Break speed? Theres an app 4 that....
- Thread starter Thunderball
- Start date
Hi pnettle
I am from Australia and play English style 8ball (reds and yellows, smaller balls, much tighter pockets, in Australia we have even much tighter pockets that the UK tables, shooting down the rail you have to be perfect).
I just bought your app and got to say it rocks ! really love it
Just thought you wanted to know that your app works well not just on the typical American 9ft table and overseas users are enjoying your app
As for improvements, i'd like to see the ability to enter to the nearest cm the exact distance from the cueball to the rack , that level of customisation means every table in the world can be accomodated.
I also like the suggestion for being able to store a number of break speeds and get an average
I am from Australia and play English style 8ball (reds and yellows, smaller balls, much tighter pockets, in Australia we have even much tighter pockets that the UK tables, shooting down the rail you have to be perfect).
I just bought your app and got to say it rocks ! really love it
Just thought you wanted to know that your app works well not just on the typical American 9ft table and overseas users are enjoying your app
As for improvements, i'd like to see the ability to enter to the nearest cm the exact distance from the cueball to the rack , that level of customisation means every table in the world can be accomodated.
I also like the suggestion for being able to store a number of break speeds and get an average
I do have one question
I am using an iphone 3GS
This youtube vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC249s8yb5k
Seems to show the countdown for having you break at a minute. Mines gives me 2 minutes
Can i edit that time ? I only need 30 seconds
I am using an iphone 3GS
This youtube vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC249s8yb5k
Seems to show the countdown for having you break at a minute. Mines gives me 2 minutes
Can i edit that time ? I only need 30 seconds
I do have one question
I am using an iphone 3GS
This youtube vid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC249s8yb5k
Seems to show the countdown for having you break at a minute. Mines gives me 2 minutes
Can i edit that time ? I only need 30 seconds
There's really no need to edit the time. That timer is just a maximum time to break - you can just tap the screen when you're done in order to get your speed from the recorded audio.
The Android version (shown in the video) was reduced to 1 minute because certain devices were running low on memory with the new break recognition update. The iPhones all have enough memory for a full two-minutes of recording.
Decided to get out the Break Speed app while I practiced today to try to work on increasing my speed.
I started out breaking normal at around 19.5mph just like how I always break. I kept thinking to myself "Self I know I can break a whole lot harder than that". Well I put it away till I was getting ready to wrap it up when I had an epiphany. When I break I typically bridge 8 inches from the CB. I also noticed that people that I have seen that have harder breaks than myself bridge farther back.
I decided to try bridging about a foot from the CB and what do ya know I hit 23.29 without really putting much into it. I get excited, but think that this might be a fluke so I rack up again and put a little into it. This time I hit 24.55 and a big smile comes across my face. I go finish off the rack and decide to break one more and see what happens. The next rack I hit 25.66mph and I'm beaming. The funny thing is I didn't break at what I felt was 100% because I was a little nervous bridging further back on a break shot.
I only have one issue with Break Speed for the Droid 2. For some reason or another it doesn't read the speed right after I capture a break. Basically what I have to do is use Advanced Task Killer to force close Break Speed and then re-open and use again. If I don't do this it will read one ex. 19.5 and then 17 even though I hit it harder, then 13 and eventually 8mph even though I am hitting it the same every time.
I started out breaking normal at around 19.5mph just like how I always break. I kept thinking to myself "Self I know I can break a whole lot harder than that". Well I put it away till I was getting ready to wrap it up when I had an epiphany. When I break I typically bridge 8 inches from the CB. I also noticed that people that I have seen that have harder breaks than myself bridge farther back.
I decided to try bridging about a foot from the CB and what do ya know I hit 23.29 without really putting much into it. I get excited, but think that this might be a fluke so I rack up again and put a little into it. This time I hit 24.55 and a big smile comes across my face. I go finish off the rack and decide to break one more and see what happens. The next rack I hit 25.66mph and I'm beaming. The funny thing is I didn't break at what I felt was 100% because I was a little nervous bridging further back on a break shot.
I only have one issue with Break Speed for the Droid 2. For some reason or another it doesn't read the speed right after I capture a break. Basically what I have to do is use Advanced Task Killer to force close Break Speed and then re-open and use again. If I don't do this it will read one ex. 19.5 and then 17 even though I hit it harder, then 13 and eventually 8mph even though I am hitting it the same every time.
It may seem like killing the app was helping, but I'm pretty confident that's not the case. Rather, I'd be willing to bet that it's a case of cue ball bounces causing the problem and it's coincidence that the breaks following the ATK kills were those without loud bounces.
