New ‘disruptive’ trail running tracking tool wins Hong Kong government technology award
- A more accurate, cheaper, interactive trail tracking technology could change trail races for consumers and organisers, making the sport safer and easier to follow
- Rainer Duespohl’s Bluetooth technology is already being used for Oxfam Trailwalker and other races in Hong Kong, but could work worldwide
A Hong Kong resident has invented a new technology for tracking trail races, called Trailme, that could displace traditional tracking, opening trail racing to more engagement and making it safer.
It can reliably track all the participants, no matter how many there are, every 250 metres with no need for runners to wear GPS trackers.
And it has just won a bronze award in the Smart Mobility/Smart Tourism category at the Information Communication Technology awards, run by the Office of the Government Chief Information Officer of the Innovation and Technology Bureau of the Government of Hong Kong.
“In a nutshell, it’s an outdoor, trail running disrupter,” Rainer Duespohl, Trailme’s inventor, said.
Following trail races is usually done with GPS trackers, which can be hard to give to all the runners. In races that do use them, it tends to be just the top runners they are provided to, with other entrants paying extra for a device. Sometimes there is a lag with GPS, and the dots jump around making it hard to have more than a rough indication of the live leaders. Alternatively, tracking can be done as runners come in and out of checkpoints leaving blind spots potentially for hours in between.