Okay, apologies to anyone who was waiting for me to start this, had intentions of getting it done middle of last week and then work and illness got the better of me.
Please post all passaround reviews in this thread, thanks!
Before sending the DigiBall out to the first passaround participant I was able to take it out to my local pool hall and give it a quick demo myself and wanted to share my initial thoughts.
First, the overall quality of the DigiBall and associated accessories is great! It's a real Aramith cue ball which just helps instill confidence that it's going to play and perform correctly. The charging base is slick and works great. App was super easy to find in the app store, get downloaded, and getting it connected to the DigiBall and up and running was basically automatic. Really fantastic job from a usability perspective, it felt intuitive to use the whole time.
Now, onto what the DigiBall actually does.....and what it does is really very cool! I was involved in trying out the DigiCue too and that was a cool device for sure, but many players have unique little movements in their stroke I've never wanted to limit my natural stroke too much by trying to get it to conform into a specific type of thing. I've always been naturally much more interested with the result of the stroke. And that is what DigiBall delivers!
This is the first time ever I've been able to actually get feedback about where I'm contacting the cue ball and to be able to compare that to my intent was immediately helpful. I quickly learned I did not always strike the cue ball where I thought it was. Often I was closer to center than I would have guessed and sometimes I was putting in a little bottom when I wasn't explicitly intending to. I spent some time just working on my stroke and tip position and using the DigiBall for feedback and guidance of how to adjust. I found that really help.
Then I wanted to use the DigiBall to analyze how spin was effecting my getting shape for certain shots. I setup a couple drills with repeatable ball positions where I was having to 3-4 rails to get shape for my net shot and setup some blockers to make it, for me, a rather difficult positional shot. Then I started shooting it and comparing my results with how I hit it and that too was incredibly informative. The best positions were acheived in a way that wasn't exactly intuitive to me but by making small adjustments and seeing how well I hit my intended spot on the DigiBall I was able to dial in on the best way to hit the shot and really learned quite a bit from this.
It's super interesting to see how side vs top vs follow effects a shot that involves 3-4 rails for shape. I only had one short afternoon session with the DigiBall but it was enough to know that this is going to be a super useful training tool and one I'm excited to spend some more time with. I really think this will become a standard training tool for any type of pool instructor, being able to see exactly where you hit the ball was super informative.
The only minor hiccup is that, as stated in the product documentation, sometimes it can confuse top vs bottom. Thankfully the app has a feature where you can quickly flip/flop the shot around so if it shows top right and you know you hit low right, the touch of a bottom will correct the top vs bottom. I only had this happen to me once or twice the whole time. Another player I had try it did have it happen more often but it was all on the same type of shot he was drilling on with it.
Overall, I give this a solid A+!! Very impressed, worked great, and was super informative. I definitely want one.
The chalk was my target position for this shot:
And some of the DigiBall readouts of fairly succesful attempts
Please post all passaround reviews in this thread, thanks!
Before sending the DigiBall out to the first passaround participant I was able to take it out to my local pool hall and give it a quick demo myself and wanted to share my initial thoughts.
First, the overall quality of the DigiBall and associated accessories is great! It's a real Aramith cue ball which just helps instill confidence that it's going to play and perform correctly. The charging base is slick and works great. App was super easy to find in the app store, get downloaded, and getting it connected to the DigiBall and up and running was basically automatic. Really fantastic job from a usability perspective, it felt intuitive to use the whole time.
Now, onto what the DigiBall actually does.....and what it does is really very cool! I was involved in trying out the DigiCue too and that was a cool device for sure, but many players have unique little movements in their stroke I've never wanted to limit my natural stroke too much by trying to get it to conform into a specific type of thing. I've always been naturally much more interested with the result of the stroke. And that is what DigiBall delivers!
This is the first time ever I've been able to actually get feedback about where I'm contacting the cue ball and to be able to compare that to my intent was immediately helpful. I quickly learned I did not always strike the cue ball where I thought it was. Often I was closer to center than I would have guessed and sometimes I was putting in a little bottom when I wasn't explicitly intending to. I spent some time just working on my stroke and tip position and using the DigiBall for feedback and guidance of how to adjust. I found that really help.
Then I wanted to use the DigiBall to analyze how spin was effecting my getting shape for certain shots. I setup a couple drills with repeatable ball positions where I was having to 3-4 rails to get shape for my net shot and setup some blockers to make it, for me, a rather difficult positional shot. Then I started shooting it and comparing my results with how I hit it and that too was incredibly informative. The best positions were acheived in a way that wasn't exactly intuitive to me but by making small adjustments and seeing how well I hit my intended spot on the DigiBall I was able to dial in on the best way to hit the shot and really learned quite a bit from this.
It's super interesting to see how side vs top vs follow effects a shot that involves 3-4 rails for shape. I only had one short afternoon session with the DigiBall but it was enough to know that this is going to be a super useful training tool and one I'm excited to spend some more time with. I really think this will become a standard training tool for any type of pool instructor, being able to see exactly where you hit the ball was super informative.
The only minor hiccup is that, as stated in the product documentation, sometimes it can confuse top vs bottom. Thankfully the app has a feature where you can quickly flip/flop the shot around so if it shows top right and you know you hit low right, the touch of a bottom will correct the top vs bottom. I only had this happen to me once or twice the whole time. Another player I had try it did have it happen more often but it was all on the same type of shot he was drilling on with it.
Overall, I give this a solid A+!! Very impressed, worked great, and was super informative. I definitely want one.
The chalk was my target position for this shot:
And some of the DigiBall readouts of fairly succesful attempts
