Yamaha's BODiBEAT plays music in time to your workout

We haven't seen too many portable audio devices out of Yamaha (well, unless you count scooters), but the company's new BODiBEAT looks like it could be a big hit with runners. The arm-mounted DAP contains an accelerometer that links to the earphone-mounted pulse monitor, enabling the BODiBEAT to play tracks that match your running rhythm, switching songs as you speed up and slow down. It doesn't look the like unit actually changes the speed of your music, so Yamaha has thoughtfully included a range of preloaded beat loops that remix themselves at every tempo to cover any gaps. Good thing, too, since the puny 512MB of memory means you'll be out of music by the end of the block. Expect to see the BODiBEAT popping up at the gym later this summer for an astronomical $299.

[Via jkOnTheRun]

[Big @ Jul 13th 2007 1:40AM]

512 MB is enough for 120 songs - that should be more than enough for most jogs (alot more than enough).

Just fill it with dance music and club beats and you'll never get tired of it.

[Tim @ Jul 13th 2007 5:01AM]

There's nothing bad about 128kb encoding. I did a test with three versions of the same track; one at original WAV, one at 128k and one at 256k, using LAME. I copied each 3x (making 9 tracks) and put them randomly on a CD. Nobody that I gave it to could tell which tracks were the originals.

[Vinay @ Jul 13th 2007 4:06AM]

To Bull


You really think you can appreciate lossless quality in a noisy gym, or the outdoors?

512 mb may be less, but it is more than enough for the purpose it was designed for.

[Chuck @ Jul 13th 2007 1:46AM]

$299 for 512MB... wow, you'll have to speed up and slow down a lot for that to be worth it.

[Aaron @ Jul 13th 2007 1:51AM]

I bet a lot of people will not give this product any credit and call it a waste of money. They are wrong. Although the $300 entry point is steep, I have a lot of faith that this will be the one of the first products to do what will be one of the next major feature revolutions in DAP’s. I have long thought a product like this is needed. Imagine: a DAP that automatically mixes your music together and automatically creates DJ style fades, I’m not talking about iTunes-esque cross fading, I’m talking real beat matching. The technology should be adapted for portable devices from programs like Ableton Live. Live can take virtually any two audio files and match the tempo/bpm with user control, but it can be automated also. This product takes the general idea a step further with the accelerometer. Awesome stuff.

[Steve Boyett @ Jul 19th 2007 1:24AM]

But there are currently over 70 FREE nonstop, fixed-BPM, professionally beatmatched workout music mixes available from the iTunes #2 music podcast Podrunner. And you can listen to 'em on *any* mp3 player. Get 'em on iTunes or from http://wwww.djsteveboy.com/podrunner.html. Enjoy!

[Kyle @ Jul 13th 2007 1:55AM]

I can't say how much music you guys at Engadget listen to, but just because it doesnt hold days of music doesn't mean that's a problem. You can equate 512mb to about 10 albums, which at least by my standards is a lot. People who tell you they listen to the 30gb or about 7,000 ish songs are lying, because that's days worth. You can't possibly listen to it all. Anyway my point is that 512mb is just fine.

[LTM @ Jul 13th 2007 2:45AM]

512mb's is still a piss ass poor showing considering the current availability and size of flash memory these days. Whether 512 MB's is more than enough memory for most joggers, the fact remains that it's no excuse for Yamaha to give the consumer a paltry amount of memory for an ungodly price of 300 big ones.

[bboy @ Jul 13th 2007 1:58AM]

you have got to be kidding me.
the Nike Ipod connects to your nano, and times your workout, has incredible online support, and costs 30$. Everyone by now has an Ipod to be able to take advantage of the Nike Ipod. I cant imagine Yamaha selling more than 10 of these.

[edgarj @ Jul 13th 2007 3:01AM]

Yamaha always flirts with the novel when it comes to digital lifestyle devices, but they never follow through with a solid product. Their A/V division is very adept at producing great receivers, but their forays into peripherals have always been a case of "reach excedes grasp"... their media server, virtual surround, MCE enabled receiver, etc, have never been more than half assed betas.

