Climbing gyms are on the rise and one Seattle startup hopes to capitalize on this trend with wearable technology.
UpRope is a new company that provides indoor climbing gyms with a system of sensors and personal RFID wristbands that give climbers a way to track their routes.
The startup provides gyms with sensors that are mounted on climbing walls. Climbers use wristbands provided by the gym and scan a sensor before starting a climb. When they reach the end of a route, they press a button on another sensor at the top of a route.
From there, climbers are able to see exactly how they navigated the wall and access data like time, height climbed, and rankings among friends and people at other gyms.
UpRope bills itself as “the fitness tracker for the modern climber.” Tom Abeles, the company’s founder and CEO, told GeekWire that his product differentiates itself from competitors like FitBit or The Whipper by focusing on capturing precise routes — not just total height or number of falls.
“These and previous competitors have attempted to fill this necessary gap by relying on data-entry by the climber,” he noted. “We designed our sensors to automate this process and bring route difficulty to the forefront of our app. By pairing sensors to specific routes, we can provide users with metrics related to their skill as it improves over time as well as create new competition styles.”
Abeles, who is bootstrapping the 4-person company, noted that there is also benefit for climbing gyms — there are now nearly 400 in the U.S., according to Climbing Business Journal.
“In addition to increasing engagement potential between the gyms and their members, UpRope gives managers a data-oriented view of their gyms,” he explained. “Statistics such as route-setter efficiency and quality, route age and popularity, traffic metrics, and members aggregate climbing data give employees real, quantitative insight into trends at their gym.”
