Swing Vision AI line calls and Analysis

[Moon Shooter]

That brings up a good point. I've had multiple times where I thought I was recording and accidently didn't or accidently stopped it but didn't know it and had my phone up on the fence the whole time just to take it down and realize I didn't get anything. Maybe something like strobing the flash 10 seconds after you hit record to be sure it is recording when you put it up on the fence could help to solve this issue.

I do this but then it seems by the time I run around the fence to see if the camera is properly aligned I have to hit a bunch of buttons to see what it is recording and sometimes it is hard to reach these buttons or see them. They have to assume at some point you only have very limited access to your screen and make the buttons cover much of the phone space so you can hit them even though much of the phone is covered. Allow people to turn off the screen after they know it is positioned correctly and recording - not before. I admit I use a pretty cheap holder for my phone. I tape the ends together after it goes around the fence.

 

[swupnil]

@Moon Shooter @derick232 thanks for the feedback here! We've definitely been focusing on providing the best experience to folks who have an Apple Watch paired to their phone. Next up we'll be adding the ability to preview the camera and start/end recordings from another iPhone/iPad at the bench.

Once we have that released, we'll get the solo-iPhone setup in a good spot with your suggestions (the flash idea is pretty cool!). We'll also be adding the ability to setup with audio feedback so all you have to do is tap START (before mounting your phone), then setup your phone and you will hear a confirmation when the angle looks good and the recording has indeed begun. If there are any issues with the angle, audio feedback will give you instructions on how to adjust the tilt. Hopefully this makes for a much better experience!

 

[derick232]

@Moon Shooter @derick232 thanks for the feedback here! We've definitely been focusing on providing the best experience to folks who have an Apple Watch paired to their phone. Next up we'll be adding the ability to preview the camera and start/end recordings from another iPhone/iPad at the bench.

Once we have that released, we'll get the solo-iPhone setup in a good spot with your suggestions (the flash idea is pretty cool!). We'll also be adding the ability to setup with audio feedback so all you have to do is tap START (before mounting your phone), then setup your phone and you will hear a confirmation when the angle looks good and the recording has indeed begun. If there are any issues with the angle, audio feedback will give you instructions on how to adjust the tilt. Hopefully this makes for a much better experience!

The audio feedback is a great idea!

 

[naruto83]

On screen processing seems to be automatically disabled in the newest beta version. My iPhone 12 Pro Max has always allowed it to work, I haven’t changed any settings. Does changing it to allow background refresh in the settings make it allow on screen processing? I guess I will find out when I hit again.

I can confirm I no longer have real time processing

 

[jasonw221]

Really impressed with the app! I made my own fence mount out of PVC + some cheap phone mount parts from amazon, (about $20 total for all materials, about 10 minute assembly time) happy to share if anyone is interested.

I've played 2 matches so far and only have to edit ~20% of shot placements (usually depth on the far side of the net), which is honestly better than I expected from a single 720p / 1080p camera, and seems about right for trained AI models (like tesla FSD videos I've seen, Siri's comprehension, etc).

Great work, looking forward to following the progress of the app!

 

[swupnil]

@naruto83 thats very surprising! This shouldn’t be happening. Some of the changes we’ve made to support the line challenge feature may be contributing to this… we will investigate. Please let me know if this happens repeatedly for you. Background processing shouldn’t matter.

@jasonw221 glad to hear! The A.I. is improving every week. Fun fact: I have patents for 3D object tracking from my time at Tesla Autopilot

 

[not_too_shabby]

For the watch app, does the left and right wrist orientation in the Watch app effect swing vision shot tracking? Since I'm right handed, I only put my watch on my right wrist when I use the swing vision app, but sometimes I forget to change the setting in the watch app to right wrist orientation.

 

[swupnil]

@not_too_shabby it actually doesn’t matter which wrist you wear the watch on if you’re recording video on your phone, as the phone’s shot tracking overrides anything tracked by the watch.

If you’re tracking only with the watch, then you do need to wear the watch on your dominant hand, but no need to worry about changing the official watch settings. Just letting SwingVision know whether you’re left or right handed will suffice.

 

[Greg G]

@not_too_shabby it actually doesn’t matter which wrist you wear the watch on if you’re recording video on your phone, as the phone’s shot tracking overrides anything tracked by the watch.

