There may be a new tennis accessory coming along that adds smarts to your racket. A new startup has introduced the Tennis Shot Stats Challenger, a device that connects to your racket and sends data back to your smartphone or tablet or it can be used on its own.
The Challenger Tennis monitor has been designed to clip onto your racket just like a dampener and features an integrated latch lets you remove Challenger from your racket in seconds. The idea is the brainchild of Lavie Sak and he’s looking for seed money on the Kickstarter crowd funding website.
“Unlike other activity trackers, Challenger can be used standalone,” Lavie explains. “You don’t need to have a smartphone, tablet, or laptop to see your stats! However, if you do have a mobile device, your data can really be brought to life.
“Tracking your progress over time has never been easier and the ability to overlay your stats onto slow-motion video – in real-time using the in-app camera – gives you a powerful look into your game. Evolution mode allows you to track your trends and progress over time to provide even more insight. You can also examine specific sessions to get a deeper understanding.”
The Challenger device enables players to instantly see their stats after every swing. When off court, users can synchronize the Challenger with their smartphone or computer to view and track their swing and stroke stats over time.
Sometimes mixing technology and sports is not a good fit (remember smart sneakers?) and sometimes it’s just goofy (pick any one of a hundred golf gadgets). And sometimes it turns out to be very cool. The first time I played a round of golf with a GPS system built into the cart I couldn’t believe how amazing the system was (it didn’t improve my game any, but it was cool).
I’m not a tennis player so I can’t really say if the Challenger is something that people will see and say, ‘I definitely need one of those!’
