SmartSurf is a waterproof GPS tracker for kite, surf, wing and foil. It watches the board and the rider — and Senlay, our AI context layer, reads the wind, current and drift around them.
Not just a dot on a map. A system that understands the water — so you, your school, or someone you trust knows the moment a session starts to go wrong. Before a session becomes a search.
A stopped dot 700 m offshore doesn't tell you whether someone is resting or in trouble. So SmartSurf reads the real conditions around that point and reasons about what they mean for this rider, on this gear, at this spot — powered underneath by Senlay, its physical-world AI context layer.
Waterproof, solar-assisted trackers on the board and rider report live location over cellular — where things are, right now.
Wind, gusts, current, waves, tide, daylight, reef, distance from shore — combined with the rider's skill and gear, so the model reasons about why, not just where. This is Senlay, the layer inside SmartSurf.
A clear read for the rider, the school, or a trusted contact: is this normal, worth watching, or worth acting on — before it becomes a search.
Pick your sport, tell us your level and gear, choose a spot, and connect. SmartSurf reads the live wind, gusts, waves and current — and reasons about it for you, not a generic forecast. The sharper your profile, the sharper the call.
Decision support only — this informs your judgement, it doesn't replace instructors, a leash, local rules, lifeguards, or rescue services. Powered by Senlay, SmartSurf's physical-world context layer. Live check is rate-limited; on the deployed site it connects directly.
SmartSurf starts with one clear problem: boards and riders disappear from sight on the water. Senlay turns those live positions into safety intelligence.
A tracker on the board helps locate drifting or lost equipment after a crash, failed bodydrag, light-wind shutdown, or offshore drift.
A tracker on the rider helps schools, friends, or trusted contacts know where the person is during a session. A board can be replaced. A rider cannot.
A board tracker and rider tracker working together show when the rider and board are moving apart. One tracker shows a point. Two trackers tell the story.
Senlay adds wind direction, current, tide, waves, reef, daylight, distance from shore, and local spot hazards. GPS says where. Senlay explains why.
The system can guide the rider, notify an instructor, share location with trusted contacts, support board recovery, and log the event with evidence.
I saw it again and again as an instructor. Boards drift away. Riders lose their boards. The wind drops far from shore. A windsurfer snaps a mast, a wingfoiler loses the wing, a foil hits something underwater. Sometimes you can still see a rider, a dot far out, drifting — and the sun is going down.
So I built the first tracker: solar-powered, epoxy-sealed, no buttons, no charging port, nothing for water to get into. It answered one question — where is the board?
That wasn't enough. A stopped dot doesn't tell you anything on its own. I wanted the system to reason about the situation — but the model had no idea about the wind, the current, the tide, the swell, or what the bottom looked like under that rider. Without that, it was just guessing.
That's why Senlay exists. It gives the safety logic the physical context it was missing, so SmartSurf can answer the real question: is the rider okay, and what should happen next?
“GPS tells you where the rider is. Senlay helps the model understand what's actually happening around them.”
Three layers work together: the device knows where the rider and board are, Senlay knows the conditions around them, and the safety engine decides whether to ignore, watch, warn, or escalate.
Rider GPS, board GPS, track history, stop duration, distance from shore, drift vector, battery and signal, SOS.
Wind, gusts, waves, tide, current, METAR, live sensors, bathymetry, terrain — cross-checked for freshness, confidence, and model-vs-reality conflicts.
Go / caution / no-go, rider check-in, drift warning, board-separation alert, station notification, escalation support.
Do the conditions match this rider, gear, board and spot? Go, caution, or no-go.
If a rider stops — did the wind drop, is the current pulling out, is a storm building, did the board separate?
Speed, crashes, jibes and fatigue read against the real conditions you rode — not empty numbers.
When risk is real, notify instructors, the station, trusted contacts, or opted-in local helpers.
Wind climbed 18 → 26 kt in 20 minutes, wave period shortened. Rider is 1.2 km out on a 14m kite — now overpowered.
Board speed dropped to 0.8 kt and its movement now matches the wind-drift vector exactly. No human input for 4 minutes.
