Implementation of Bluetooth based timing solution, Case small sports events

Abstract

Commercial RFID timing systems used in large sports events are expensive. Buying a timing system or hiring a timing service provider is not affordable for small events that often use the manual timing method for timekeeping. Manual timing has a high risk of human and systematic error. A fully automatic timing solution is needed for small events to add reliability and reduce the support and timing costs. The case study research examined the currently available timing methods and described implementing a smartphone-based Bluetooth timing system targeted to small events. The Bluetooth timing system that can be used with a self-service portal is presented. The self-service portal allows the event organizer to create a new event easily and use the Bluetooth-based timing system. The Bluetooth-based timing system's reliability and precision needed to be analyzed to be used as a timing method of an event. The Bluetooth timing was tested using a smartphone for every kilometer of marathon and half marathon distances of Helsinki City Running Day 2020, with 336 test users enrolled to use a personal smartphone as a timing device. The times recorded by the Bluetooth timing system were compared with the official RFID recorded times to research the precision. The count of the individual participants was compared with all the timing locations to study the reliability. Finally, the self-service portal was integrated into the online entry system to the online entry platform to enable new event creation. The field test results showed that the reliability of the Bluetooth timing system was good; even the unexcepted hardware issues caused a significant loss of the active timing devices. The recorded time sessions were evaluated with the same principle as the RFID-based systems and the best RSSI values. Because most participants had recorded several timing sessions for each timing point, a combined method is presented to add precision. The self-service portal streamlines an event created by removing manual work from the service provider. The Bluetooth-based timing system proved to be reliable and easy to set up. The precision using only one device is not suitable for recording the official finish times, but it is ideal for a split point. Further development is needed to inspect the precision of several devices at a timing point and test the Bluetooth wristbands' accuracy.