There are some press releases we get that makes me regress back to the language in my teenage years and be unable to say more than, “dude, the future is going to be cool.” Finnish sports hardware and analytics firm SportIQ is behind Wilson’s new smart basketball, slated to be released winter of 2014 in time for the holiday season.
“We literally taught the ball to differentiate between a made shot and a missed shot and we deliver this data to a smart device with no attachments to the rim, no additions of any kind; just a player and his ball getting better,” stated Harri Hohteri, CEO of SportIQ
Not much more on their tech is released at this time, except for their teaser video in partnership with Wilson. Hohteri could not be reached for an interview in time of publication.
Despite that it should be pointed out that SportIQ has released their own solution, which tracks objects of interest (but not based on cameras). This solution has been demoed in real-time in a professional league, by tracking baskeball players and the basketball with the Finnish Basketball League in the 2012-2013 season.
They’ve paired that with an app, that collects these statistics in real time that allows coaches to look at and compare these game analytics in real time.
Getting back to the Wilson app, their product demo shows that the app will be able to check shooting percentages and a heat map of how the player is doing.
“We are not pursuing the launch of a digital basketball for the sake of launching a digital product,” said Alan Davenport, Global Director of Basketball for Wilson. “This intelligent basketball brings a unique approach to training through real-time statistic generation delivered to a smart device. The opportunities for individual and coach-directed training are truly unlimited.”
