About Us

Accusplit has been the leader in the professional stopwatch and timing industry since 1972 with its invention of the first digital stopwatch. The company's name is based on the stopwatch's function of "accurately splitting" the time.

Widely recognized as the professional sports timing brand in the United States, Accusplit has worked with elite athletes, such as Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith and Olympians Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Dan O'Brien and Ed Burke. The Northern California-based company was the Official Supplier to the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.

Accusplit carried its reputation for quality, innovation and leadership to the health and wellness industry with a patented accuracy method for pedometers in 1987. It was also one of the first companies in America to introduce the 10,000 Steps-A-Day for wellness concept that originated in Japan in 1965.

With over 40 years of professional sports measurement experience in elite level sports, including track and field, swimming, baseball and football, Accusplit Pedometers and Pedometer-based Activity Wellness Programs are the tools that everyone in America can use to achieve a healthier lifestyle.

When W. Ron Sutton ran track in high school, he set personal and school records for the mile, but his times were unrecorded when he placed below the top three. That memory was still fresh in his mind when he became marketing manager for an innovative line of digital stopwatches in 1977. His first year on the job, he proudly introduced the first memory stopwatch, which for the first time, permitted multiple time recordings on a single stopwatch.

"I invented the memory stopwatch in the hopes of getting official times for many runners, not just the top three," says Sutton.

After his success in the stopwatch business, Sutton then introduced pedometers to the fitness market in 1987 with his patented Certified Accurate PedometerEngine. Also known as "Mr. Pedometer," he's a man on a mission to convince no fewer than 100 million Americans to use a pedometer as motivation to move more.

"Mr. Pedometer and friends mission is to add more than 800 million healthy life years to the U.S. population," says Sutton. "Research has shown that adults can add at least eight additional years of healthy life when they improve their current level of wellness."

Because of Sutton's goal, Accusplit has been at the forefront of combating the obesity epidemic in America by working with the Centers for Disease Control, the Cooper Institute and Stanford University, providing pedometers and creating wellness programs.

Sutton, who holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Kansas and an MBA from Stanford, is one of America's foremost experts on pedometers and pedometer accuracy. He was issued a patent for accuracy method for pedometers and since 1983 has worked closely with the developers of the first accurate pedometer, the Kato family in Japan, to develop quality and highly accurate pedometers.

Yasuji Kato is the developer of the benchmark JW200 PedometerEngine used in Accusplit AE100 series and Digi-Walker pedometers. Mr. Kato, who has been working with Accusplit since 1983, is co-developer with W. Ron Sutton of the KS10 PedometerEngine, as well as being as advisor to the board of Accustep10000.org.

In 1965, Dr. Yoshiro Hatano inspired the Kato family to develop an economical, accurate pedometer for consumers, to motivate them to become more active. Dr. Hatano's calculations showed that we should walk about 10,000 steps a day to burn about 20 percent of our caloric intake through activity.