BACKGROUND
YMCAs in the USA are the largest charitable non-profits that have engaged about 21 million people within the country. YMCAs commit to “strengthen communities through youth development, healthy living and social responsibility”. One of their major programmes is physical fitness. In their service locations, the members can enjoy sports with various facilities, including swimming pools.
CHALLENGE
The Crossroads YMCA realised that while people could use various technologies to follow their activities in other sports, there had been none of them supporting swimmers well in tracking their fitness goals. In addition, the safety, especially of children, in water is always a concern. To improve members’ experiences, the YMCA decided to look for interactive pool technologies that would allow people to track their activities and keep people stay safe in the water.
SOLUTION
Within different solutions, the YMCA chose Nagi as “the most interactive pool technology in the entire world”, providing a swimmer tracking system powered by Quuppa’s RTLS. The system installation was quick and easy and so it did not cause any interruption at all to YMCA members.
Quuppa Locators were installed on the roof of the swimming pool and the trackable tags with waterproof covers were worn by the swimmers. The real-time data of the swimmers’ activities is continuously sent to Nagi’s computer for instant statistics. Nagi can provide fast and accurate details regarding the speed, total time, number of laps of the swimmers.
RESULTS
The YMCA can offer better customer experiences to their members. Swimmers can now track their activities in the water which supports them in reaching their fitness goals. This interactive pool technology from Nagi motivates the YMCA members to be more active and so keep fit.
In addition, the system helps members feel safer around the pool, since they know any problem in the water can be identified right away. This is especially important for families with children.
NEXT STEPS
The YMCA hopes to extend the Nagi system to other swimming pools in different service locations across the USA. In addition, they are looking for further development possibilities of the solutions in order to improve the members’ swimming experience.