May 2026 Release · v8.0

What’s new

A combined release across our Heel2Toe device firmware and the Docking Station app — refined Walk-BEST scoring, a new weekly summary, automatic foot detection, and a faster, more reliable USB connection.

Heel2Toe firmware (rev12) — preinstalled on every Heel2Toe device shipped on or after May 1, 2026.

Headlines

The four biggest changes

New · Docking Station

Introducing the Walk-BEST score

A single, easy-to-read number that captures the quality of your walking — combining good-step ratio, cadence consistency, and gait stability into one score. Built and tuned from real-world sessions, the Walk-BEST score gives you (and your clinician) a clear way to track progress over time.

New · Docking Station

Weekly summary

A new home-screen card summarizes your past seven days at a glance: Walk-BEST score, good-steps percentage, total sessions and duration, plus heat maps and a written gait insight. See your week without digging through individual sessions.

New · Heel2Toe

Automatic left / right foot detection

No more setting which foot you’re wearing. A small on-device neural network looks at your first few steps and identifies the foot automatically.

Faster · Heel2Toe + Docking Station

Faster, more reliable USB connection

iPhone now mounts Heel2Toe on the first try in 15–20 seconds (was 30–45s with frequent retries). Android in 5–10 seconds. USB-C ports on modern Macs and PCs now recognize the device on first plug.

Also in this release

Other improvements

  • SD card write protection — if the SD card is full, damaged, or formatted incorrectly, the device spots it early, alerts you with a red LED plus five short beeps, and stops writing — so your session data won’t be silently corrupted.
  • Smarter, more adaptive heelstrike beep — the auto-threshold that drives your real-time beep adapts faster and more reliably. The device targets ~90% “good steps” and adjusts on the fly to keep you in that zone over long walks.
  • Set the device clock from your iPhone — previously Windows 11, macOS, and Android only; iOS now supported through the new USB mailbox.
  • Cleaner device identity — Heel2Toe now shows as PhysioBiometrics — Heel2Toe Sensor in operating system device lists, instead of generic names.
  • Built-in diagnostics on every plug-in — the device writes its current firmware version and clock reading to a small CDC/ folder on the SD card, so you can confirm the device is healthy without an extra app.
  • Full macOS desktop support — secure folder picking, file-deletion, serial-port, and analytics rollups all working on the Mac.
  • Android storage hardening — improved tree-URI management reduces “drive not accessible” errors when the OS revokes a previous folder grant.

Using rev 11

Workarounds if you stay on rev 11

Heel2Toe revision 11 works fine. If you choose not to upgrade, here is how to work around the four areas where rev 12 makes things smoother.

Heelstrike beep threshold

rev 11

Use the manual threshold only. The auto-threshold drifts and the beep can stop mid-session.

rev 12 fix

Auto-threshold rewritten with a stable update rule; holds ~90% good-step target for as long as you walk.

Foot detection

rev 11

Before each session, press the main button once if the Heel2Toe is clipped on your right shoe, twice for your left shoe.

rev 12 fix

Just press once. The device identifies the foot automatically from the first few steps.

SD-card health

rev 11

A faulty SD card is rare. If it happens, you will only notice when sessions look corrupted after extracting them in the Docking Station. If you replace it, use a 32 GB SD card only.

rev 12 fix

The device runs a diagnostic on plug-in and flashes the red LED five times if it detects a problem — before you record. (32 GB cards only.)

USB connection

rev 11

USB mount works on mobile but can take over 30 seconds. Heel2Toe shows up as NO NAME on iOS and MicroChip on Android.

rev 12 fix

Mounts in under 20 seconds and shows up as HEEL2TOE on iOS, Android, and macOS. On Windows it mounts as the next available drive letter.

Already own a Heel2Toe?

Updating your existing device

The Docking Station v8.0 update reaches every existing user automatically through the app stores or the Windows installer.

Heel2Toe revision 11 works fine, so you do not need to upgrade.

To upgrade your Heel2Toe to rev12, contact us — please mention “firmware upgrade” in the message. The cost of the upgrade is shipping only. The turnaround is 48 hours from when we receive your Heel2Toe.

Heel2Toe firmware

rev11 → rev12 — complete change log

19 commits on the rev12-release branch. Shipping on every Heel2Toe device from May 1, 2026.

Area Change Detail
Algorithm Heelstrike beep no longer stops mid-session Auto-threshold rewritten with a stable update rule; holds ~90% good-step target over arbitrarily long sessions (Issue #35).
Algorithm Automatic left / right foot detection On-device CNN classifier; identifies the foot from the first few steps (Issue #36).
SD card Write watchdog + diagnostic mode Detects a full, damaged, or mis-formatted card, halts writes, signals red LED + 5 short beeps (Issue #38).
USB CDC-before-MSD descriptor order USB-C compliance — modern USB-C ports, Macs, and phones now enumerate on the first try.
USB Defer USB_DEVICE_Attach until SD ready Fixes iPhone Files first-mount (was 30–45 s with frequent retries).
USB Branding pass Manufacturer = “PhysioBiometrics Inc.”, Product = “Heel2Toe Sensor”, SD volume label = HEEL2TOE, MSD vendor = PhysBioM.
USB SD command gateway over CDC Lets iOS and Android sync apps drive the device via USB serial.
USB Boot-time version.txt + time.txt Written to CDC/ on the SD card — quick health and clock check without an app.
USB / CDC isValid10DigitString length-check fix Time-set (T|<epoch>) command parsing.
Toolchain DFP / CMSIS pack updates SAMD51_DFP refresh, CMSIS bump.
Build / IDE VS Code multi-folder launch config + USB boot-sequence note
Versioning Bump to r11b / 12.0.0 / rev12
Docs RELEASE_NOTES_rev12.md, RELEASE_PLAN_V616.md Release notes for the website + V616 plan.
Hardware Louder audio device on rev11 PCB New piezo/speaker selected for higher SPL — audible from a few metres. Firmware drives the same PWM pin (no firmware change for this revision; Issue #37).

Note: a large pack/peripheral library refresh (DFP headers, SERCOM/USB plib updates) was also pulled in — mechanical and not user-visible, omitted from the table.

Questions about the release or your device?

Contact us