December 2, 2008 20:29
Not sure if this is appropriate for here, so please excuse if it's not.
We race in casual yacht race twilights, and it occurs to me that the iPhone would be ideal to set up as a countdown stopwatch. There's plenty of iPhone stopwatches available on AppsStore, but they are all designed as lap stopwatches for runners, swimmers, etc.
What I'm after is one that counts down to the start signal.
A common yacht race signal configuration is:
5 minute warning
4 minute warning
1 minute warning
Go
There are other timing configurations, but that's a common one.
Other features that would be good would be:
* Warnings on the phone that match each of the signal warnings (in case you miss hearing them, which is easy to happen if it's windy)
* A rapid reset in case you hit the 5 minute one a few seconds late, so you can reset it to 4 minutes when the next one comes around (or might be even cooler to have the ability to "advance" it a few seconds if you need to)
* Warnings during the final minute, say at 45, 30 and 15 seconds, with a cascading "countdown" series of sounds for say the last 10 seconds
* Over-riding of the phone's Sleep function, so that it stays awake during the whole start process
* Ability for the phone to continue in more conventional stopwatch mode once the race is started, so as you cross the finish line, you can hit it again, and check your total race time.
* Big fat control buttons that you can easily push wearing gloves, and use through those waterproof Aquapac phone cases (only thing I've found so far that is waterproof, and allows you to make and receive calls relatively easily).
* No interruption of the countdown process if someone calls you during the start (because generally you'll decline to take it anyway)
I can think of a few more things that would be nice to have, but that's a start.
Is this doable, and are you guys interested?
We race in casual yacht race twilights, and it occurs to me that the iPhone would be ideal to set up as a countdown stopwatch. There's plenty of iPhone stopwatches available on AppsStore, but they are all designed as lap stopwatches for runners, swimmers, etc.
What I'm after is one that counts down to the start signal.
A common yacht race signal configuration is:
5 minute warning
4 minute warning
1 minute warning
Go
There are other timing configurations, but that's a common one.
Other features that would be good would be:
* Warnings on the phone that match each of the signal warnings (in case you miss hearing them, which is easy to happen if it's windy)
* A rapid reset in case you hit the 5 minute one a few seconds late, so you can reset it to 4 minutes when the next one comes around (or might be even cooler to have the ability to "advance" it a few seconds if you need to)
* Warnings during the final minute, say at 45, 30 and 15 seconds, with a cascading "countdown" series of sounds for say the last 10 seconds
* Over-riding of the phone's Sleep function, so that it stays awake during the whole start process
* Ability for the phone to continue in more conventional stopwatch mode once the race is started, so as you cross the finish line, you can hit it again, and check your total race time.
* Big fat control buttons that you can easily push wearing gloves, and use through those waterproof Aquapac phone cases (only thing I've found so far that is waterproof, and allows you to make and receive calls relatively easily).
* No interruption of the countdown process if someone calls you during the start (because generally you'll decline to take it anyway)
I can think of a few more things that would be nice to have, but that's a start.
Is this doable, and are you guys interested?