Smart shoes check balance, weight shift for golfers

(Tech Xplore)—Are you into golf? Practice makes solid if not perfect results. Also, watching videos to see how the professionals do it is fine but probably not enough to get you to a higher level.

Now there is something in the wearables category of smart shoes to help you analyze your golf skills realtime using the shoes and a mobile app.

This is the IOFIT product where you can figure out your foot pressure and swings. The product behaves as a teacher, telling you all about your pressure distribution, balance and weight shift.

The shoe tracks information with bend pressure and motion sensing technology. The app delivers summaries and insights. You can share the data with your coach if you want.

The product is currently available on Kickstarter at pre-sale pricing that, at the time of this writing, ranged from $189 to $209.

The data about how your play is transmitted to the smartphone. What else is this tech all about?

According to the team, "Using a posture analysis algorithm and the concept of force plates, IOFIT was designed to accurately measure every subtle change in the pressure distribution in a matter of milliseconds. The sensors themselves are waterproof and carefully built to withstand excessive amount of weight, of up to 330 lb (150 kg)."

As for the question of battery life, the period is 5 days based on two hours of average use daily. The coin cell battery is embedded in the shoe outsole. When the battery runs out, the owner takes it out through the bottom part of the outsole and replaces it with a new one.

Can the shoe withstand wet weather conditions? The team said that the outsole part of the shoe as well as the sensors inside are waterproof.

Shipping date is set for February. They said their production plan involves some of the best manufacturers in South Korea.

Golfing enthusiasts who have heard about their Kickstarter campaign apparently like what they see. Their fundraising goals seem to be successful. The team said that "we succeeded in reaching our $30,000 goal within just 10 hours from launch!"

At the time of this writing they raised $41, 690 with 33 days still to go.

IOFIT was established last year, according to the campaign page, which also said the company began as a spinoff startup from Samsung's Creative Lab.

"We began working on this project when one of our founders, who used to suffer from serious back pain, realized the absolute importance of physical balance and how it all starts from your feet."

Jacob Cho is the CEO.

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