Before starting with everything else, this is my first post as a member of this forum. There are definitely rules that I am not familiar with. Please don't be harsh on me. If there is any thing incorrect, please do not hesitate to contact me and I will make the correction asap. I hope this thread can serve the purpose of sharing information regarding some of the technology that is emerging in badminton and hopefully people reading this can learn something. Thank you very much for your time to read it. It means a lot to me! Cheers~~ Recently I've got in contact with this Coollang Company (http://www.coollang-global.com/) that makes badminton sensors (also tennis, baseball and golf), and bought this Coollang Smart Badminton Sensor (this sensor definitely looks very nice! The boxing is simple but elegant). As a long time badminton player ( but still young compared to many of the enthusiasts here) and a technical student at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands , I am fascinated by the potential of how this sensor technology can be implemented into regular training and competition. Therefore, I am writing this post to provide you guys my feedback on this device and hopefully receive some comments and opinions from you guys as well. This post will consist of four parts, namely an introduction to the company, the product unboxing, user interface (the App) and user experience. --------------------------Part I---------------Coollang Company------------ As many of you might have already known, badminton racket sensor is a thing. It is device that measures racket performance and it's been around ever since early 2014. Different brands have occurred throughout time. The first sensor that I have tried is called Usense (http://www.ubc-tech.com) from a friend of mine who bought it in Hong Kong. I was not a fan of it because of its user interface. However, I was thrilled by the idea of tracking my performance on court as well as an instant feedback on my strength. And I was recommended to Coollang XiaoYu 2.0 Smart Badminton Sensor (http://www.coollang-global.com/). I did not have high expectation after the experience with Usense, however, the company's information that I found triggered my interest. Coollang is a cloud computing company that is designated to transform traditional sports equipment into a smart innovated products that can better improve the athlete's performance. This is a Shenzhen based company that starts doing sensor device since 2014. For some reason the name of the company becomes KOOSPUR at some point (I am gonna keep it as Coollang for consistency) The company mission sounds very fancy indeed. However, the reason why I decided to give it a try was not just because what they say, but also because of the fact that they've been to quite a few different exhibitions around the world (the links are shared below): Macau Open BWF Hong Kong Electronics Fair 2016 Customer Electronic Show 2017 Wearable Tech IFoT Delft Coollang company seems to be quite active in wearable devices in sports field. There are many positive review about the Smart Badminton Sensor from Coolllang from different sites. As far as I know, they've a huge number of users in China for the badminton sensor, and also provided oversea shipping. For € 38, it seems to be quite a good deal for the reputation of it, as well as the comparably cheaper price than Usense. So I decided to give it a shot. --------------------------Part II--------Unboxing------------------- This product is shipped directly to Delft. When I received the product, I was completely amazed by its appearance, the sample but elegant design of the box. Top view of the box. Front view of the box. Back view of the box Open the box, sensor is lying in the center. Well packed. B Everything else underneath the sensor. The sensor and all other parts, including a charger, a plastic cover, and an instruction booklet and three double sided stickers. Placing the sensor into the plaster cover & the front side of the instruction booklet. Placing the sensor into the plaster cover & the back side of the instruction booklet. All the steps can be provided upon request in case of the overall image is not clear enough. This sensor has a weight of 5.5 gram, and can be attached to all different type of rackets with the plastic cover or stickers.
