“Runners want to look good; people want to look good. People want a good functional watch that looks good. This is the first GPS watch you’ll ever have that you want to wear all day long,” said David Arnold, co-founder/president of the Austin-based Soleus running watch.
One of its all-time bestsellers, Chicked, owes its success to design, color, and a lot of attitude. “Sanity Is Slow. Run Wild,” is written on its back plate. The PR model has the words “Run. Race. PR. Repeat.”; Ultra Sole says “Sedentary Sucks.”
Many of Soleus watches, in fact, are named after terms runners know at heart, like 262, 131, 10K and, yes, Chicked, which means when a female runner overtakes a male runner in a race: “Man, I got chicked!”
“We love running. One of my product managers is an ultra marathoner, another has run 30 or 40 marathons. We know what it’s like out there. We know what runners need,” Arnold said.
And what runners need, said Arnold, are extra large digits, lightweight materials, and ease of operation. Accuracy is also very important, especially since today’s runners, whether weekend warriors or elite athletes, like to record and track their running progress.
Arnold said their GPS is one of the most accurate in the market today. Signal is not lost even when running in the middle of Manhattan, surrounded by hundreds of skyscrapers, or under heavy overcast skies, or under a canopy of trees on the trail, he said.
Running inside a tunnel is not a problem, Arnold said. He once received a feedback from a runner who said the watch immediately picked up a signal the minute he was out of the tunnel. It even gave him credit for all the data it failed to register while in the tunnel.
“It’s not a bad thing to lose signal as long as you get the data back. So that half-a-mile tunnel run will be credited. So far that has only been our feedback. Otherwise, we really don’t have issues with our GPS capabilities at all,” Arnold said.
Comparable to industry leaders
He said even on full marathons, Soleus gives a near-accurate reading, give or take about 200 m. Soleus’ GPS, HRM, and core running lines, he said, are comparable to the industry leaders in each category.
Arnold said when it comes to GPS capabilities, for instance, Soleus’ biggest competitor is Garmin. When it comes to the HRM performance, it’s up against Polar. For core running brands, Soleus is competing with Timex.
“A lot of people think because it’s cheaper, it’s not accurate. Soleus is more accurate than anything in the market today,” he said.
The Soleus heart rate monitors (HRM) models are selling well in the Philippines right now, he said, although in the US its popularity is going down a bit as the trend shifts toward GPS models. Still, Arnold continued, from a training standpoint HRM is still the best gear to use because it keeps your heart in a certain zone.
It’s latest model is the GPS 1.0, with a high-sensitivity receiver, pace/speed and distance feature, calories burned, data storage of 100-lap memory, world time for 106 cities covering all time zones, rechargeable battery via USB, water-resistant for 30 m. Weighing only 2 oz, it claims to be the smallest GPS watch in the market today.
“Runners are willing to step away from big-named brands. Runners as consumers are very independent people. We have a very good brand recognition. All the good running stores in the US have us. We found a niche. We brought in colors that’s eye-candy you just want to pick it up,” Arnold said.
Soleus watches are available at L Timestudio, Timegear and select Wristpod boutiques.
