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Varsity tennis player here. I have been using my fitbit bracelet for a couple months now, I have to admit that the device is inaccurate. I am pretty sure it und

Varsity tennis player here. I have been using my fitbit bracelet for a couple months now, I have to admit that the device is inaccurate. I am pretty sure it undercounts running distance and number of steps. We are talking about big wide steps that happens in a consistent manner. A players movement on court is much more complicated. Such a bracket for tennis players needs to be much more accurate than my fitbit flexband to be useful. A good tennis player never takes a wide big step, almost all the movements on court are quick small steps. Unlike running, a player changes direction all the time. It would be really cool if the bracelet can give the player data about his footwork but I think the emphasis on this particular product is on the actual technique. Man its not easy. Sure there might some easy wins in the beginning, like counting how many forehands or backhand a player hits or things like how hard have you been hitting the ball. But I think its extremely hard to dig more into it. “How much spin are you giving”, “Are you hitting the ball late or early", “How fast can you recover when you hit the ball(combine it with footwork)”, “How high is the ball when you hit it” “Are you bending your wrist too much, or is you elbow really close to your body”. “Are you hitting the ball just with your arm or your shoulder and your waist follows through with the movement" These would be the questions that an intermediate tennis player would be interested in. However I am afraid these all happen in a fraction of a second and I really doubt a bracelet is accurate enough to give the player insightful data. Sure its a really cool device (still not useful) for people starting to learn or maybe little kids competing against each other, but there is a long way until a serious tennis player can benefit from this. I am a software engineer myself and it was always my dream to do build something about tennis. So go for it man..

robcrowder 12y ago
Thanks for that, appreciate it. I've put all the effort into breaking down events within strokes and writing algorithm's for these. You're right, it is tough but I wanted to ensure it provided useful insight
tonylemesmer 12y ago
Have you seen this? Babolat racket has the sensors built in: http://en.babolatplay.com/features http://en.babolatplay.com/features. Tennis players might prefer this to wearing a bracelet on their playing arm.
- fthiess 12y ago
  My wife plays a lot of tennis, and I bought the Babolat racket for her for Christmas. Great idea, but it's implementation is awful, primarily because the software is complete crap. We're using it with Mac/Android, so maybe the Windows/iPhone version is better, but the software problems are pervasive and make it pretty much unusable. We called Babolat about it and they were completely unhelpful--their support staff didn't seem to be trained to deal with anything other than physical rackets. This is all fixable--but fixing it would require a company that's great at building rackets to learn how to build great software... unlikely, and there's no sign that it's going to happen. A device like the Smash (or other separately wearable tech) is more likely to do the software right. Beyond Babolat's bugs, there's a deeper issue: it shows you a lot of data... but it's not clear that that data is actually useful. So 24% of your hits are on the upper quadrant of the racket... so what? Is that good or bad? If bad, what advice would a coach give you to improve? This drove my wife crazy: when we occasionally got her racket to sync properly she was rewarded with a flood of numbers that meant nothing to her. Smash's video says it will "make recommendations like a coach would"--which is what you actually want, so hopefully they are able to deliver on that promise.
waylandsmithers 12y ago
I agree-- I feel like there's a long way to go before something like this becomes more valuable than simply watching yourself play on tape.

robcrowder 12y ago

Thanks for that, appreciate it. I've put all the effort into breaking down events within strokes and writing algorithm's for these. You're right, it is tough but I wanted to ensure it provided useful insight

tonylemesmer 12y ago

Have you seen this? Babolat racket has the sensors built in: http://en.babolatplay.com/features http://en.babolatplay.com/features. Tennis players might prefer this to wearing a bracelet on their playing arm.

fthiess 12y ago
My wife plays a lot of tennis, and I bought the Babolat racket for her for Christmas. Great idea, but it's implementation is awful, primarily because the software is complete crap. We're using it with Mac/Android, so maybe the Windows/iPhone version is better, but the software problems are pervasive and make it pretty much unusable. We called Babolat about it and they were completely unhelpful--their support staff didn't seem to be trained to deal with anything other than physical rackets. This is all fixable--but fixing it would require a company that's great at building rackets to learn how to build great software... unlikely, and there's no sign that it's going to happen. A device like the Smash (or other separately wearable tech) is more likely to do the software right. Beyond Babolat's bugs, there's a deeper issue: it shows you a lot of data... but it's not clear that that data is actually useful. So 24% of your hits are on the upper quadrant of the racket... so what? Is that good or bad? If bad, what advice would a coach give you to improve? This drove my wife crazy: when we occasionally got her racket to sync properly she was rewarded with a flood of numbers that meant nothing to her. Smash's video says it will "make recommendations like a coach would"--which is what you actually want, so hopefully they are able to deliver on that promise.

waylandsmithers 12y ago

I agree-- I feel like there's a long way to go before something like this becomes more valuable than simply watching yourself play on tape.