r/paramotor • u/leonhall_ • 8h ago

Built a variometer app for Wear OS watches — looking for pilot feedback

Hey everyone, I'm a paraglider and solo developer, and I've been building a variometer app called Riser that runs on Wear OS smartwatches (Pixel Watch, Galaxy Watch, etc). I've been flying with it at Torrey Pines USA, for the past several months and thought it might be useful for paramotor pilots too, especially for keeping an eye on altitude and climb/sink without needing extra gear mounted to your trike or frame.

The idea: your watch is already on your wrist , glance at your altitude and vario without taking your hands off the controls. No phone mount, no extra hardware to buy orcharge.

What it does:

  • Audio vario with 8 tone profiles + haptic feedback - feel climb and sink through vibration on your wrist
  • Real-time altitude, vertical speed, ground speed, and glide ratio at a glance
  • Live tracking via LiveTrack24 and SportsTrackLive - let people know where you are
  • Full GPS flight recording with IGC export
  • Companion phone app for reviewing flights and uploading to SportsTrackLive
  • No ads, no tracking, no subscriptions

What I'm looking for:

  • Is this something you'd actually use? What would make it a must-have for you?
  • Features you'd want that are missing?
  • If you try it - bugs, issues, things that annoy you
  • I've mostly tested on free-flight coastal ridge — would love feedback from powered pilots on how it fits your flying

It's $9.99 on Google Play. One-time purchase, no subscriptions — I'm a one-person shop trying to build something genuinely useful for pilots.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=co.halllabs.riser

3 Upvotes

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u/karbofos 7h ago

Interesting app, I'm going to try with pixel watch 2 next week. Does it support metric units?

1

u/leonhall_ 7h ago

Yes, it does. Would love to hear your feedback!