To prove this, the next time you run into this just hit the "Edit Results" button. From there you can adjust the automatic detection selections. It'll take a few tries to get used to how this works, but it's a fail-safe way of getting the speed from just about any break, even those with extra audio events (like ball bounces.) This is most prevalent with the BreakRAK or when using the alternate recognizer, but it's possible for very high bounces to also fool the normal recognizer.
As a side-note, if you're getting a high cue ball bounce (more than just a few inches) then beware that you're losing a lot of energy being delivered into the rack. There are two ways to fix this:
First, you can just adjust your cue ball position (move it back or forward a bit) so that the bounce position is adjusted such that the cue ball is hitting the table at the same place where the balls are racked. I'm personally not a fan of this, because this only works if you are consistent. It also means that you're not hitting the cue as level as you could/should be, and much of the energy is lost on impact when you are hitting the cue into the table.
The best solution is either (1) work to hit your cue as level as possible or (2) take a bit off your break to improve your accuracy.
Taking a bit off your break will actually allow you to deliver more power to the rack. If you try to break at 110% power (with 100% being your accuracy/power threshold), then you may be adding 10% into the cue ball but losing as much as 50% when the cue hits the rack. Net loss.
Find out what your 100% break is and slowly work to improve your accuracy as you add power.
On a totally different note...
Somebody has probably done something similar to this, but this has really helped me.
Racking balls sucks when you're trying to work on your break. If you are working on new mechanics it can take a while to get your body moving in the right places at the right times. During that time, you're probably mis-cuing more often than not. It's ideal to minimize the time between attempts while you're working to get things just right. The BreakRAK is a good alternative for this, but in those early stages, you might miss the target ball entirely.
So here's what I did...
Get yourself an 8-foot piece of wood (2x4) and cut it into thirds. Stack the pieces on top of each other (flat sides touching) and screw them together tight.
Wrap this new block of wood with a large-ish towel (expect to destroy the towel) and staple-gun the towel in place so it remains wrapped on the block. You should end up with about four layers of towel wrapping the block of wood.
What you end up with in the end, is a "soft" piece of wood that can absorb the impact of the cue ball quite well. Place it on the table against the foot rail and just smack the cue ball into that. The cue ball will typically bounce off the block right back to you, so you never have to move. Also, the towel-wrapped block is pretty quiet compared to a real break.
So if you're trying to re-invent your break, give this a try for those early stages.
Somebody has probably done something similar to this, but this has really helped me.
Racking balls sucks when you're trying to work on your break.
If you are working on new mechanics it can take a while to get your body moving in the right places at the right times. During that time, you're probably mis-cuing more often than not. It's ideal to minimize the time between attempts while you're working to get things just right. The BreakRAK is a good alternative for this, but in those early stages, you might miss the target ball entirely.So here's what I did...
Get yourself an 8-foot piece of wood (2x4) and cut it into thirds. Stack the pieces on top of each other (flat sides touching) and screw them together tight.
Wrap this new block of wood with a large-ish towel (expect to destroy the towel) and staple-gun the towel in place so it remains wrapped on the block. You should end up with about four layers of towel wrapping the block of wood.
What you end up with in the end, is a "soft" piece of wood that can absorb the impact of the cue ball quite well. Place it on the table against the foot rail and just smack the cue ball into that. The cue ball will typically bounce off the block right back to you, so you never have to move. Also, the towel-wrapped block is pretty quiet compared to a real break.
So if you're trying to re-invent your break, give this a try for those early stages.
I actually didn't have any ball hop, but I think it had more to do with the acoustics of the room I usually play at. The room I played at Wednesday has ceilings around 20 foot. I went ahead and used Break Speed without killing it and it worked fine. The room I normally play at has much lower ceilings and this is where I have weird problems recording for some reason.
Ah... then try moving the phone. I've found that when this happens, it's pretty rare because the phone has to be in that "echo sweet spot" to get fooled. Usually moving it from one side of the table to the other (or even next to you on the end rail) will do the trick.
That would make sense as I typically put the phone in generally the exact same spot every time since I break from the exact same spot pretty much every time.....well so long as it's working.
Pnettle, i use regularly your app and work really good for me, always accurate..
i have a small advice, i don't think it should be a problem i think it is a easy feature to introduce and i think it could improve your app.
Why do you don't introduce some kind of log ,every time you break the app record your break speed with time and date into the log so you can see all your break speed. You can see if you have improved the power, what's your average speed etc.
i have a small advice, i don't think it should be a problem i think it is a easy feature to introduce and i think it could improve your app.
Why do you don't introduce some kind of log ,every time you break the app record your break speed with time and date into the log so you can see all your break speed. You can see if you have improved the power, what's your average speed etc.