Phlex EDGE

The problem

In 2019 swimmers had two choices for tracking: a watch that guessed, or nothing. We wanted a device that lived on the goggle strap, read heart rate in the water, and could tap the swimmer when it was time to go. That meant building hardware, firmware, two mobile apps and a company at the same time.

What I did

I was the co-founder responsible for how the product looked, sounded and was explained: industrial design direction, the brand, the launch film, the campaign page and every asset on it. The engineering team built the hardware and the mobile apps; I ran the campaign and the athlete programme that put the tracker on Olympic-level swimmers before it existed in stores.

Constraints

• Explain heart rate, haptics and machine learning to backers who were not engineers, in a single page and a single film.
• Shoot real athletes with pre-production units that could and did fail on deck.
• Fund manufacturing from the campaign, so the messaging had to convert, not just impress.

What shipped

• Phlex EDGE hardware with real-time heart rate and in-water haptic alerts
• iOS and Android apps
• Campaign film and launch assets
• An Indiegogo campaign that passed $50K

Results

The device shipped. The film and the athlete roster it introduced set the tone for every Phlex launch after it, including the 2023 platform relaunch.