--------------------------Part III--------User Interface-------------------(to be continued) In order for you guys to know what this app does, I will show a few screenshot of the app display here. This is the app can be downloaded on both IOS and Android. After following the instruction, which is clear and easy, the Smart Badminton Sensor is connected to my phone (Android), then it shows the main page. Main page contains a summary of my performance for today with six main types of strokes. Within Achievement section, a more detailed information regarding the historic performance will be presented with weekly or daily option. Below Achievement section, Swing Times, Calories, Record and Analysis present another set of recorded data to give insights on each stroke, calories burnt, performance in game and your style of play in such game. (App Download) (Main Page) (Achievement) (Record) On the top right corner is the connection button where is searches for the device via Bluetooth. On the top left corner is the Real-time Swing, where every movement of the sensor is recorded and analyzed in strength, speed and angle. When the sensor is attached to the racket, the corresponding movement of the racket will be detected and categorized under the following names: Clear-Forehand Up-Hand & Clear-Backhand Up-Hand Smash-Forehand Up-hand & Smash-Backhand Up-hand Lift-Backhand-Down-Hand & Lift-Forehand-Down-Hand Drive-Forehand Down-Hand& Drive-Backhand Down-Hand Slice-Forehand Down-Hand & Slice-Backhand Down-Hand Block-Forehand Upp-Hand & Block-Backhand Upp-Hand (Real Time) (Real Time) Additionally, the Real-time Swing can also be shown in 3D, where both the movement and the racket trajectory can be pictured according to the trailing points recorded along the movement. (3D) (Trail) Another feature that the App has is the networking. It can rank your performance among all other badminton enthusiasts in Top Speed, Swing and Sport Time. If you are interested in more features of the app, please leave a comment below. --------------------------Part IV--------User Experience-------------------(to be continued) After trying it for a few times, I do have a few things to say about this device. There are some Pros and Cons about it. Pros: It records the movement very accurately. With comparison to Usense, I noticed quite a difference about the measured stroke. This Coollang sensor detects 6 different stroke types for both forehand and backhand. So in total 12 different movements are recorded and analyzed. That's nice. It shows a high level of consistency in the measured data. To test the accuracy of the swing speed measurement, I performed three rounds of experiments. The experiment result is shown in the end of this paragraph*. The real-time swing is very responsive and I can know my stroke right away. But the most useful feature is the historical data where I can view my performance throughout the time. The ranking feature is nice as I know how often other people use it. Cons: The ranking feature can be made for a targeted user group defined as a club or a couple of friends instead of for all the users. Even though with 5.5 grams, the device is the lightest in the market, the effect of this 5.5 grams added at the back of the racket definitely has a some influence on the performance. As for training, this is bearable, however, as for playing competition, this device might not be in such favor. * Consistency test of the measured data for different stroke types (I will post the summarized result soon). Three rounds of experiment were performed, where the swing power varied from small, medium to high. All 6 type of strokes were performed in each round for 10 times with forehand and 10 times with backhand. --------------------------Part V--------Conclusion-------------------(to be continued)
Good review, I bought one quite a while ago and it's fallen out of use for me. It gives you *a metric*, but nothing particularly useful in my experience. It becomes a distraction and a bit pointless.
Hmm. Interesting. Where did u bought it? And how? This is could even be a teaching tool, for example, to record the consistency of swings and stuff. And show relation of speed and power of the swing to the ball itself.. And to show if u can really smash or not
Hi Charlie, what do you mean with *a metric*? Is it something wrong with your device? I agree with you that adding this device at the back of the racket is a bit annoying. Even with the light weight, I still feel the sensor when I hit shuttles. I feel like the real-time feedback is quite nice to show but I don't use it much when actually playing a match. However, the recorded result is better in a way that I do see an overall performance of my match. I am wondering did you use it for like a full practice or game? How do you feel about that?
Hi necrohiero, I got it from a friend of mine who does some retail business for badminton. What I found online is that they seem to have a different shipping for Asia and other part of the world. This is their link: http://www.coollang-global.com/. Absolutely, this can be a teaching tool, not only for younger players, but also higher levels. The consistency is quite decent. However, I did not have time to continue the post and finish my testing (I was planning of testing how consistent I am on doing a certain stroke). Have you tried any of this kind of device?
I used it for practice. I used one of these sensors when they were pretty new to the western market. It's just a metric, it doesn't measure your shot success really. It says if you swing quickly, but it doesn't mean you had good contact with the shuttle, angle etc., and really if you're swinging hard and fast then it's unlikely you can just suddenly hit faster anyway. All of this in mind, I didn't find it contributed anything to developing my shots. If you want to see your performance in a match, I found that using a camera was a better tool for the job. You can see very clearly what you're doing and where you can improve with a camera, but it's not easy when you're just looking at numbers.
Hi Charlie, Absolutely, looking at numbers is not providing all information about someone's performance. During a match, different tactics are used yet not measured with numbers. Setting up camera is a great solution. For the competition that I am playing in the Netherlands, our team actually tries to record our matches. It is very nice to watch afterwards, especially we are to play against the same opponent twice (home and away match). But when I am watching some of those videos, I do wish that I have a better overview of that specific match while no need to do much editing and recounting the shots. I think that having some kind of number indication would add some value to understand certain pattern of the match. (This is just some personal thoughts ) About the correlation between a good contact with the shuttle and a good swing, I also noticed that this is not always the case. This really is a limitation of the device. I am wondering if this can be resolved with a vibration sensor that measures how strong the shuttle hit the racket (possibly where), then it might be even more accurate on determining the actual shot. What is the tournament or competition system like in UK? (Of course I am not talking about the professional level haha).
Hello! Yes sensors can be inaccurate at instances and I agree on needing a reliable method of assessing the swing or speed of the shot. However, I wouldn't label all sensors with the badge of unreliability. There are newer and better sensors coming in the market each year. Guidance from a coach is absolutely essential to a professional athlete but sensors can certainly provide some data about one's performance. I'm not aware about the competition system in UK though. You could check this out to get a glimpse of what I'm talking about:- https://actofit.com/products/actofit-badminton-tracker
