GPS and wearable unit issuance and condition log
Problem
Before training, someone hands out GPS and wearable units from the charging case and matches them to athletes on a whiteboard or in a group chat — "Sarah's on 12, Tom's on 7." After the session, units come back into the case, but nothing formally confirms which unit went to whom, whether it was charged, or whether it came back in one piece. When a unit goes missing, or an athlete's session shows no data because they were wearing the wrong one, staff scroll back through days of messages trying to reconstruct who had what. A cracked housing or frayed strap often isn't reported until the unit fails mid-session weeks later.
Product idea
A mobile checklist for issuing and returning shared training hardware — GPS units, heart-rate straps, force plate accessories, whatever the pool contains. At issuance, staff select each unit, assign it to an athlete, confirm charge level and note condition, with a photo if there is existing damage. At return, each unit is checked back in against the same list, flagged if missing or newly damaged. A live board shows which units are still out and to whom. It works offline in a training hall with poor signal and syncs afterwards. It does not record load, location or performance data itself — that stays in the tracking platform. This is a custody and condition record, nothing more.
Who it is for
Sports scientists and performance analysts who manage shared wearable hardware pools day to day, sponsored by the Head of Performance who is accountable for data completeness and equipment condition.
Possible first version
A mobile web app with a configurable unit inventory, an issuance flow assigning units to athletes with charge and condition capture, a return flow with a damage flag and photo, and an end-of-session view of outstanding units. Session logs export as CSV. Out of scope for version one: any integration with the GPS or wearable vendor platform itself — this tracks the hardware, not the data it produces.
- Build classification
- Workflow application
- Rough effort
- 2-4 week first release
- Roles involved
- Sports scientist, Performance analyst, Head of Performance
- Relevant to
- Professional club, Collegiate athletics, Academy & youth, Women's league
- Systems in play
- GPS and wearable tracking platforms, Messaging apps, Spreadsheets
- Product framing
- Verify or inspect
Questions we get asked
What do we need to have ready before this is useful?
Just a list of the units in your pool and their identifiers — unit numbers or serials, however you already label them. That becomes the inventory the checklist runs against. No historical data is needed and no connection to the tracking platform itself; the tool starts useful on day one with a list someone could type up in an afternoon.
Does this replace our GPS or wearable platform?
No. The vendor platform stays exactly where it is for load, position and physiological data — that is not something this tool touches or tries to replicate. This sits in front of it, solving a narrower problem: knowing which physical unit went to which athlete and what state it came back in. If your data completeness issues trace back to athletes wearing the wrong unit, this addresses that; it does not touch what happens once a unit is switched on.
We already track this on a whiteboard and it mostly works. Why change it?
For a small squad with one person always running the case, it probably does work well enough, and this tool would not be worth adopting. The failure shows up with squad size, staff turnover on issuance duty, or when someone other than the usual person hands out units and does not know the informal system. If nobody has ever had to reconstruct "who had unit 9 on Tuesday" from memory, this is not solving a live problem for you yet.
What happens if a unit fails or gets swapped mid-session?
Staff can reopen that athlete's issuance record on the spot, log the swap to a replacement unit, and note the fault. The record then shows both units against that athlete for that session rather than losing the link entirely. It is deliberately quick to correct — the goal is an accurate custody trail, not a rigid process that gets abandoned the first time a unit dies at the pitch side.
Is this your workflow?
Tell us one sports workflow that still runs on paper, spreadsheets, WhatsApp or an outdated system. We will map it and show you what a simpler product looks like.
Tell us about itMore in Athlete performance & sports science
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