Rossignol & PIQ Wearable Ski Sport Tracker - Turn, Jump and Trick Analyzer

Ok guys, ski instructor here.I don't know about the cutting edge technology built into the device, but the amount of telemetry it provides is pathetic. I want the turn by turn details about acceleration, lean angle, speed etc. Guess what it provides? The PIQ score! What is that? I don't know and don't care because it is anything but the information I need.So it goes back. Any $15 fitness bracelet can show random numbers.

Can be a bit wonky. However, my husband still enjoys it.

The device works well. The app is fun and you get useful feedback on your skiing and carving. Is it going to teach you how to ski? No. However the feedback it provides can help you carve better.

PIQ, the Sport Intelligence "wearables" company, has teamed up with high-end ski equipment maker Rossignol to market their PIQ Robot to the extreme skiing enthusiast.The Robot is the same one used in the PIQ golf, kiteboard and tennis performance monitoring systems, in this application you get a Rossignol branded strap for attaching it to your boot. The system works by gathering data through a gyroscope, accelerometer, magnetometer and pressure sensor and translating the results into user-friendly, real-time information to gauge your performance.It connects to your smartphone using Bluetooth 4.0 and requires Android 4.3. The app is free.It will measure ascent, descent, run duration and speed (with GPS turned on). The results are displayed as a "PIQ score" that breaks down particulars like edge-to-edge speed, g-force, carving degrees for turning, and rotation, air time and g-force at landing for jumps.This is a great tool for the competitive skier or snowboarder that wants to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. It's also great for the casual user since it's reasonably priced and the Robot can be used (with the appropriate accessories) to monitor and improve your golf and tennis games. That's a great bonus in that it's a "4-season" device you can use all year if you're a tennis player or golfer..

This kit contains three items: the PIQ tracker, a strap to hold the tracker securely in place, and a recharger battery that can recharge the tracker several times during the day. There is an accompanying smartphone app which ties in to the PIQ tracker using bluetooth. I used the kit during a week-long ski camp run by the Mahre brothers at Deer Valley. The ski camp involves race training as well as training in other conditions - moguls, powder, chutes, trees, and so forth.The tracker itself can be synched with the app as desired. I did so twice each day, once at lunch, and once at the end of the day, finding that the PIQ tracker did not require recharging during skiing that ran from 9am to 4:30pm with an hour break during lunch. The app presents you with information such as the speed with which you transition from a right turn to a left turn, the G-force of turns, and the angulation that you achieve during carved turns. It then provides you with a PIQ score based on your achievements so that you can compare your skill from day to day. If you turn on the speed function, it will also provide you with your downhill speed. My best carving was 75°, with 5.1 G's, and a 240ms transition.I found that the strap worked very well but was a little bit of a nuisance. Since my ski socks hold up very nicely, I decided to place the PIQ tracker inside my sock, just below the top of the boot. It held position perfectly and this did not seem to impact the overall function negatively.The PIQ tracker and the sync function of the app worked well together and the unit never had problems connecting to my iPhone.The app itself has a few oddities and isn't quite ready for prime-time:1) It kept getting the date wrong. I skied January 9, but on the dashboard under "My turns progression," it indicated that I had skied January 8. In fact, each date was reported as the previous day.2) Total statistics includes a "Total Vertical," which should indicate something in the thousands of feet for an afternoon of skiing. Mine, for this afternoon, indicates -379miles, 219 ft. It also says I made 87 runs. This is wrong (obviously). Each day, the total vertical figure was inaccurate as was the number of runs.3) On each day, I was told how many turns I made. When I click on that for this afternoon, it says I skied 3 hours 31 minutes. That's exactly right for my after-lunch ski time. It then says I skied 61,368 feet of vertical distance. This too is wrong. Over three and a half hours of skiing, my vertical distance should have been well under 20,000 feet. It then asks if I want to view all my turns. Click there and I briefly see each of my recent turns, but then the app crashes and exits. I need to restart the app at that point. **THIS HAS BEEN FIXED WITH THE LATEST RELEASE**4) I can compare my PIQ score to the community of PIQ users. Although each user has the option to choose TURN or JUMP mode, and although I routinely chose TURN mode, my PIQ score used for comparison was the JUMP score. There doesn't seem to be any way of changing this.5) The community can be broken down by age, gender, or country. The highest possible age group is 51+. That annoys me since there are plenty of skiers in their 50s, 60s, and 70s. There are tight breakdowns for younger people. How about some breakdowns for older folks?Finally, this is a very useful unit and app for the racer, but the information provided will not be useful for the powder or mogul skier, where angulation and speed of turn transfer isn't necessarily representative of skiing ability or expertise. If you spend hours of the day on the hill and do a little bit of everything, the overall information may not prove particularly useful. If, on the other hand, you turn it on at the beginning of a series of race course maneuvers, or race training down a hard-packed groomer, the information will indeed allow you to compare your overall performance on Day 2 to that of Day 1, or Hour 2 to Hour 1 (if you sync regularly and keep each hour separately).Overall I like the utility of the device and the hardware works well. The app can be improved upon, and undoubtedly will with time.

I had no idea really what this was when I ordered it, I just leapt on the promise of it making me a better skier. Because I want to be a better skier! For reference only, right now I'm a decent skier, a 50 year old, black diamond, on-piste, advanced intermediate skier with 30 years of skiing behind me. I can blast down a groomed trail, don't mind some ice, can handle it when it gets sloppy, but I'm not doing moguls or skiing much off-piste. I'd liek to get better at off-piste, moguls, and even basic downhill carving. I was hoping this was something that would magically make me better.Turns out, what this is, is something much like my running app in my phone. There's a device you clip to your boot (handy strap provided) that will record your runs, record your speed, your angles, your jumps, etc. and when the day is over you can pull that information down, look at it, and share it over social media with like minded individuals. I'm not sure how seeing this info, especially after I've been skiing all day, is going to make me a better skier though. It's interesting, but I don't know how to translate that static information into better skiing. This might be a great tool for ski coaches and competitive skiers, but for an amateur like myself I'm really not seeing how to use this device to make myself a better skier. I'm not into social media either, so that bit is useless to me, but for social media gurus that might be a fun aspect of the device.