The debate among club soccer teammates started, as so many do, over a postgame beer. A few years ago, the squad’s goalkeeper was adamant that he ran about eight kilometers, or five miles, while defending the net; everyone else was dubious. As it happened, one of the players, Julien Moix, would become CEO of the Swiss company Advanced Sport Instrument, a startup that developed the GPS wearable FieldWiz. His club later wore the tracking devices and settled the goalkeeper’s suds-driven argument.
“In reality,” Moix said with a laugh, “it was like three kilometers.”
The technology behind Lausanne-based FieldWiz was developed by engineer Lionel Yersin, an avid paraglider who used the prototype for his outdoor adventures. The device that became FlyNet tracked his flights and helped identify thermal winds with its embedded pressure sensor. The core innovation has since been adapted to motorcycle racing and team sports.
In its first two years, FieldWiz has seen its greatest growth in that latter category, particularly in soccer. Two clubs in France’s Ligue 1 — Estrac Troyes and Stade Rennes — use the product as does the Olympique Lyonnais Women, which stars U.S. national team player Alex Morgan and won the women’s Champions League in June. Several academy teams of major clubs are also clients.
Executives for FieldWiz tout the product’s quality, its intuitive interface and its affordable price. They are trying to position themselves as a competitor to products such as Catapult’s PlayerTek rather than the Australian company’s flagship OptimEye. In other words, FieldWiz expects to appeal more to second through fifth division clubs than the elite, moneyed European powerhouses — or even recreational teams with dedicated amateurs looking to track their own workouts and performance. They are also angling to make inroads in the U.S. market with pro clubs as well as in college athletics. (The company has also developed a proof of concept for a dedicated American football device.)
“We don’t want to compromise on the precision and accuracy but still democratize the technology,” Moix said.
Among the other highlights of the FieldWiz system is a time-saving docking station that can sync up to 30 devices at once and an open API that allows coaches or sport scientists to adapt and customize their usage. A comparable indoor tracking solution is in the works. The parent company, ASI, has also developed communication technology that can toggle between satellite and cellular networks for maximum coverage and better cost efficiency.
Moix believes a feature still in development could be a key differentiator for FieldWiz. The wearable is already compatible with Mio Global and Zephyr heart-rate monitors and soon could link with a motion sensor that would open up a wide variety of new metrics that can track such attributes as gait symmetry.
“I think that’s where we’ll stand out, is to take advantage of the motion sensor plus the GPS capabilities,” Moix said.