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Podium

Entries, waves, categories, live results and prize giving — running in the cloud while the event is still on the course.

Built around our hardware · no lock-in · your data stays yours

You are not locked into Podium. The reads have to become results, and that takes scoring software — every timer pays for some, ours or otherwise. Our boxes hand reads to Racetec or anything else that speaks the protocol, and they always will. Podium is here because we built it around these boxes, and because we priced it without a chip margin to make back.
Podium needs our hardware. It reads from EchoActive boxes and nothing else. We have never tried to make it work with other makers' timing hardware and we are not planning to — it was built around these boxes, which is the only reason it can do some of what it does. So the openness runs one way: our hardware will work with anybody's software, our software will not work with anybody's hardware. If your boxes are not ours, Podium is not for you.

Then why ours

Plenty of packages. One of them was built for this box.

There is a lot of scoring software out there and most of it is good at what it does. All of it can take a read off our hardware — that is what an open system means. What none of it can do is everything the box is capable of.

The closest integration there is

We write the firmware and we write Podium, so the two ship together. Claim a box to your account, send it commands, correct its clock — from the cloud, without walking back out to the timing point.

Other scoring software receives reads. It cannot reach back into the box, because it was never given a way to.

Written for the Bluetooth transport

Scoring software usually expects a network socket. Podium Mobile connects straight to a box over Bluetooth — no dongle, no laptop, no network at all — and Podium PC does the same through the dongle.

It is the difference between a timing point that needs infrastructure and one that needs a phone in your pocket.

A read becomes a result

Watch it happen

Two real races, replayed from their own chip crossings. The reads land on the left and the result on the right is worked out from them — the box, the link out, the scoring, the public page. The replay runs them close together so you can see the order of it.

Live 00:00

At the timing point

0 reads at the line

Public results, updating

    Real races, replayed from their own chip reads. Every position on the right was worked out from the times on the left, as they arrived — the same way the cloud does it while the race is still running.

    Why it was built

    One experienced person, however many timing points

    The expensive part of timing an event was never the hardware. It is who has to stand at each timing point, and how good they have to be.

    A point that needs a laptop needs somebody who can work the laptop — and somebody who can rescue it when it stops.

    The box is the timing point

    No laptop, no software, nothing to decide. Set it down, switch it on, check the screen says it is reading. That is a job you can hand to a marshal or a casual — it does not need a timer.

    A dropped link is not a callout

    The box keeps reading and holds up to 125,000 reads whether anything is listening or not, then catches up by itself when the signal comes back. Nobody out on the course has to notice, and nobody has to drive out to them.

    The scoring is wherever you are

    Every deployed box reports into one event. One experienced person scores it — from the truck, from the finish tent, or from an office a thousand kilometres away.

    That is the constraint worth naming. A contract timer can only take on as many events as they have people who can be trusted with a timing point. Everything above is aimed at that one number.

    The boxes feed whatever software you already run, and that is not changing — it is your data and your choice. Scoring centrally across boxes somebody else deployed is simply the thing Podium was built to do.

    Three ways in

    One event, wherever you are standing

    All three talk to the same event. The timing truck and the marshal out on the split are looking at the same data, at the same moment.

    Web · any browser

    Podium

    The event itself. Set it up, take entries, score it, publish it.

    • Events, races and waves
    • Entrants, race numbers and categories
    • Online entries and payment
    • Live public results while the race runs
    • Prize giving and presentations
    Read the help →

    Windows

    Podium PC

    The application in the timing truck, for the person watching the reads arrive.

    • Connect and command boxes
    • Watch every read as it lands
    • Correct a box clock
    • Recover missed reads from a transponder
    • Works on the venue network, not just the internet
    Read the help →

    Android

    Podium Mobile

    For out on the course, where there is no desk and no laptop.

    • Check a line is reading before the field arrives
    • Start, stop and command a box
    • Add a time by hand when something goes wrong
    • See the same event as everyone else
    Read the help →
    Podium PC on Windows: four EchoActive boxes listed as Start, 2km, Spotter and Finish, two on the venue network, one over 4G and one over Bluetooth on COM3, with a per-timing-point summary and individual chip reads arriving underneath

    Swipe across the screenshot →

    Four timing points on one screen, and they did not all get there the same way — two on the venue network, one over 4G, one straight over Bluetooth on a COM port. Underneath, every read as it lands: the chip, which antenna caught it, the box's own clock and how strong the read was. The middle panel is the same thing counted up — reads and unique chips at each point, so you can see a line is working before the field gets there.
    Podium Mobile on an Android phone, showing two EchoActive boxes connected over Bluetooth: Start Line reading with 101 reads, Finish Line idle
    Two boxes on one phone over Bluetooth, out on the course. The start line reading and counting, the finish line waiting its turn — battery, signal and last read for each, and Start and Stop under your thumb. No laptop, no desk, no cable.

    Race day

    From entry form to prize giving

    Before

    Build the event — races, waves, categories. Open entries and take the money, or import a list you already have. Entrants need no account.

    On the line

    Boxes come up and report in. You can see every timing point from the truck or from a phone on the far side of the course.

    During

    Reads arrive and are scored as they land. The public results page updates itself while people are still running.

    After

    Category places and prize giving are already worked out. Results stay published, and the times are frozen so they cannot drift later.

    A typed time never overrules a chip read. If somebody is missing a split you can put a time in by hand, and it fills the gap — but it will not overwrite what the hardware actually recorded. The chip is the evidence, and it stays that way.

    What it costs

    Two prices, because there are two kinds of customer

    Not usage tiers you have to watch. Pick the one that describes you.

    A club

    $450*

    per year

    • Everything in the cloud — entries, waves, categories, live results, prize giving
    • Podium PC and Podium Mobile included
    • Unlimited events
    • Online entries are free to take. Only a paying entrant carries $1, and it comes out of the payment — a free event costs nothing
    Subscribe

    A contract timer

    Talk to us

    priced per timer

    • Everything in the club plan
    • The local timing server — Podium itself running on a machine in the tent
    • Scores on the venue network with no internet at all, and syncs to the cloud when a link comes back
    • For anyone who cannot be stranded when the signal goes
    • We set this one up with you rather than selling it off a page
    Ask about the local server
    No per-event fee

    Time one event this year or fifty. The number above does not move.

    No minimum

    A twenty-person club handicap costs the same to score as a sell-out marathon: nothing on top of the licence.

    No cut of your entries

    Online entries are free to take. Only a paying entrant carries $1, and it comes out of the payment, not out of your pocket.

    Nothing on your chips

    We make no margin on the tags you use — ours or anybody else's. The licence is the whole of what we charge.

    *Excludes local taxes and duties. Add 10% GST for Australian customers. Prices in Australian dollars.

    The part nobody asks about until it matters

    It is your data

    Have a look before you commit

    There is a 30 day free trial. Ask for it and we will send you an invite — a real account with your own event in it, not a demo with somebody else's data.

    Or get a quote instead

    We will reply with an invite link. Your address is used to answer you and nothing else — no list, no newsletter.