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Omnigym Smart - from a need to a product
WHY WAS THE OMNIGYM SMART DEVELOPED?
In 2021, the city of Helsinki had nearly 1300 different outdoor fitness devices at over 160 outdoor gyms. To support future investment decisions, the city needed data on the gyms' usage.
To manage such a big amount of information, Helsinki needed it to be collected and analyzed easily.
The data was needed for various reasons.
- Gym location and investments. The number of users at each gym and for each device would reveal which types of equipment were the most popular and where new gyms should be installed.
- Maintenance. Maintaining the equipment is expensive and 160 outdoor gyms take up notable city resources. There are also several ordinances affecting their maintenance. The city needed data to determine when maintenance was needed.
- Budgeting. Information was needed to support budgeting so that enough resources would be allocated to maintenance. And also to support future investment decisions.
- Residents. The collected data could also enable communication with city residents about how much each gym was used and when are the busiest times.
The number of users could be tracked with SMART technology
Challenges to overcome were harsh climate and open space. The product should hold up from freezing cold to heat and sun. The other issue was that the gyms are often open spaces without gates, so the tracking couldn't be done by counting the people entering the gym area.
A solution that uses smart sensors was developed and installed directly inside each piece of equipment that count the number of users based on the number of reps and sets performed. Counting individual reps and sets also helps understand how users use the gym's equipment.
Special features of the technology
- For all-weather. The connected sensors are designed to work outdoors in different weather conditions all year round. The installation also takes into account the possibility of vandalism.
- Affordability. Omnigym SMART has been made to be reasonably priced.
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Wireless. The sensors run off battery power without needing an external power source or a wired integration into the gym equipment.
- The possibility to use the data in other ways and share it with city residents.
The data from outdoor gyms can be used to improve future gym installations, determine the need for maintenance, and to better allocate resources.
Using the data to benefit gym users.
“The data obtained with tracking solution is an untouched area in fitness research. We are getting a huge amount of data which enables us to install the right number of the right kinds of outdoor fitness devices in the right places. With this data, we can purchase the devices that best serves and most interests users,” commented Helsinki’s lead maintenance manager for outdoor recreation areas, Harri Uusimäki.
Long-term usage data has been obtained from three outdoor gym locations in Helsinki: Hietaniemi swimming beach, Pirkkola fitness park and Paloheinä outdoor recreation area. In the future, the city plans to add connected sensors to the most-used gyms.
For example, the popular Hietaniemi beach gym had nearly 30,000 users in 2021. The most popular device had about sets and nearly 700,000 individual reps performed.
In the future the tracking data could help different parties in various ways. For example there could be a service of ordering maintenance automatically for a device after a certain number of reps. This would reduce the need for staffing resources and would ensure the devices always stay in good shape.
The sensor data could also be used to benefit users, such as by enabling users to check typical busy times and current usage for any gym from their phone.