The last three sessions all show speed falling in the final 30 minutes, and jibe failures doubling past 90 minutes. Today ran 2.5 hours.
In safe conditions it conserves battery. When a rider stops, drifts offshore, loses signal, separates from the board, or triggers SOS, it can request status, report faster, and switch into watch or rescue mode. The model never drives the device directly — Senlay supplies the evidence, the Safety Engine classifies the risk, and a Device Policy Layer validates every command before it's sent.
Reduce reporting in safe conditions; save power for emergencies.
Detect weak signal before it drops and hold the last reliable fix.
Increase GPS and upload frequency the moment risk rises or SOS fires.
Every mode change logged with reason, trigger, timestamp and operator.
Rider crashes, cannot bodydrag back, returns to shore and sees where the board is drifting. Turns blind searching into location-based recovery.
All board scenarios →A rider stopped on shore is one thing. A rider stopped offshore is another. SmartSurf uses location context — distance, wind, current, time — to tell the difference.
All rider scenarios →Board tracker and rider tracker move apart. Distance grows. SmartSurf detects the separation automatically and shows where each is moving.
All paired scenarios →Dashboard identifies the outlier: one stopped, one board separated, one drifting, one low battery. SmartSurf shows which dot needs attention first.
All school scenarios →A rider shares their session with someone who is not on the beach. The contact sees when the rider is on the water and when they are safely back.
All contact scenarios →Group rides downwind. One rider drops behind. Pickup can see real-time positions. When the landing point changes, your team knows before you reach shore.
All downwinder scenarios →Family is often far away. On the water, the useful help is another rider, an instructor, a kite station, or someone watching the same spot from shore. SmartSurf is becoming an opt-in safety network — it never makes normal sessions public.
The SmartSurf Tracker is a solar-powered, epoxy-sealed hardware extension of the app — magnetic switch control, cellular GPS, and board-level safety context. Mount it on the rider or the board in seconds.
A tracker that can't phone home in an emergency isn't a safety device. SmartSurf runs on 1NCE global IoT connectivity — one SIM, one flat lifetime fee, coverage across the coastlines and countries our riders actually travel to. No roaming contracts, no per-country plans, no surprise bills mid-season.
It's also why the unit economics work: at roughly $15 for 10 years of data and SMS, connectivity stops being a recurring cost that erodes hardware margin — and it lets the device send GPS and SOS over cellular, independent of the rider's phone.
Every session gets analyzed against the real conditions you rode — wind, gusts, swell, tide, current — not empty GPS numbers. Specific feedback with source-aware context.
Your peak speed of 38.4 knots in 22-knot wind gives a 1.75× wind ratio — that's excellent power conversion for a 12m kite on a twin-tip. Your crash at 14:24 correlates with a recorded gust to 28 knots — a 27% spike above average.
Jibe success rate climbed to 73% (up from 61% last session). Three of four failed jibes happened during gusts above 25 knots — you're stalling the kite too early in powered transitions.
Wind, swell, current, tide layered onto your GPS track. Speed relative to real conditions, not empty numbers.
Natural language analysis of technique using session summary, Senlay conditions, board type, and skill level. Personal, not generic.
Cross-session analysis: technique evolution, fatigue patterns, conditions that matched your best sessions.
Right now I'm building the first small batch of trackers by hand and collecting interest to plan it. Nothing is sold on this site — prices below are indicative targets, and buying happens in a private conversation.
Your phone as the tracker: session recording, voice-triggered SOS, a live map for people you trust, and an instructor able to reach you without you touching a screen. It's in active development — not released yet.
The Tracker is the reliability layer you add when a phone in a pocket isn't enough — sealed, solar, on the board, all day, phone-free. That hardware is what I'm building right now.
Traccar tracks positions. Senlay understands the environment. SmartSurf understands what it means for the rider. The same verification engine is open to other outdoor apps and agents.
Start with the rider app. Add trackers and a school pilot when you need board-mounted GPS, station awareness, and Senlay-backed context.