14 DAY TRIAL // We have seen the wearable that keeps track of your pooch or that helps you meet people with similar interests. So there’s a noticeable trend being unfolded here, wearables are getting increasingly specialized, trying to cater to the needs of certain categories of people or animals for that matter.
Anyway, if you’re an avid tennis player or just a rookie looking to learn a few tricks, you should be interested to know that there’s a wearable for you too, the Smash.
This is a bracelet to be worn around your wrist, which is supposed to help you improve your technique. Smash isn't a reality just yet, but if the Kickstarter project set up by Smash will be able to gather enough funds in the upcoming 43 days, we might see it make it to the market next year.
Smash has been designed in order to provide easy access to technique analysis and personalized recommendations and insights into how players can hope to improve their tennis play.
Smash has a pretty long list of features, which we’re going to be detailing a bit in a few. The start-up's founder Rob Crowder explains that he hopes Smash will grow up to be a developer friendly device, allowing third-party applications to tap into the information collected by the wearable.
The Smash wristband is capable of measuring the number and type of shots, racket head speed, racket head momentum, amount of spin, wrist rotation, stroke trajectory, impact point consistency and overall technique consistency. All this information is delivered to the user via the companion app.
How does the Smash bracelet achieve all these feats? By virtue of an array of sensors, including a 9-degrees of freedom sensor array with triaxial accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer, which can measure granular factors including the number and type of shots, racket head speed and so on.
The Smash is available in three sizes, including S, M and L. Furthermore, the device has been designed to be flexible and is made out of a breathable wristband. Smash is capable of providing notifications which become active with the help of LEDs.
Taking into account that according to studies, tennis is a pretty popular sport with almost 78 million tennis players living around the world, the potential of this little wearable is pretty huge and not so limited as we might have thought at first.
The startup is currently developing a wearable for tennis players, but they are not taking out of the equation the possibility of extending the line to other sports.
If you want to support this project, head on to Kickstarter and pledge AUD$129 / $120 / €88 for a Smash bracelet that’s probably going to ship out to you in February 2015.