Smart BMX sensor gamifies real life freestyling and racing

Iddo is a smart sensor that recognizes tricks, tracks racer's laps and lets riders record and share their achievements via smartphone.

Extreme sport computer games go to great lengths to mimic the real world experience of skating or BMXing — their creators spend fortunes creating lifelike graphics and ensuring their avatars behave in a realistic way. Now, Iddo — a new BMX add-on — is turning that tradition on its head, by giving real life BMX riders the ability to mimic their on screen counterparts. The device uses sensors to recognize tricks and track racer’s laps, and connects to the user’s smartphone to enable the rider to record and share their achievements.

Iddo is a lightweight sensor made of resilient, high grade alluminium which clips onto the BMX bike frame. It connects to an accompanying smartphone app via bluetooth and enables BMX freestylers and BMX racers to track their activities and share them with peers online. The device boasts a nine axis trick sensor, built-in GPS and 1 GB of storage, so freestylers can keep a history of their tricks and review the height and distance they achieved. A single charge will power the device for up to ten hours and light, temperature and humidity sensors enable riders to give their performance context.

The app rewards users with points for completed tricks and a premium version includes a ghost mode, enabling riders to challenge each other to better their own or each other’s laps.

Iddo is currently crowdfunding on Indiegogo — the creators hope to accumulate 250 unit orders which will enable them to being factory production. Backers can pre-order Iddo for EUR 159 which includes 12 month access to the premium app. The device also has backing from Microsoft and the team expect to launch in September 2015.

Are there other extreme sports which could utilize similar devices to gamify real life practice?