If my main priority was to monitor symmetry/strength after an injury (like an SI?) which tracker would you suggest? Which have you used and liked/disliked?
Thanks 
Following! I’ve had my eye on the Equisense but would love to hear a first-hand account of its use before I take the plunge.
I’ve owned an Equisense (not the MotionS with heartrate) for a decent amount of time! Originally purchased through their Go Fund Me campaign.
It did come in handy when my horse experienced a check ligament tear. I had used the sensor prior, so I had an established baseline already. While he was never unsound - I did see a slight decline in symmetry before we discovered it. It certainly wasn’t alarming enough to catch the injury sooner, but in hindsight it did point to something. He’s older and I attributed it to his general hock stiffness. I was able to track his progress post injury as well and saw a return to the baseline I had previously established. It has nice features (and they have added a significant amount more recently) like time in gait, % time spent L vs R, distribution of workload at w/t/c throughout your session, etc. There is a GPS feature so you can track distance if you hack out. They also have exercise suggestions for horse/rider. You’re able to save notes on each session, pics, etc, so in that way it was very helpful during our recovery period.
My gelding is 14.3hh, solidly in the Hony category… so I do take the actual calculated values with a grain of salt. I think he’s in between so his stride may be off for the sensor choices of horse/pony. But for looking at trends and documenting rides, I think its a really neat tool!
They often go on sale, so keep an eye out!
I have the Equisense (regular not S), and it picked up loss of symmetry after he strained his SI. Still working on that and I put it away recently so I wouldn’t be so focused on data while we worked on another issue. I need to charge it up and get back to using it.
I have the Equestic and use it all the time for my two. Symmetry is one of the things I examine most, especially given a stifle injury last year.
I get irritated if something happens to make me miss recording a ride. Like forgetting to charge either phone or clip, forgetting either phone or clip at home, forgetting to put the clip on the saddle… :o
:lol:
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Bumping this old thread. Will be rehabbing a horse back from colic surgery and wondering if anyone has insight into the better software, and ability to pick up things. I hadn’t heard of the equestic before recently, but the idea of not having a large thing on the girth is intriguing but also makes me worried it might not be as precise.
I use the Equestic. I don’t know anything about the other device. The Equestic is easy to use and I’ve never had any issues with the physical position. I love mine. It’s been very helpful as I brought me horse back to work after injury. I’ve had it for 2+ years.
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Why does size equate to accuracy in your mind? People wear garmins and fitbits, the lameness locator vets use is quite small.
I have an equestic and I like it.
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It’s not size it’s placement. the equisense is between the front legs on the girth and seems to me to be an easier place to check things like symmetry vs on the side of a saddle. However, the ease of clipping something on to my saddle, or having the pro do so sounds enticing.
I have an Equestic and it was a godsend when rehabbing my horse from a suspensory tear. Every time the symmetry started to get more unbalanced, we’d back off.
Then last week he had a sudden onset neuro episode. We were confused because at first he just looked stiff, but we put him in the roundpen to w/t/c and he looked completely even. Then he failed the neuro exam and we took him to the hospital.
He happened to have been wearing the Equestic when he was in the round pen and when I looked at the data, there was a 21% imbalance between the left and right diagonals upon landing! The clip had detected a problem that neither my trainer nor I had seen.
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21%? Wow, that reading sure did confirm that something was up! I love my Equestic.
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Bumping this thread.
I like the looks of the Equisense (despite the higher price tag), but are they still in business? Lots of stuff on their website is sold out, only available in one color, etc.
I’ve been using Equestic for almost 2 years. It is super easy to use and the graphs are very informative. The customer service and their feedback is great.
I have a 15 yr old 13.2 pony and a 6 yr old 14.3 Morgan.
We used it on a 14.2 QH when we fits got it and his symmetry was often off…turns out he had some SI and Suspensory issues.
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I was hoping to get heartrate data too, but I’m not getting warm fuzzies from the equisense website.
I’m going to stew on it a bit
I asked my vet about the Equestic and whether she had any experience with it - we are 6 months in to rehabbing a hind suspensory injury and I am considering whether it would be a good investment and data source.
She didn’t know anyone who uses that product specifically but she did say that from previous experience with other sensors they can be glitchy depending on the placement on the horse. Sounds like none of the experiences here in this thread are too hung up on either of these products being glitchy.
Does anyone have experience in very cold temperatures with these products? I live in the Canadian prairies and in the winter devices like cell phones can stop working if they get too cold. I mostly ride in a heated indoor arena so typically it’s no colder than -2c (usually it hovers around 0c in the dead of winter with the heat on) but that may be too cold for some electronic devices?
I’m in Eastern Ontario and I’ve never had issues with the Equestic in the cold. It does get into the -20s Celsius for daytime highs here, and all my rides are outdoors or in an unheated arena.
I do keep the clip on my belt until I’m ready to leave the barn, and put it back on my belt before unsaddling. I have forgotten to take the clip off a time or two. It’s been fine sitting in unheated tack rooms (on the saddle, under cover). The battery may have died in the cold, but that’s it.
I think I’ve had mine six years. There was definitely a learning curve to using it, and I occasionally lose a ride to an inpatient finger swipe that closes the app before saving. There were some glitches in the early days, but I was an early adopter and sent feedback to the company. They have always been very responsive, and advised me what to do when I’ve been the glitch. 
I’ve been dealing with a stifle injury/reinjury for the past year and at one point my vet did say he loved that thing, and wished everyone had one. 
You do have to pay attention to the data over several rides. Some things can affect the horse’s symmetry in trot. Long lining for the first time, riding trails that have a dominant side to side slope, using a saddle that doesn’t fit, trotting for very short periods, cantering too early in stifle rehab are all things I have personally experienced affecting symmetry. If there’s a sudden change in symmetry it’s worth looking at what happened that ride, and experimenting during following rides.
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I went with the Equestic, because it looks like Equisense doesn’t even have facebook page activity for the last couple years?
I hope they come out with some heart rate stuff soon! I’m excited to try it.
Has anyone used the Equestic while also recording a ride via PIVO? My poor phone is going to implode lol
Bumping this up to say - pretty disappointed so far. The app does not work well with Android systems, requiring me to turn on swipe gestures at the bottom to even see the bottom bar.
Their customer service is dismissive of how annoying it is that I have to change the way my phone is set up in order to use the app.
I didn’t close the app, but the first ride does not appear to be saved. It showed the transition data, then poof it was all gone.
All of the buttons in the settings section are grayed out and inaccessible.
I’ve been using Equestic with an Android phone ever since I bought it. I have no idea what “swipe gestures” are. I did have a learning curve when first using it, and did lose some rides.
Did you hit the save button after your ride? Did you refresh from the calendar page when you had a mobile/wifi data link?
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They said it was a known issue, so I don’t know if it’s just the model or what.
I don’t think I have network connectivity on the app, at all. When I open the calendar, it says “not connected to network” even though I have full bar 5G connection and unlimited data (no restrictions on uploads or downloads). After 2 or 3 minutes, poof the data is gone. It doesn’t even show that I did a ride.
I did a test ride yesterday (clipped it to the surcingle for a quick lunge, specifically for this) and it did the same thing. I end the ride on the app, it shows the transition and gait data for a couple minutes, and then poof its all gone.
Pretty frustrating - I’m very tech savvy, and this has given me more grief than my complicated pixio set up.
