While tracking your workout stats when running or cycling is pretty much the norm these days, surfers have had a harder time. Rip Curl made inroads with the SearchGPS watch last year, but you can only track basic details such as your ride length and speed. By comparison, the new Trace surf tracking device records everything from the basics like wave count and length to crazy stuff such as cutback angle and pitch. And integrates with your GoPro footage to boot.
Trace is a small, circular device (25mm radius) that mounts to the front of your board. Armed with a high frequency GPS, 9-axis IMU, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, Bluetooth LE, Bluetooth 2.1, 2GB of memory (enough to last 50+ sessions without syncing to your phone), and a powerful CPU, Trace has no problem mapping your session–it counts the number of waves you catch, the max and average speed of each ride along with length, how far you paddled, and the number of calories burned.
Think that is cool? Well how about adding details such as the number of turns you made, your cutback angle, roll, and pitch on each ride, air height, and heat mapping on where you went the fastest and slowest on a wave.
With a 10-hour battery life, Trace gives you 5 sessions before you have to charge it up again.
For those that use a GoPro to regularly film your sessions, all you have to do is upload the raw video to Trace’s Dropbox app and they will automatically edit the footage to show only your waves, correct the color, overlay your stats, and compile them on your personal video page. You can see an example video below.
The Trace surf tracker retails for $199 and is available now from the company website.