Ooooooooohhhhhh thank goodness I can put it back on my nondominant hand

 

[willroc7]

what's everyone's profile links?? I wanna see yall play. seeing myself is enlightening

SwingVision: AI Scoring, Stats & Line Calling for Tennis and Pickleball

SwingVision is the #1 tennis & pickleball app for real-time automated score keeping, stats & line calling. Measure your serve speed, match stats & more!

swing.tennis

SwingVision: AI Scoring, Stats & Line Calling for Tennis and Pickleball

SwingVision is the #1 tennis & pickleball app for real-time automated score keeping, stats & line calling. Measure your serve speed, match stats & more!

swing.tennis

Highlights from first time using the app that I selected. Loving the rosy picture the highlights paint

 

[antony]

SwingVision: AI Scoring, Stats & Line Calling for Tennis and Pickleball

SwingVision is the #1 tennis & pickleball app for real-time automated score keeping, stats & line calling. Measure your serve speed, match stats & more!

swing.tennis

Highlights from first time using the app that I selected. Loving the rosy picture the highlights paint

Quite humbling

 

[twalkman]

Highlights from first time using the app that I selected. Loving the rosy picture the highlights paint

Very nice how it condenses the video to the actual playing time.
- How accurate do you think the shotplacement analysis is? (i.e. within a few inches; as accurate as a player; accurate 90% of the time?)
- Do you find the match summary information useful for improving your game?

 

[willroc7]

Very nice how it condenses the video to the actual playing time.
- How accurate do you think the shotplacement analysis is? (i.e. within a few inches; as accurate as a player; accurate 90% of the time?)
- Do you find the match summary information useful for improving your game?

I think the camera could be mounted higher to improve the accuracy of the shot placement. As it was, there were some several feet off. You can see some examples even in that highlight reel. I return one serve on the deuce side that landed on the middle line (or close to it) and the app reports the shot as landing in the middle of the ad box.

I'd have to use it more than once to be able to glean much from the data, but it looks promising.

 

[taylor15]

@swupnil Would the iPhone SE or XS Max be a better phone to run the app? I have an SE now but can use my wife's XS Max since she's moving to a new phone.

 

[supermullet]

SwingVision: AI Scoring, Stats & Line Calling for Tennis and Pickleball

SwingVision is the #1 tennis & pickleball app for real-time automated score keeping, stats & line calling. Measure your serve speed, match stats & more!

swing.tennis

Highlights from first time using the app that I selected. Loving the rosy picture the highlights paint

This app looks f'in' amazing. Does it call lines correctly?

 

[jwalk]

This app looks f'in' amazing. Does it call lines correctly?

It's pretty accurate but not enough to use in offical matches at the moment. It's a fun app though.

 

[initialize]

@swupnil loving the app as usual!

To suggest something though- whenever the app analyzes the serve for the "serve practice" mode, it only shows roughly the last half/quarter of the serve motion, i.e. basically the ball when it's already in the air/at the apex and the last part of the racket swing.

It completely misses the serve set-up, ball toss, knee bend, etc... in other words, it misses showing all the important aspects of the serve lol. Please fix this mode so that it shows the whole serve.... thank you again though, I love the app!

 

[jasonw221]

Tried out the Challenge feature yesterday during a singles match, but I got a message on my watch saying that iOS has disabled real-time processing. I have an iPhone 12 mini on full battery and on airplane mode with bluetooth on. It was late evening too so overheating shouldn't be an issue. I've also noticed that the last few sessions I've done had to be processed afterwards instead of real-time. Any suggestions?

 

[hypervox]

Don't you need internet for real time processing so not on airplane mode?

 

[jasonw221]

Don't you need internet for real time processing so not on airplane mode?

I believe it's supposed to be all on-device, and the app recommends airplane mode so phone calls don't interrupt the session. Not sure though

 

[Wheelz]

@swupnil How do I edit recording type ? I accently chose serve practice for a match

 

[Mungo]

Thinking about getting a watch (not yet an app user), can someone confirm that cellular version not necessary?

Edit, never mind…seems pretty clearly (deeper read) that cellular not necessary.

 

[swupnil]

@twalkman @supermullet the in/out accuracy is around 95% at the moment but getting better every week. Our latest update lets you do a slow-mo review of your shots at 60fps which is actually pretty sweet and has already saved me on a few bad line calls!

@taylor15 I'd personally do the XS Max for the battery life, though the 2020 SE has a faster chip and can handle real-time processing even at 60fps!

@jasonw221 were you keeping score? We actually found a bug that can sometimes cause real-time analysis to disable during scorekeeping and will have a fix out this week.

@initialize you can add a buffer before every shot by tapping the screen once and then tapping the settings button in the bottom left. You can add up to an additional 2 seconds before each shot if you like, which should hopefully get you what you're looking for! If not, let me know and we could bump it up. Perhaps for serve practices we could default to this larger cushion before the shot.

@Wheelz send me a DM with a screenshot of your session. We can update it to the right type (though you'll have to reprocess it).

 

[jasonw221]

@jasonw221 were you keeping score? We actually found a bug that can sometimes cause real-time analysis to disable during scorekeeping and will have a fix out this week.

