94Fifty brings smart sensor technology to the lowly basketball

Your basketball game isn’t dumb, you just need a ‘smart’ ball

We see you, Basketball Player Working Hard to Improve His Game. We see you putting in the time, hoisting shot after shot, pushing yourself through drill after drill. We admire your work ethic, but we pity your basketball, a sphere basically untouched by technology for the last hundred years. If only it wasn’t so stupid.

Well, the folks at InfoMotion Sports Technologies agree, and in response developed the 94Fifty, a next-next-next-gen roundball that is smart. Like Stephen Hawking smart. Six sensors built into the ball – which nonetheless maintains standard size and weight – use Bluetooth technology to monitor just about anything a player would want to see: Shot arc, release times, backspin, speed and power of a dribble, and so on. If a force of any sort is put on the ball, it gets measured.

Used in conjunction with the four included training apps – including one allowing head-to-head competition against anyone, anywhere also using the technology – 94Fifty provides players instant feedback and hard data, allowing information to be processed in real time, facilitating faster improvement.

The basic philosophy is simple: That which gets measured can be improved, and too many aspects of training in basketball aren’t measured. A coach can call a jump shot “too flat,” lacking the proper arc to go in consistently, but that language is imprecise. Instead, the ball will communicate the exact angle of a shot to a smart phone and tablet. If 45% is what a player needs, he’ll quickly learn what that looks and feels like coming out of his hand.

The system works with both Android and IOS, uses Qi wireless charging with up to eight hours of battery life, and has a range of 90 feet from whatever device is used to gather the information.

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