Instabeat, swimming heart rate monitor that sites on your goggles

Well according to this article: Toolmaker Talk: Hind Hobeika (Butterfleye) | Quantified SelfQuantified Self

Not yet. But I suggest freedivers to get in touch to help, invite her to DB and help out with the freediving part!


In the mean while, what features would you like your freedive HR+ computer to have ?

I would like to see a large memory recording:

- every heartbeat
- time
- depth (in M and DM's)
- O2 saturation
- swim strokes

Direct monitoring I would like to see the 3 lights display:

HR, saO2, target time or depth.

A couple of AUDIO depth alarms would be great! (1 for mouth-fill, 1 for target depth).


I've not thought it through, so please feel invited to respond.

Total beats per dive, as opposed to just time and BPM. Nothing yet does this that I am aware of, yet according to seal studies may be a good indicator of apnea limits.

Hey guys! This is Hind, I am the founder of Instabeat. I have really never tried freediving before and would like to understand the experience more deeply so that the next iteration appeals to you too!

Welcome Hindi. I think most freedivers who are interested in their HR as a training aid will want the device to record time and HR at the very minimum, so it can reviewed later.

For actual diving (open water/ocean) it should record depth as well.

There has not been a great deal of human research done on the subject, but many divers (myself included) believe that HR is a much better safety indicator than something like time, because for freediving, changes in HR tend to be directly correlated to the diver's natural oxygen saving reflex (mammilian dive response), and every beat of a divers heart can be sending blood and precious oxygen to systems that don't absolutely need it (muscles can work for a time anearobically). A dramatic drop in HR (like half of normal resting) is not unusual or unhealthy for a diver, however, after a certain limit is reached, further drops may mean the diver is critically low on blood O2 and in danger. Also, rapid rise in HR is suspected to be a contributing factor for shallow water blackout. Shallow water blackout is easily the leading cause of death for spearfishermen and freedivers.

If a device were available to freedivers which could log HR, and be affordable, I have no doubt it would lead to huge advances in the safety of the sport. There is not much data to work with, and when attempting to push the limits of performance there is a great deal of individual variance in what is safe/unsafe. Currently there is the Gallileo dive watch which tracks HR but it costs I think $900 USD.

Best of luck with the device.

Kars said:

In the mean while, what features would you like your freedive HR+ computer to have ?

I would like to see a large memory recording:

- every heartbeat
- time
- depth (in M and DM's)
- O2 saturation
- swim strokes

Direct monitoring I would like to see the 3 lights display:

HR, saO2, target time or depth.

A couple of AUDIO depth alarms would be great! (1 for mouth-fill, 1 for target depth).


I've not thought it through, so please feel invited to respond.

Click to expand...

Damn Kars, that's a lot. Not sure if I understood you or not, but anyway this is like the ultimate divecomputer description. Is that what you ask for? I think we need to start with less, to get the most out of a project like that...

Divecomputers are allready made, and still developing, so I'd take all those functions out, and keep in a different watch. And saO2 hmm, might be possible with some detectors I've heard about, detecting on skin, and not through a finger or earflip. Allthough an earflip-oximeter would be close to the instabeat anyway. But it's not cheap I think. And perhaps prone to vasoconstriction because of cold water... The saO2 would be a great feedback, together with HR. Exact level would be nice for competition, but is not allowed, and great for long training dives. A "changing rate/speed of saO2 drop" would be nice for training, so that I could know how different diving styles effects oxygen consumption during the dive (but a finger oximeters would be useless for this).

For the heartbeat I'd like either a number/digit display, and if not possible, the light colour code should as a minimum be user adjustable (also for a swimmers version), so that I decide at what rate it changes colour.... Alternatively a headphone could read the number every 5 or 10 seconds...

Interesting idea.

Hello Hind.
Interesting project. The very short story of freediving is, that the HR drops during the dive, as CO2 rises, and O2 drops, so it's kind of like the opposite of aerobic training. And the end of a dive HR drops (for most/some people) dramatically, and that could be a good clue for when to stop the dive.... You can read shortly about the diving reflex, or response as many prefer, here: [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammalian_diving_reflex"]Mammalian diving reflex - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/ame]

Many things are not well understood yet, perhaps better gear to monito performances would help in that regard...

Logging HR at 1s intervals with triggered start/stop points (i.e. a button) would be ideal.

In terms of providing safety, there needs a lot of research to be done on that to warrant such claims. I believe, no matter how good the detection device I believe one always needs a buddy to dive safely, because most often the mind is the part that is the cause of tragedy.

As a company I would first go for offering a training tool.

If saO2 can be measured at the temple, probably with the sensor you already have. Adding depth it would be the best.
At the moment people have a difficult time measuring saO2, because the arm and finger gets vascular constricted and thus does not provide accurate oxygen measurements at the later stage of apnea.

I've worked with a person from Gallileo to help develop their HR integration in their next dive computer, which turned out to be the Scubapro Meridian: costing about a E 500
APNEA.cz - Uwatec Meridian
I was testing their computer in a German lake, taking it down to just over 30m, measuring HR, time, depth. They quickly learned they needed to lower the low HR threshold, and also reduce the filtering for false readings as HR's in freediving can drop very fast see this Dynamic HR recording:



At depth, at 5m doing slow empty lung dives, I had my buddy (medical student) measure my my neck artery, because my HR monitor would not go lower then 30 BPM. My buddy measured something like 17 BPM, very slow strong long pulses.

If freedivers had the ability to measure, record and train with a device that accurately, non intrusively could record our trainings, it would for sure help people to become better and more relaxed freedivers.
Also I'm sure with a wider sample group people would be able to learn and verify a lot about freediving physiology. I've not seen HR measurements of other people doing deep dives, and I'm keen on seeing them.

Making it Waterproof to 200m may be a bit of a challenge though

Call out.
If you're a freediver close to Beirut, please offer Hindi your freediving skills and give her the best and most enjoyable introduction to our sport, please!

If you happen to be in the Netherlands, I'm hereby offering you a free stay and introduction dives.

If you can travel to Eilat, then Aharon Solomons (www.freedivers.net) may be interested to learn and help you out.


Love, Courage and Water,

Kars

Re: Re: Instabeat, swimming heart rate monitor that sites on your goggles

Kars said:

In terms of providing safety, there needs a lot of research to be done on that to warrant such claims. I believe, no matter how good the detection device I believe one always needs a buddy to dive safely, because most often the mind is the part that is the cause of tragedy.

As a company I would first go for offering a training tool.

If saO2 cannot be measured at the temple, time, depth, HR would be great already.

Click to expand...

I agree--training before safety. To market a device as safety device based on HR is irresponsible because of individual variance among divers, and the vast majority of spearfishermen and divers would find using HR as a safety indicator to be ridiculously complex, and as I said it has not been studied in humans. A little knowledge is very dangerous.

But if such a device were more available the community could at least start the research process.

For freediving, an activity with an inherent risk, most anything that enhances training enhances safety.

The most important function was not mentioned --catching the soap in the bath

Mullins said:

Logging HR at 1s intervals with triggered start/stop points (i.e. a button) would be ideal.

Click to expand...

Because it apparently detects turns, I suspect it has potential to detect a duck-dive.