I'm on my 3rd Yam receiver (DSP-A3090, RX-Z1, RXV-2700), and they were hitting home runs in all aspects they added an ethernet port and attempted to expand into the media-center realm. Yamaha needs to focus on some better drivers for MCE and the IPhone with their current receiver lineup. My RXV-2700 is buggy at best via ethernet and the iPhone only charges via the iPod dock.

[Bobo @ Jul 13th 2007 3:33AM]

I agree.. Yamaha has some great potential products, and many times i feel like they were way ahead of their time (mLan comes to mind), but they either never push the advertising, or they're kinda late to the game, and by the time it sort of hits, it's already gone. That's too bad, because they make great stuff. I think things are beginning to change as I have seen multiple products from them go through a shift as of late, like someone came in and said, 'okay, time to clean house.' Hence, there are drivers for OSX, more software solutions, and some excellent musical gear coming. N8 and N12 in particular. Okay.. rant over.

[Andrew @ Jul 13th 2007 3:32AM]

Ummm.. this isn't the first of this. Sony's had one for a while. The S2. And $90 gets you 2GB on that one. So yeah, this Yamaha is ridiculous and not even worth a second thought.

[Chad @ Jul 13th 2007 3:43AM]

I really prefer my Sony S2. It's 2 GB and has the same functionality at only $125 with the full 3yr warranty.
http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=11038974

[Chuck @ Jul 13th 2007 4:22AM]

Guess Yamaha didn't scroll down to the bottom of the page:
"Music Pacer
Allows you to play songs using the automatic selection function in which the player changes the playlist automatically depending on your pace of movement, either walking or jogging."

Even if its a little better or speeds up mixed music to your pace, the price just doesn't seem worth it when compared to the Sony. Worth it to me, maybe someone who spends a lot of time at the Gym and speeds up and slows down a lot it would be worth the extra $200.

[LLoydy @ Jul 13th 2007 6:06AM]

Why on earth would you by this grossly overpriced product when you can get 4GB wrist daps at www.chinavision.com for 40 British pounds?????

(Check this link if you don't believe me - http://www.chinavasion.com/index.php/cName/mp4-players-4gb-mp4-players/)

The wrist dap I own includes radio, video playback, dictaphone and various games and 4Gigabytes of storage - all on my wrist!

Also IMHO especially as a regular jogger - I dont wan't the music tempo adjusting dynamically.

I would personally find that very distracting - Just my opinion - BTW.

[Chuckles McGee @ Jul 13th 2007 6:40AM]

Yeah...I like the idea, but I like my $300 a lot better. Besides- don't most people purposely choose fast music to help them keep up the pace?

[Muu @ Jul 13th 2007 10:01AM]

I'm talking straight out of my ass here, but they could have set it up to play more upbeat music at the start (to pump up the user), choose a slower sounding song if they get TOO excited, and also gradually taper off depending on a timer-setting for a workout. 300 bucks is definitely way too much for the technology, but I can see plenty of uses for it once it's at a more convenient pricepoint.

[Carbonize @ Jul 13th 2007 3:09PM]

Surely you listen to music to set your speed? Your exercise rate is usually set by the music and not he other way round. I know when I work out I listen to stuff with a fast tempo to encourage me to work faster.

[keithwwalker @ Jul 13th 2007 8:40PM]

This sounds like a variation/evolution of Yamaha's MIDI player where you could speed up the tempo. It came bundled with my Compaq PC, 8 years ago....

[Bob Marcus @ Sep 3rd 2007 3:25AM]

BodiBeat adds another dimension to music-paced running. In addition to the "canned" music supplied by Yamaha, users might want to load up BPM rated music by signed and indie artists. Check out jogtunes.com (http://jogtunes.com) and jogtunesindie.com (http://jogtunesindie.com) for listings and playlists of BPM rated tunes (over 650) with links to iTunes and other sources.