Yup was keeping score, good to hear! Man one of my favorite things about swing vision is the rapid feature development / bug fixes, feels like every week something is better with the app, good stuff

 

[Mungo]

Is some form of the line calling function live for non-pro and pro users? Or only for “beta users”? Is or will it be active in only certain modes? Eg can I play around with it during rally mode?

 

[swupnil]

Is some form of the line calling function live for non-pro and pro users? Or only for “beta users”? Is or will it be active in only certain modes? Eg can I play around with it during rally mode?

It's live now! Here's our newsletter where we announced it, and our how-to guide explaining how to use it. You can use it in any mode, even serve practice

 

[kblades]

I’m sure this has probably been answered in this thread already, so I apologize if I’m asking again. Is there an option for a monthly subscription or can you only purchase the annual? I am not able to play much during the winter months, so it would only make sense to have the pro subscription when it’s warm out where I’m located and can play more regularly.

 

[Dunlace]

Is there “how to” guide on using a second iOS device (another iPhone) to adjust the recording device mounted on the fence? I believe that is possible. You need Apple watch for line challenge but you should be able to use another iOS device to adjust recording device, correct?

 

[swupnil]

@kdm711 we currently only have the Yearly plan and the price actually takes this into account already! If we were to offer a monthly plan it would be more expensive at about $20-25 per month given that we provide unlimited cloud storage, etc. With that said, we understand that not everyone wants to pay such a large amount at once so we hope to offer a monthly plan once we're a bit bigger and more of a sustainable business. Likely will happen in 2022.

@Dunlace that functionality doesn't exist yet actually. It's surprisingly a lot more work to get that to work smoothly on another iOS device but we are working on it and will have it out later this month You'll be able to challenge line calls from the device too but it has to be within 30 feet of the phone (similar to AirDrop) so not sure how great that experience will be as you'll basically have to walk over to that end of the court just to challenge.

 

[Nostradamus]

 

[Demented]

Swupnil is there any update on the steps you're taking to improve the accuracy of the speed tracking? I did a test today to see how the latest version is doing and I don't really see any progress.(I run the same clip of Fed/Nadal through the app every few months to see if it's getting any closer.)

 

[swupnil]

@Demented weve spent a lot of time thinking through this and definitely have some
improvements coming. There haven’t been any major updates to the A.I. for speeds since late April. We’re still more focused on shot placement as overall that is proving to be the more important technology for our future growth, and the one that the vast majority of subscribers care about.

 

[FlamingCheeto]

 

[temnik]

.

 

[Demented]

I'm guessing an android version is completely unrealistic. I'd love to see an online version though where I could upload my video to a cloud server for processing. It's a real pain to record and transfer to an apple device.

 

[swupnil]

@temnik @Demented the new Google chip is likely going to change everything. If the performance is on par with A13/A14, we’ll plan to have an Android app in early 2022. If not, the wait continues. Based on our current user base and experience from thousands of folks, it’s not worth our resources to go to Android until there’s at least a couple flagship devices that can do real-time processing.

Cloud is likely to never happen. Just not worth the cost to us given there are devices out there that can process things on device for free, in real-time.

 

[Mungo]

First session today with Iphone SE, wide lens, Apple Watch Series 6 anod fence mount. Couldn’t get it going for the first set and didn’t want to annoy my partners. I had it set for doubles rally and it would not get past the “tips” screen. The “next” button simply wouldn’t take. I took a few deep breaths and tried again after the first set. This time it worked though don’t know if it is repeatable and couldn’t tell you that I did anything different at all. Any suggestion on better success tomorrow?

 

[swupnil]

@Mungo hmm that’s super strange! This is the first time I’ve ever heard this. I would maybe force quit the app and try again at home just to make sure it’s not happening still. Please let me know if you’re able to repeat this!

 

[Mungo]

Trying it at home I can see it is the “Reminders” screen (place device in the shade, etc) where there is a “next” button in the lower right (overlaid with this reminder text) which I cannot get past. However at that point I am getting a video preview from my watch, with an option to start the recording. Obviously something was going awry when initially trying this on the court earlier. I suppose my feedback is to rethink having a button that seems to want to be pressed, but does not activate, or does not activate unless all the stars are in alignment. If it senses an Apple Watch then maybe a pointer to the watch would be more helpful there.

 

[swupnil]

@Mungo Wait you should still be able to tap the Next button and get past any Reminders screen to arrive at the actual recording preview on the phone, regardless of whether you're using the Watch.

Can you DM me a screenshot or screen recording from your phone on where the Next button isn't working and the exact steps to reproduce? It is not the intention to make any buttons like this un-tappable.

