For 2017, TomTom has overhauled how users of its sports watches access their riding data with a new Sports app for mobile devices. The app promises smart comparison of your performances, social sharing functions and motivational messages for when the going gets tough.
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There are simple messages like ‘Get Going’ for when you start your ride and ‘Personal Best’ when you’ve just crushed a favourite segment.
“The large amounts of data people now have access to is overwhelming,” said Corinne Vigreux, co-founder of TomTom’s consumer division. “What people really need in that moment where excuses beat conviction, is motivation and a better understanding of what works for them. With our new TomTom Sports app we turn data into insights to do just that.”
The new TomTom Sports app for mobile devices replaces the TomTom MySports app which came out back in 2014 and will be available to download for iOS and Android devices from the end of January. Once paired with a TomTom sports watch, like the TomTom Multisport, your workout data automatically gets transferred from your wrist to your phone via Bluetooth, and from there it gets pushed to TomTom’s servers for access on any web browser.
TomTom Sports app – GetGoing
It records your activity across a dozen sports, including cycling, running, swimming, skiing, trail running and hiking, and can display your latest efforts and achievements. These include the usual metrics like average speed, heart rate, elevation and distance, along with newer ones like changes in body composition and resting heart rate, both of which can be tracked by the brand’s latest wearables, such as the TomTom Touch. It can also share your riding data with a range of third-party platforms including Strava and MapMyRide.
So what are these motivational messages, you ask? Well TomTom believes that what users want from the app is to know how well they’ve done and not do the hard work of crunching the numbers themselves. So there are simple messages like ‘Get Going’ for when you start your ride and ‘Personal Best’ when you’ve just crushed a favourite segment.
And once you’ve started sharing your rides from the app on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook, hopefully your friends and family will chip in with some motivational messages of their own. Won’t they?