Garmin Blaze™ Equine Wellness System

To understand a horse's condition and exercise status, people previously had to rely on manually taking the pulse or observation, making it easy to miss signs of abnormalities. Especially in equine sports such as racing and dressage, precise management of biometric data is necessary for injury prevention and performance improvement, but there was a lack of constant monitoring tools for this purpose.

Although some heart rate belts existed, they were cumbersome to wear and had limited real-time connectivity. Ultimately, horse trainers had to adjust training intensity based on experience and intuition, and horse health problems were sometimes not detected early.

The Blaze system is innovative in that it collects accurate heart rate and movement data in real-time during training through an optical heart rate sensor that is easily attached to the horse's tail. The durable tail wrap design ensures the sensor remains stable during movement, and the low-power design allows for continuous measurement over long periods.

It also has ambient environment sensing capabilities to monitor the current location's temperature, heat index, etc., and understand the impact on horse performance. Data from multiple horses can be managed as individual profiles, allowing integrated management of health information for multiple horses in a single app. This offers superior scalability and convenience compared to existing individual devices, and is differentiated by providing real-time alarms and analysis in conjunction with Garmin's smartwatch and GPS technology.

Both equestrians and horse owners (B2C), and professional horse management organizations (B2B) are targeted. It can be used by individual riders with one or two horses, as well as horse management personnel at racetracks and riding clubs.

In particular, racehorse trainers or veterinarians can monitor a horse's heart rate zone, body temperature, and exercise volume during training with Blaze, and use this information to provide customized training and health management. In the future, equestrian sports organizations or horse insurance companies may also use the data, so it is expected to be used throughout the horse industry.

The product itself has low environmental constraints, but usage considerations are needed, such as resistance to attaching the device to the horse. However, it is designed with a tail wrap method to minimize discomfort to the horse, and is waterproof and durable, so there are no problems even in outdoor environments.

In terms of regulations, it is not a medical device, so it can be released without special approval, and it is possible to expand to other animal species (e.g., monitoring companion dogs) by utilizing the wearable technology IP already accumulated by Garmin. However, the market size is limited to the horse industry, anichemarket, and adoption is expected to occur first in high value-added fields such as racehorses. If it expands to the livestock industry (cattle, horses, etc.) in the future, the market could grow.

It was evaluated as "innovative in applying the know-how of smartwatch leader Garmin to horses, and a solution that will lead the digital transformation of the horse industry." The CES judging panel highly praised Blaze for pioneering the previously neglected area of animal healthcare.

In terms of technical completeness, it has received positive feedback that it is reliable and precise, as expected from a Garmin product, and has demonstrated real-time monitoring performance in field demos. However, there is also the view that "it is innovative but not a popular hit product" because the market size is limited. In summary, the consensus is that the technical implementation is perfect, but the application field is a specialized area.