Smartphones can do cool things, there are even plenty of stopwatch apps available for them. However, when you are an athlete and want to measure the time of a run this may become tedious since most smartphones have no physical buttons anymore and finding the right spot while running is a difficult task.

This simple (and still experimental) app offers you a stopwatch that is triggered by your movements while running. Simply activate it, hold your phone in your hand and start running. As soon as the phone detects a motion it starts the timer (and vibrates to indicate that).

As soon as the movement drops below a certain threshold the timer is stopped again (pointing the phone downwards towards the finish line when you cross it seems to be a feasible option for this). You can now experiment with your own thresholds in the settings of the app.

Furthermore, the latest version brings a timer that vibrates after a freely definable interval calculated from the distance and the time you want to run.

Since this is still an experimental app (working fine on a Sony Xperia Ray), any comments and suggestions for further improvement are welcome.

Note: Samsung's Galaxy SII (and other phones as well) seems to have a lower upper limit for acceleration values so that it is necessary to reduce the threshold for "running" considerably. Other phones such as Motorola Razor have a much higher measuring range, so you perhaps need to experiment a bit with the thresholds as well.