How to use the real-time charts feature in Firstbeat Sports: Coach app

The real-time charts feature in the Firstbeat Sports: Coach app helps to better monitor training sessions. It’s useful for interval training, drills, fitness tests, and athlete comparison but also helps with general monitoring of training sessions.

The real-time charts feature is available for all  premium and premium+ customers. This feature is available on both iPads and iPhones.

Benefits of real-time chart

Real-time chart accompanies the Live view feature where the snapshot of the training status is available. It's easy and quick to switch between Live view tiles and the real-time chart for monitoring different variables.

Real-time charts can be used for:

1. To track what has happened during training by observing the history data for the training session. 
2. Monitor interval training. Track how work and recovery intervals are progressing for each athlete.
3. Monitor fitness tests.
4. Track how metrics like TRIMP, EPOC and Movement Load have accumulated.
5. Identify athletes who are not responding to the training session as expected.
6. Check how an athlete’s training has progressed during training by different variables.

How the real-time chart works

Sports Sensor stores the recorded training data to it's on-board memory and at the same time sends real-time broadcast data to the Coach app. For this reason, the Sensor needs to be in range and in recording mode to view data on the Live view tiles or real-time chart. In other words, real-time chart is based on the broadcasted data from the Sports Sensor.

In addition, broadcasted data for the chart is stored only when the Live view is active. Chart data is not stored e.g. if the app is closed or some other screen is active more than a short period (e.g. Sensor management or Sensor download screen).

Note that Live view keeps the screen on automatically unless manually closed by the user so you can leave the Coach app unattended and collect data to the real-time chart.

What to expect from the Sports Sensor range

Broadcast signals from Sports Sensor can reach quite far. In good conditions 100-200 meters. However, the signal can get easily blocked. In team training, the athlete body and other obstacles can block the signal. For example, athlete being back towards the monitoring device (iPad, iPhone) often looses the signal momentarily.

The signal from the Sports Sensor works better indoors and in arenas with walls etc. where the signal can bounce. In gyms, indoor halls, ice hockey rinks etc. the signal quality is often good. On open fields, there can be more lost packets.

It is also known that in arenas and events with lots of other wireless devices signal quality can be affected.

Tips and tricks for better broadcast signal quality

• Place the iPad (or iPhone) as close as possible to the athletes
• Place the iPad (or iPhone) in a spot where it covers most of the area where athletes are moving
• It's possible to use several devices in case it helps coaches located in different parts of the training facility
• Some iPad or iPhone protective covers are known to affect the signal quality. Try removing the cover and see if it helps.
• Point the back of the iPad facing directly to the athletes.
• Usually, the iPad antenna is located at the top right corner of the device. Try holding the device without covering the antenna with your hand.

Feature overview

Real-time chart feature has been designed for easy and fast athlete selection and finding athletes from the chart.

• Filter visible athletes by selecting a team
• Select athletes visible
• Select and highlight athletes in the chart
• Hide unselected athletes using the eye icon
• Show athlete names in addition to profile photos
• Sort athletes based on the variable value

Variable selection

It's possible to switch between different variables. Available variables for the real-time chart are:

• HR
• %HR max
• High intensity training
• EPOC
• TRIMP
• TRIMP/min
• Movement Load
• Movement Intensity

Note: Sampling rate of the Movement Intensity is higher than the Sensor broadcast frequency. Monitoring details of Movement Intensity might not be possible in real-time because some of the very short term spikes in the data might not get broadcasted.

Chart zooming and scaling

Chart can be zoomed between 5-180min range. Use the + and - buttons to change the time period visible in the chart. Y-axis of the chart scales automatically.

Visualisation of out of range sensors

Time periods where broadcast data was not received are shown as dashed lines.

Data is not back-filled to chart when out of range Sensor becomes on range. That is, only the current data is broadcasted from the Sensor.

Details

• Delay for broadcast data is usually 2-4 seconds. Sometimes the delay be longer if broadcast packages are lost.