Limited release sees a range of partner tennis rackets at launch
Announced during CES 2014 in Las Vegas, Sony’s Smart Tennis Sensor has already been given an official launch date. As of late May, Japanese tennis fans will be able to purchase the device, which comes with a companion app for Android and iOS, and will cost the equivalent of $175. At launch, support will be limited to six Yonex tennis rackets, where the sensor will plug into the base of the handle.
The key thing to the design of the Smart Tennis Sensor is that it shouldn’t add any additional bulk to the racket, and if it works as well as Sony seems to think it will, budding Wimbledon champions could have a real tool in their pocket. The sensor will track such areas of your game as your swing, the speed of the ball, where abouts on the racket you’re making contact with the ball, which strokes you’re playing and more. The data is then interpreted by the app on your phone.
As a non-Tennis player, I’m not sure I can truly appreciate just how useful something like this could be. But, Sony is getting into activity tracking in a big way with this, and the forthcoming Smartband/Lifelog combination that we’re told we’ll hear more about in Barcelona next month at Mobile World Congress. We’re interested to see just where Sony takes its wearable strategy, amid the influx of devices from the competion.
Source: Sony (translated)