Zepp brings the Internet of Things to tennis rackets and other sports gear

The Internet of Things has invaded our sports equipment. Zepp has launched tracking sensors that you can put on golf clubs, baseball and softball bats, and tennis rackets. It measures your swing and shows you what you’re doing right or wrong. You can read the results on an iOS or Android mobile app.

The Los Gatos, Calif.-based company has now added a bunch of pro sports athletes to its library of the best way to swing or play. So you can compare your golf swing side-by-side to that of pros like PGA Tour golfer Keegan Bradley, said Jason Fass, chief executive of Zepp, in an interview with VentureBeat.

This is all a part of the Internet of Things, or making dumb everyday objects smart and connected. Last year, we saw the 94Fifty smart basketball from InfoMotion Sports Technologies, which promised to use sports training analytics to get you to shoot like the pros. The Internet of Things was the most pervasive theme at this year’s CES, and Samsung’s chief said that every single one of its products will connect to the Internet in five years.

The Zepp sensor attaches to a clip that you hook onto your baseball batting glove or golf glove, or to the butt of your tennis racket. You can download the app for free and use your smartphone to capture your swing information for free. But if you want to get extra data, you can pay $150 for the sensor. Zepp then uses the app to tell you in red, yellow, or green what you’re doing right or wrong. You can use that to get better.

“There’s a lot of Internet of Things companies that are just throwing numbers at people,” Fass said. “We are trying to go a step further and help them understand what the numbers mean and take action.”

The sensor has two accelerometers, which sense motion, as well as a gyroscope for additional positional information. It captures 1,000 data points per second. The device is already sold in 6,000 locations, but the improved app is brand new.

Here’s my video interview with Fass below.