Smart Lacrosse Ball Makes Its Way To CES 2025

In 2022, there were 2.1 million lacrosse players in the United States. In 2023, the National Collegiate Athletic Association had 398 men’s and 528 women’s lacrosse programs. Over the past four years, lacrosse has been one of the fastest growing sports in the United States.

this week Consumer Electronics Show In Las Vegas, Get Reps unveiled the next-generation R1 Smart lacrosse ball at the show.

Get representatives The smart lacrosse ball has an electronic brain and uses Powercasts RF technology to charge the battery and track performance data including shot speed, release rates and reps. It collects all this data and sends it to a smartphone app for analysis.

The wireless energy market is expected to reach $52.4 billion by 2030.

Joe Pompo, co-founder of Get Reps, said that over the past several years, Get Reps has been working on two critical elements of the ball: data accuracy and durability.

“Early prototypes provided valuable information, but developing electronics that could withstand an 85,000 G impact while maintaining the natural bounce and feel of a lacrosse ball took time,” Pompo said in a CES email interview.

Pompo said that the company’s new generation SmartCore, which was announced at KES This week’s R1 Smart lacrosse ball combines professional-grade analytics, a significantly smaller 22mm SmartCore and Powercast’s Over-the-air (OTA) wireless charging technology that delivers energy efficiently through over an inch thick layer of polyurethane.

“It’s ready because all the technical hurdles have been removed, resulting in a battle-tested, league-ready product,” Pompo said.

A decade in the making

In 2016 Wilson introduced the first smart football, and Pompo said the lag in the number of smart balls on the market is almost entirely due to durability issues.

“Sports equipment can withstand extreme conditions—shock, vibration, weather conditions and unpredictable player interactions,” Pompo said. “Building in electronics that can withstand the extreme impacts of sports is incredibly difficult.”

Pompo said it took the company nearly two years to perfect that durability. “While early smart sports products focused on basic sensor data, we prioritized creating a reliable and durable SmartCore coupled with wireless charging technology that could power devices through dense materials.”

“Smart sports equipment was not limited by vision; it was held back by physics and we solved that problem,” he added.

“When we started, there were already smart balls on the market for other sports—football, soccer, basketball—but through testing, we realized that none of them could withstand the impact and wear and tear of real-world gameplay,” Pompo said.

Pompo says lacrosse has become their testing ground because if their technology can handle the intense impacts of lacrosse, it can handle almost any other sport.

“And for us, it was also about dominating a niche,” Pompo said. “The lacrosse community is small but very passionate, and adoption is quick when something makes a difference.”

Technology inside the ball

Get Reps’ goal was to create a smart ball that feels and performs just like a traditional ball, but contains technology that tracks performance data such as throwing speed, reps, release rates, and ball movement to provide players with and coaches with analytics they can use to improve performance, Pompo said.

“This performance data is automatically updated via Bluetooth in the phone app to provide actionable information in real time,” he added.

The ball uses three types of technologies: sensors, machine learning and wireless radio frequency charging.

Advanced sensors with accelerometers and gyroscopes track impacts and passes at 1,000 data points per second. Machine learning algorithms help the ball learn the unique movements of each player, improving shot speed accuracy and repetition recognition. Wireless RF charging via Powercast OTA charging technology allows the core of the ball to penetrate over an inch of thick polyurethane.

“Since July 2024, we have enhanced our machine learning models to improve personalized analytics and optimized our state machine algorithms to more accurately measure throwing mechanics,” Pompo said.

Pompo said its smaller 22mm SmartCore makes it adaptable to any sport, including golf. “With the precision of machine learning, the ball will also be able to adapt to each player’s throwing style for more accurate shots and reps.”

“With the new SmartCore, we’re not just showing off a smarter lacrosse ball; we are introducing a technology platform capable of transforming every ball sport – something that was not fully realized in July 2024,” Pompo added.

Smart sports balls and equipment

In November 2024, Get Reps signed an exclusive agreement with Kookaburra to develop smart cricket and field hockey balls using SmartCore technology. Pompo said they expect these balls to go on sale late in the third quarter of 2025.

He noted that they are developing partnerships for other smart ball products, including a smart hockey puck, a smart baseball and softball that can be hit with a bat, and a smart golf ball that will replace expensive simulators. and will be used in the next generation version. mini golf. There’s even a smart pickleball paddle in the works.