When Guesswork Isn't Good Enough: Building HeatSense

2 days ago
3 min read

By Melissa Fortenberry

I sat in the stands at my son's football game last August. 107 degrees. I was getting sick from the heat just sitting there. And I kept thinking: what's happening to those kids in full pads on turf?

When I got home, I looked up the guidance for heat safety in youth sports. Here's what I found: Check the weather app. Watch for symptoms. React when kids start showing signs.

That's the system. We're guessing.

I've spent 25 years building consumer technology products at companies like RVshare, VRBO, and Philips Electronics. I know how to solve complex problems at scale. I know when a system is broken. And this one is broken.

Heat illness is 100% preventable. But you can't prevent what you can't see.

Every body responds to heat differently. Two kids standing next to each other. Same temperature. Same practice. One is fine. The other is experiencing rising heat strain. Nobody can see it until symptoms show up. By then we could be managing an emergency. And if we're managing an emergency, we're too late. Every year athletes die from the heat.

Sports are incredible because they push us to our limits. That's the whole point—finding out what you're capable of, testing yourself, performing at your peak. It's what makes competition beautiful.

But with younger athletes, that's exactly what makes heat so dangerous. Kids are taught to push through discomfort. To be tough. To give everything they have. How do they know when they've crossed the line from peak performance into excessive heat strain? They don't. Their coaches don't. Their parents don't.

We're asking athletes to push to their limits while giving them no way to see when their body can't keep up with the heat.

So I started HeatSense.

We make individual heat response visible in real time. A non-invasive wearable sensor measures what's happening inside the body as heat strain rises.

Coaches see their entire roster. Parents see their athletes. Individuals understand their own heat response.

No more guessing. Just visibility.

Here's what I've learned building this company as a woman in tech and sports:

Nobody asked for this. No one knew they needed HeatSense because they didn't know monitoring heat response was possible. I'm not responding to market demand. I'm creating a category. Heat Readiness didn't exist before HeatSense. Now it does.

The problem is personal. Every sports parent I talk to has the same fear. Every coach has watched kids struggle in the heat and wondered if they're making the right call. This isn't an abstract problem. It's happening at every practice, every game, every summer that breaks records. The heat season in many states is now 8 months a year.

Data empowers people. When parents can see their athlete's heat response, they stop feeling helpless. When coaches have roster-wide visibility, they make confident decisions. Information changes everything.

I'm solving this as a mom first. Yes, I have a tech background. Yes, I understand product development and scaling companies. But I started this because I'm terrified every time my kids take the field in the heat. That fear drives everything.

The hardest part isn't the technology. It's changing how people think about heat.

We've accepted that heat is just something athletes deal with. Check the weather. Hope for the best. Cancel practice when it gets too hot. Live with the fact that some kids will get hurt. But it's only getting hotter every year. Every summer breaks records. Youth athletes are training harder and longer than ever. The old playbook doesn't work anymore.

We have to change the status quo.

Heat illness is preventable. Heat strain is measurable. Individual response is knowable. HeatSense is the new playbook. Individual. Proactive. Data-driven.

I'm building this for every parent who sits in the stands worrying. For every coach managing 50-100+ kids in extreme heat with nothing but their gut. For every athlete who deserves to know when their body is struggling before symptoms appear.

Because if we're managing an emergency, we're too late.

And our kids deserve better than too late.

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