With wearables becoming extremely popular for sports enthusiasts, we are beginning to see companies hone in on niche markets and provide products very specific to different sports. Well-known French tennis brand, Babolat, has teamed up with Swiss based software company PIQ to generate a wearable specific to tennis.
The Babolat POP is a device compatible with iOS and Android software, designed to bring tennis performance to life through a smartphone. The technology allows users to analyse their own performance statistics in order to manage improvement, create challenges, compare and compete with friends via social media and is compatible with any racket.
As we have seen with previous wearables, an athlete will have much a greater desire to improve if they have physical statistics to work from. It allows individuals to set realistic goals with much more ease and allows them to track progress to isolate weaknesses.
PIQ is known for its cutting edge sensor technology and micro processing technology. The device will be able to calculate metrics such as velocity, height, air time, G-force, amplitude and trajectory. All of these statistics can build a detailed profile of the athlete and allows them to make adjustments in more than one area in order to improve performance.
Another benefit of the PIQ technology is that athletes do not need to have their smartphone on their person whilst playing. While all complex data will be stored via the smartphone, stroke speed is shown on the interface of the wearable, limiting the need to be checking your phone to see where you are at.
Additional features such as the social aspect, allow users to compare their statistics with friends, as well as professional players like Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams.
New kinds of challenges are available with the ability to challenge friends and compete on a scoring level.
“Thanks to this service, we believe at PIQ that the player’s ambition to perform more, will go beyond the scoreboard. With Babolat and PIQ, you will also need to win and beat your opponents’ PIQ score. And that is what we believe is, the new dimension in tomorrow’s connected tennis, that will push you to your limits” said Ongan Mordeniz, co-founder and COO at PIQ.
The Babolat POP has managed to fit such a complex collection of data into a simple, wearable piece of technology that can be processed into easy-to-understand graphics that will allow users to effectively improve day in and day out. With these two companies giving wearable technology such a specific focus on tennis, athletes within the sport would be crazy not to give this product a try.