CES: Sony’s Smart Tennis Sensor is Coming

We’ve known for some time that Sony was releasing a sensor that attaches to tennis rackets, but we were able to learn more about the device at Sony’s CES booth.

The device is fairly straight forward and looks easy to attach. A clip mechanism is attached the butt end of the racket, and the sensor snaps into that clip. Sony representatives were able to confirm that users would be able to buy multiple clips to attach to multiple rackets. That way, a sensor could be easily switched from one racket to the other. The clips are compatible with select Wilson, Head, Prince, and Yonex rackets — all in all, over 100 rackets are compatible according to Sony.

The sensor tracks a myriad of things like swing type, swing speed and ball spin. It even senses vibrations to locate where on the racket the ball was struck. The data can be streamed directly to a Sony smartwatch or a tablet/smartphone using Bluetooth, or the sensor can store the data locally to be dumped later. According to Sony, when streaming data, the sensor can last about 90 minutes on a charge while it can go three hours while in memory mode.

Sony says the sensor is set to be released in the U.S. and Canada in the early part of this year for $200.