Places for People Leisure have launched their exciting new Places Locker app in partnership with Technogym. This is a really exciting update for all SWIMTAG users at Places for People Leisure swimming pools. You can quickly and easily synchronise your SWIMTAG data with the Places Locker app. Once you have downloaded your Places Locker app and connected your SWIMTAG account, all your effort in the pool will be automatically converted to Moves and counted towards your daily physical activity.  

A brief video tutorial of linking your account is available here or simply follow these steps:

The SWIMTAG App is here! SWIMTAG users can now download our new app from Apple’s App store and Google Play!

As well as providing all the usual great SWIMTAG features designed specifically for your mobile device the app will also log you into your account automatically and recieve a push notification whenever you upload a new swim.

Thank you once again to the small army of volunteers who helped us to test the app during it’s beta phase, providing us with vital feedback.

As always, any new developments we make to improve SWIMTAG are available to all SWIMTAG pools at no extra cost to the client.

SWIMTAG’s expansion into Ireland last week continued with the installation of our kit at the Nattional Aquatic Centre in Dublin. The Aquatic Centre is situated within the National Sports Campus on the outskirts of Dublin and is the hub for Ireland’s swimming activity, with just short of a million visits every year.

They become the 2nd site in Ireland to install SWIMTAG after the sports Centre at University College Dublin whose users have already logged thousands of swims since it’s launch in the summer.

Business Development Manager Colin Scott said “Installing SWIMTAG at the NAC is a fantastic coup for us. It just so happens that our first two Irish pools we’ve started working with are two of the biggest in the country. We really look forward to seeing the kit used by a large number of people at the centre in the coming months.

“Interest in SWIMTAG has grown since we displayed at the Ireland Active Conference and Awards in November and we have had positive discussions with a number of other sites in the Republic of Ireland, so we hope to be back over to complete more installations in 2017.”

222 Sports Business Development Manager Colin Scott attended the Ireland Active Awards and Conference on Friday 11th November at the Hodson Bay Hotel in Roscommon. The conference had a number of great speakers and panels, with some interesting talks on Sports Nutrition, Health and Physical Activity and the use of video in Fitness Education and a great inspirational talk by GAA star Philly McMahon.

The day concluded with a fantastic awards ceremony in the evening, where a large number of operators were recognised for their high standards of leisure provision.

After the event, Colin said "Ireland Active’s board is made up of leaders in the health and fitness industry, so when you go to their conference, you know that all the key players are going to be there. We had some really positive discussions with a number of potential new clients in Ireland and we expect to be back over in the Emerald Isle again in the coming weeks to have further meetings and demonstrations with some of the people we met."

The build up to the Rio Olympics has been an exciting time and after the success of Team GB in London 2012, the nation was once again gripped by Olympic fever as the games came to the carnival city!

Earlier in the year we built the “Swim Rio” Challenge in preparation for Rio 2016 and encouraged our pools to get involved. Over 100 pools took part in the challenge which was run between 1st July and 5th August (the date of the opening ceremony) and we’re pleased to say that over 1600 SWIMTAG users got into the spirit, swimming the route that started at North Rio, passed Sugarloaf Mountain and Copacabana Beach and finished at Ipanema, all within view of the statue of Christ the Redeemer!

The challenge became one of our most popular almost overnight (beaten only by the Enhlish Channel Swim, the Giraltar Strait and “Escape from Alcatraz”.

The Swim Rio Challenge is one of dozens of challenges that have been mapped out by the SWIMTAG team. Some have been in iconic locations like the “Grand Canyon Swim” others have been local challenges for individual pools, who wanted to swim a body of water close to them. Challenge mapping is a free part of the service for all SWIMTAG pools!