I'm personally am not able to reproduce this on 9.0.1.

 

[Mungo]

See your DM. Really appreciate the responsiveness.

 

[happyloman]

First session today with Iphone SE, wide lens, Apple Watch Series 6 anod fence mount. Couldn’t get it going for the first set and didn’t want to annoy my partners. I had it set for doubles rally and it would not get past the “tips” screen. The “next” button simply wouldn’t take. I took a few deep breaths and tried again after the first set. This time it worked though don’t know if it is repeatable and couldn’t tell you that I did anything different at all. Any suggestion on better success tomorrow?

I have the exact same setup. Bought a brand new SE 2020, Apple Watch series 6.

Stuck on the same screen. "Next" button wouldn't respond.. I rebooted both devices, still didn't work.

 

[Mungo]

Am speculating that when the iPhone senses your watch, perhaps the app expects you to make the final adjustments and “start” the recording from the watch? That explains being locked out of the “next” button. It worked ok for me today.

My initial review is that the recording, analytics, editing and all that is excellent and a great service if that was all it had. Of the few times I tried the line calling feature I couldn’t get it going in a reasonable time period. I felt it would take me to shots that weren’t the ones I wanted challenged and took too much messing around. I think there is a lot of potential there though. Would love to hear tips from people about how they get the feature to perform better. And, am sure it will get better over time, particularly if, for example, the watch vibrates / beeps as soon as a “clear” out occurs. To me that would be best, rather than having the option to consult the video after the fact.

 

[swupnil]

Thank you @happyloman @Mungo - I’ll have our team look into this and get this resolved ASAP. It seems like it shouldn’t be too hard to replicate given you both ran into this. There shouldn’t be any dependency between the Watch and phone with respect to the reminders/tips - definitely seems like a new bug. We should be able to squash it quickly!

@Mungo we definitely will get to that point eventually! We’re trying to use this initial period to get more data and examples of close calls to hone the A.I.

 

[FxNacho]

Hello @swupnil ; I am rally thinking in getting a camera or phone just for using this app, I have tested with simple videos recorded with an android phone.

However I was wondering if it is possible to add a second camera to the tape, for example, lets say I have an Iphone 11 recording one part of the court and a go pro 8, recording the other side of the court.

Another question I have, if I don't want to use the real time features like scoring and line calling, is it better to have a better quality camera for the videos? lets say a 1 inch sensor/apsc like sony's cameras or so, or it doesn't manner the quality of the image but the speed of the frames, 60fps/120fps, or even neither both of them manners, just to have a "decent" 1080p in 60fps is enough?.

Thank you very much

 

[happyloman]

Thank you @happyloman @Mungo - I’ll have our team look into this and get this resolved ASAP. It seems like it shouldn’t be too hard to replicate given you both ran into this. There shouldn’t be any dependency between the Watch and phone with respect to the reminders/tips - definitely seems like a new bug. We should be able to squash it quickly!

@Mungo we definitely will get to that point eventually! We’re trying to use this initial period to get more data and examples of close calls to hone the A.I.

hi @swupnil

I'm very impressed by the app and the watch functionality.
I know you already have tons of feature requests from users, but may I add this to the list: allow different scoring formats (e.g. "fast four", or just pure tie-breaks (no games), pro sets, etc)

 

[Mungo]

Question: I have options on my iPhone camera to switch from Hd to 4K and 30 to 60 fps. And of course the zoom. Is the app counting on me adjusting these settings or does it take this over and eliminate the need for me to fiddle with it?

 

[swupnil]

@FxNacho we currently only support a single camera. Dual camera set up will be added down the road. As for the video, both the quality and frame rate are important but we don't process anything greater than 1080p and 60fps. Anything higher is going to be downsampled by the A.I.

@happyloman you can already do some of the formats you're requesting, with the exception of tiebreaks and fast four. You can customize the match settings before starting the scoring by tapping on the Settings button.

@Mungo we do our own settings in the app and ignore what you've set on iOS. I believe 30fps is the default at the moment but we will be moving towards 60fps as the default in our next update. 720p is also the default but you can change this to 1080p. The resolution and fps settings are located in the bottom right of the recording view in the app (below the Record button).

 

[Mungo]

Swing, I am not sure that the app overrides the settings. It seemed that the video generated by my manually set iPhone camera at 1080/60 was enormous. It certainly took up more space and took forever to process than when I left it to the app to control. If nothing else I think a deeper setup instruction would be helpful, even for just the part of your user community who can handle it. Am speculating that the design team is trying to keep it “approachable”, but leaving all this open to question leaves me a little unsatisfied.

 

[Mungo]

What, if any at this point, mode is recommended for Australian doubles? Even if just for the stats / ball tracking?