High-powered technology continues to be integrated into sports to help athletes reach their goals more efficiently.
Along those lines, a company called RIP-IT Sports is introducing smartBAT, a baseball and softball training bat, for which they have launched a Kickstarter campaign for.
The smartBAT zaps real-time data, swing speed and contact analytics to an accompanying synced app on your smartphone with the aim to help baseball and softball players improve troubled areas of their games.
The way the smartBAT works is it has a miniaturized electronic board — about the size of a quarter — embedded in the handle of the bat.
With a 3D printer, RIP-IT Sports then made an enclosure that resembles the knob you'd find on the bottom of a standard baseball or softball bat. The end result is a bat that pretty much functions and feels like a normal bat, ready for use right out of the box.
"Just pick it up and start swinging. As you swing, your swing data is captured at a rate of 1,000 data points per second and fed into our advanced algorithms," the company writes about the product, as part of its Kickstarter campaign. "The result is a set of metrics that can be viewed on your phone or computer that tracks increases in performance."
The smartBAT is equipped with a seven-day battery life, before having to charge. With the use of Bluetooth LE, the smartBAT records, collects and transfers data without having to worry about losing any power throughout its use.
The bat can be charged via an attachment, which was also 3D printed, that fits over the knob of the bat, allowing for a USB cable to be powered.
