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Racketry Smart Table Tennis Racket - Alpha Series |
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Racketry 
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Joined: 05/28/2023 Location: Slovenia Status: Offline Points: 7 |
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 Topic: Racketry Smart Table Tennis Racket - Alpha SeriesPosted: 06/05/2023 at 2:49pm |
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Hi, I am Matej Šircelj CEO of a young startup called Racketry (racket + telemetry). We are launching our first Alpha edition of rackets on our website: https://racketry.com and are looking for early adopter users that are excited about the future of table tennis as much as we are!
Please note that this is really the first alpha series where lot's of things are still in the works and rough around the edges, but this also gives you the opportunity to be one of the first early-adopter users which we will stay forever grateful for:
Lastly I would like to ask all you kind people on the forum. Which feature of the smart racket you would want the most:
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haggisv
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Dark Knight Joined: 06/28/2005 Location: Australia Status: Offline Points: 5110 |
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Posted: 06/05/2023 at 11:44pm |
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A very cool idea! I think gathering statistics would be the most useful feature, and probably also the easiest to implement.
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qpskfec
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Joined: 07/28/2011 Status: Offline Points: 517 |
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Posted: 06/06/2023 at 1:27pm |
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There is a kickstarter for a similar product called Janova
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/janova/janova-smart-racket?ref=discovery&term=table%20tennis Is your product better than Janova? Janova posted here, and I asked a few questions which they never answered. I'll ask the same questions of this product. Why build an entire blade? Why not build a sensor that can be attached to any blade? There are tennis racquet sensors that do this: https://tennisfocuson.com/tennis-sensors/ Can you use data from a fitness tracker or smart watch instead of building your own hardware? That way people who already have fitbits, apple watches, etc. can just pay you for an app. This will greatly expand your market potential. |
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Racketry
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Joined: 05/28/2023 Location: Slovenia Status: Offline Points: 7 |
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Posted: 06/06/2023 at 6:41pm |
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Hi,
we are aware of the Janova kickstarter, I also personally backed their project. For now we believe our product has higher potential as both are in early stages. Racketry system can use video together with telemetry from mobile app and we will also deliver native mobile applications for Android and iOS. We also make our own rackets and have our own unique handle design. There are also some major design differences in the sensor, but would rather not get into that as we are competition after all. So for your question. We actually tried the addon concept before we integrated the sensor inside the handle and although it worked at well initially 3 major issues rose up.
We wanted to make a no compromise blades that play and feel the same as the current professional "classic" blades on the market. We get lots of questions if the current blades can be upgraded, which they certainly can but the process is a bit risky as the handle needs to be broken apart. For the fitbits and other wearables I am not familiar with all the specifications of the devices but the smart racket gives you a lot better precision. For example we can detect the ball contact really accurately which isn't possible with smart watches. There also might be other limitations on the devices itself and differences from model to model. This is why we decided to make our own hardware that fulfils the needs of our use cases. Best, Matej
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palguay
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Joined: 04/30/2014 Location: India Status: Offline Points: 105 |
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Posted: 06/13/2023 at 2:28pm |
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Hi Matej,
I am the founder of PongFox table tennis robot. You may not be aware but there is another similar product in the market Chorei King, it is from Korea. I had ordered that and barely used it. First off congrats on releasing a tech product in table tennis, we are a rare breed who are trying to bring in technology to the game :-) I am also a table tennis player and have had my share of Equipment junkie phase. Coming to your product, I understand the reason for going in with a sensor embedded inside but I guess from the human aspect you are underestimating how hard it is to get someone to change their setup, from that perspective you might have an easier time selling an addon. Another aspect I have seen is that the TT coaching crowd is fairly conservative in using technology, so getting across the message is going to be challenging. I have used OSAI, stupa for analytics and betterplay.ai for highlights. These models already give data on counting strokes and type of strokes, what are you planning to do different along with the sensor? Best wishes. |
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qpskfec
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Joined: 07/28/2011 Status: Offline Points: 517 |
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Posted: 06/13/2023 at 4:37pm |
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Never heard of the stupa app before. It looks interesting because it uses machine vision to do swing analysis as well as track where the ball lands. No additional sensor needed.
If a customer can try a free trial of the stupa app before buying, why would they buy a $300 paddle? I wish all tt enthusiasts and innovators like Racketry well, but I am much more likely to try stupa first because the cost of entry is low. |
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Racketry
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Posted: 06/14/2023 at 5:40am |
Hi, and congrats on your robot. It looks very interesting. Yes I am aware of Chorei King. Would like to know what makes it that you barely use it? This info would be quite valuable.
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Racketry
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Posted: 06/14/2023 at 5:50am |
The idea of having all this inside sensor is mainly in the user experience. You get the data faster and the paddle is made in a way that you just pick it up and start playing. It needs little to no setting up and you get results in real time. I tried Stupa a while ago and stoped using it because back then (don't know if that is still the case) you had to upload your videos to their servers and then you got the results back in some time. You have something like 10 minutes free then you have to buy credits and in the end it would be quite expensive. In the end it is always: size of data = cost = time and processing hunderds of megabytes of video will always be more expensive than telemetry from sensors. This is why we believe the sensor approach is better. Hope this helps |
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palguay
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Posted: 06/15/2023 at 8:42am |
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Hi Matej,
A couple of reasons why I did not use it, - For me personally and in my opinion a majority of TT players are really picky about equipment, finding the right ply/rubber is really hard, each ply/rubber combination is going to be good at one thing and difficult on another for example in one combination I might get the speed but then it doesn't work in another area like say serve return. The chorei king one did not suit my game (I currently use viscaria with 09c on both sides). - I have done a bit of work on analytics, the chorei one did not give me any good insights, I have used OSAI which is much better but the thing is I do not need to know how much backhand or forehand I have played. I require actionable insights on how to improve my game based on evidence, for example let us say I missed quiet a few backhands which is what your analytics will show because that was the last point but in reality I might be missing it due to what happened on the previous ball or the earlier ball, and there the cause might be due to a particular spin or placement or my footwork. Another thing most analytics cannot do today is spin which is a very integral part of the game so that means all these tools do is save me some time to look at the video to figure out the issues with my game. Your software has to be really great but to get there you want someone who understands the game really well and also understands the technologies (what they are good at and can do) and then make the connection. Another thing is that both stupa and osai are pivoting to different business models, you have to think about that . Hope this helps |
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qpskfec
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Posted: 06/15/2023 at 8:21pm |
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There are many swing analyzer apps on the market that work like how I mentioned above, they take data from an apple watch to do swing analysis. I have no idea if these apps are any good.
Here's one that says it does table tennis: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/tenniskeeper-swings-scores/id1097388824 "Turn your Apple Watch into a swing sensor for Tennis, Padel, Pickleball, Squash, Racquetball, Badminton or Table Tennis. Get insights to improve your health." This is what you are competing against. Maybe your sensor data is better from dedicated hardware, but you place a high barrier for entry to the customer with the $300+ price point. I agree with palguay about tt enthusiasts being very picky about their equipment. Maybe the data from an apple watch isn't quite as good as yours, but there are literally millions of potential customers who already have one who would be willing to try out an app. These app companies using smart watch data have decided that their value to the customer is in providing interesting insights via their software using existing hardware the customer already has. If I was running this project, I would architect the software so I can pivot easily to a software only model using data from a smart watch/fitness tracker in case hardware sales are low. |
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palguay wrote: