Instabeat is a novel head-up display unit that attaches to swimming goggles and monitors one’s heart rate, calories, laps and turns during the swim. It’s been live on the crowdfunding site Indiegogo for a few days and is already poised to reach its modest funding target of $35,000, meaning the product will almost certainly ship.

What makes Instabeat unique is its ability to read swimmer’s heart rate via a patent-pending optical sensor from the temporal artery on the side of the head. In comparison, similar solutions usually require wearing the annoying chest belt.

The device has gone through several prototypes and the finished product can be pre-ordered for $139, with shipping commencing in October.

The device has gone through several prototypes and the finished product can be pre-ordered for $139, with shipping commencing in October.The sensor automatically turns on when the device is placed on a head and projects a color onto the lenses in real-time to know how close you are from your target zone. Each color has three levels indicating whether you are in the beginning, middle or upper limit of the zone. It also measures calories, number of laps and flip turns, and syncs with a personal online dashboard to track progress over time. At the moment, a physical USB connection is required, but later models will be able to accomplish the same sans any wires.

Instabeat is a brain-child of Hind Hobeika, a Lebanon-based entrepreneur which designed the product for her personal need for a heart rate monitoring device for her swimming practice. And as far as we know, it’s the first crowdfunding campaign for a tech product coming from the Middle East.

[Via: TechCrunch]