Surf Tracking: Gone Surfing

Surf smarter by measuring your surfing fitness. Catch more waves with directions to the take-off zone. Track your waves, strokes, and much more.

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Inspiration

As a keen surfer, the moment I got an Apple Watch and started tracking my surfing, I realised something was missing when tracking my sessions. Most apps didn't provide accurate data or lacked meaningful health insights. That's why I came up with the idea for Gone Surfing. I wanted to create something to help surfers like me improve their fitness, understand their progress over time and catch more waves.

What it does

Gone Surfing aims to motivate surfers to do more of their passion, by helping them understand their surfing fitness and helping them catch more waves.

The Apple Watch app tracks your waves, paddling distance, strokes, calories burned and heart rate. But my favourite feature is that it can "take" you back to the take-off zone - the exact spot where you caught your last wave - so you can spend less time paddling around and more time riding waves.

After surfing, you can check the iPhone app to gain insights into your session, where you'll see several charts about your surfing fitness with relevant trends. You'll also find a map with all your waves showing the ride duration, distance and average speed.

How we built it

I built the app using some of Apple's coolest frameworks like Apple Health, Core Motion, Core Location, MapKit, Swift Charts, and of course, the one and only RevenueCat!

Core Motion and Core Location were key in getting accurate readings for stroke detection, paddling distances and wave tracking.

Swift Charts made it possible to turn all that data into visuals that are easy to understand and useful for surfers to understand their surfing fitness trends.

It required a lot of coding, but even more surfing to test it out, so I think it's been an excellent balance for the past few months!

Challenges we ran into

One of the toughest hurdles was getting the paddling and surfing distances to be accurate. Because the ocean isn't a controlled environment, distinguishing between surfing and paddling took a lot of trial and error!

I also had to leave out advanced health metrics like HRV and VO2 Max from this MVP, as it added an extra layer of complexity to HealthKit.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

I'm really proud of the "return to the take-off" feature! It's something new that I haven't seen in other surf apps, and it actually helps surfers catch more waves.

I have always loved Apple Health, so leveraging it to provide a single view of a surfer's health and performance feels like a dream come true!

Lastly, it's been very fulfilling hearing constructive feedback from other surfers who find the app helpful.

What we learned

This is my first watchOS app and second iOS app, with less than a year of experience in mobile development, so this project has been a massive learning experience, with a pretty steep learning curve!

I deep-dove into the depths of Observation in SwiftUI and how to leverage some of Apple's frameworks with different app targets.

I also learned the importance of user feedback. By sharing my journey with my local community, I learned what features people really wanted, which helped shape the app into something that meets actual surfers' needs.

What's next for Gone Surfing

After taking a short break, I plan to refine the core features based on user feedback. I would love to enhance the stroke detection to provide feedback on the technique.

Further down the line, I want to integrate advanced health metrics with interactive charts, such as VO2 Max and HRV. I might also consider adding social features so users can share their progress and maybe even introduce contests.

In the long term, I'd love to include surf-specific workout plans to make Gone Surfing not just a surf tracking app, but a comprehensive tool for surfing well-being.

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