from the "selected" sensor. At regular intervals (as you have programed), all metrics are given. 

Overall: I find the unit a bit quirky at times (occasionally I lose a sensor, usually the PowerTap, and you don't want to try to repair it in the middle of a spin class with 10 other PowerTaps in use). The TipTap "button" takes a little playing with to get use to (as in the rate at which you double tap...try slowing it down). Still, despite what I consider to be quirks, I love the unit. This is the first device I have found that gives me on-the-fly exercise metrics instead of waiting to download my Garmin and thinking "should have gone harder." 

Kelly