Welcome to Pickleball Therapy, the podcast for your pickle mind.
This is a very special episode.
We are fortunate enough to have Swapnil Sahai, who is the co founder
and CEO of Swingvision.
Swingvision is some of the latest technology that can help us to
become better pickleball players.
Swapnil is so wonderful to have you on Pickleball Therapy.
Yeah, thank you for having me, CJ.
I'm super excited to be here.
Now, tell us a little bit about your background, because you actually, you're a
crossover from tennis, if I'm not mistaken.
Yeah, That's true.
Yeah, I played tennis since I was probably seven years old.
So it's been my main sport my whole life.
I grew up playing with my dad and my brother.
I've watched a lot of tennis, but just racquet sports in general, I think,
has been a big part of my life.
We always had a ping-pong table at that we'd play.
And then more recently, obviously, last few years, been playing
a lot of pickleball.
So just all racquet sports is really what I'm about.
Nice.
Now tell us a little bit about Swingvision.
You started on the tennis side, but you have developed a fantastic
program for pickleball players.
Tell us a little bit about Swingvision and how you've tailored it
specifically to pickleball.
Yeah.
So Swingvision Swingvision is an app for your phone that you can
use to record your game. We initially started it in tennis.
The problem I was trying to solve was that I wanted to have the same stats
about my game like the pros.
I wanted to know, how fast is my serve?
How accurate is my forehand?
Am I making more mistakes on my backhand?
That was really the initial reason why we made Swing Mission.
It's pretty simple to set up.
It's like you just put your phone up behind you on the court,
behind the baseline, and then hit record, and then we have our own AI that
will process the video in real-time.
It's tracking the ball trajectory.
It's going to track all your stats so we know how fast you're hitting, where is
the ball landing, is it in, is it out?
Then what's also cool is in addition to these really cool stats that you get to
see, we also will generate highlights of your game.
You could find all the best rallies, the really fun points, or maybe you just want
to look at your form and look at your specific mistakes that you made.
That's what Zoom vision is about.
It's giving you these automated stats and highlights using just your phone, and then
also line calls more recently, which is really exciting.
We've had this in tennis for about five years.
We launched at the end of 2019, just before the pandemic hit.
But obviously, we saw pickleball grow so quickly during the pandemic period,
and so many people were playing it.
We had already built this really fantastic product for tennis, and it felt like
given our team's background, we would be able to provide a really good
experience in pickleball as well.
We launched pickleball about a year ago, actually, and we brought the same exact
experience where you can get these stats and how it's about your but obviously
more of the pickleball context.
It's a really fun way to, I would say, relive your memories on the court, but
also just improve your game as well and share it with other people.
It has something for everybody, I would say, but that's what it's all about.
It definitely has something for everyone.
I've been using Swing Vision since earlier this year, actually earlier in 2024,
because it's very likely our listeners won't be listening to this until 2025.
I've been using it, and Tony has been using it, and it has been a lot of fun,
and it's also been pretty eye-opening.
Let's talk about some of those specific things that Swing Vision does to
assist players in analyzing and improving their pickleball game.
I think the biggest thing is just seeing the video of yourself
play is so eye-opening.
Nothing will beat that.
I think that's the thing that people are always taken back by when
they first use the app.
They'll record it, they see themselves play for the first time.
You can see how you're hitting those shots, your serve, maybe not
as fast as you think it is.
It's just interesting to see that.
You can also just really understand your technique, your footwork, the positioning
of like, Oh, I could have done this better.
It's all so quick.
Within a few seconds, you can understand what's going wrong.
It's really cool because you can filter by specific things.
You could say, Show me every dink that I hit into the net.
Then you can look at just those shots, slow it down in slow motion,
and see what went wrong. It's really interesting.
It makes it so efficient.
You don't have to sift through this really long video.
I think that's how people are able to improve so quickly.
But then aside from that, the data is also there.
If you're a more advanced player, you can actually look through the data and look at
what percentage of shots you were missing, what kinds of shots you need to
improve, how are you losing points.
I think that's where if you want to get really detailed, you can do that, too.
But honestly, for most people, the video is going to tell you 90%
of the story already.
That's how most people are using Swing Mission to improve.
I know that's one of the things we encourage our academy as well as our
pickleball system students to put themselves on video so that they can
really see what's happening and what's going on in their game.
But one of the other intriguing things about Swing Vision is the
stats that it breaks down.
Your longest rallies, your shortest rallies, the times you've got past five.
I know in the system, we talk about getting past four, but you're
awfully close with past five.
Why don't you tell us, and I know you've added some new metrics recently
to Swing Vision, why don't you tell us about some of those pick-a-ball-specific
metrics that players can dig into if they're using that app?
Yeah, for sure.
At the beginning, we started with Swingvision, focusing on some
core shots, like your serves.
In tennis, it was more like forehands and backhands, or the main categories of shots
you care about, maybe, Bollies, if you're an advanced player.
When we came to pick a ball, we got a lot of feedback right away that they want to
see specific stats about dinks and drops and third shots.
Those are so important, and being able to look at just my third shots.
We've added a lot of those stats actually pretty recently in the
last couple of months.
You can see a breakdown of the placement of your third shots and the
speed of them and what percentage of your third shots are actually getting volleyed
by your opponent, which is a very interesting stat to look at.
How often are you hitting drops on that third shot?
Then it makes it easy to also look at highlights.
You can say, show me every dink that I hit or attempted, show me every drop
that I hit, show me every third shot.
A lot of those things are just trying to make it really easy for pickleball
customers to be able to look at the shots they care about.
That's something that we're always evolving to.
As we get more feedback, we can add additional shot types and additional
stats that people really care about.
There's always a find balance because there's almost no end to what
so many of you can track.
That's sometimes a challenge, but we really rely on customers to tell
us, What do you care about the most?
We're going to show you just what everybody really wants to see.
That is one of the things that I have been impressed with using this.
Like I said, I think we first started using it back at the US Open.
We started using it in March, are the changes that you have made in the app and
how responsive you've been to continue?
It was a great product then, but it just keeps getting better
and better and better.
One of those features is the line calling, because we know this can be a source
of contention on the pickleball courts.
You've had line calling for a while, but there's a new piece to this.
Why don't you tell everybody what the line calling is and then this new piece?
From day one with the pickleball version of Swingvision, you've had this
ability to challenge line calls.
Let's say it is a close call and you're not sure or you don't agree with your
opponent's call, you can actually pull on your Apple Watch a challenge button, just
hit that, and then it will show you a slow motion replay of the ball where it
bounced, and it'll tell you whether it was in or out.
That's a really popular feature, both on the tennis and pickleball side.
If you've watched professional tennis, they've had this for years.
They've had this really cool challenge system where they go up to the
umpire and they say challenge.
We brought that to amateur athletes for the first time, which has been so fun
to be able to use it on the court.
But this past month in December, we released a brand new feature
which takes it to the next level.
Instead of even to challenge, the phone will just say out
as soon as the ball bounces.
You'll hit your heel like a little beep, and then it will say out, and
you know that the ball is out. This is a beta feature.
It's not 100% accurate, but we built it because we had a lot of customers ask for
that, and they know that the accuracy is good enough that it would make for a
really fun experience to be able to just try this out because
it feels so futuristic.
But yeah, it's been received pretty well so far, and obviously the
accuracy is always improving.
As we get more footage and data from customers, it gets better
and better every month.
But if you want to try it out, it is there.
It's exclusive to our highest subscription tier at the moment, but we do
hope to bring it to everyone eventually.
But it's a really fun feature.
It completely changes again.
It makes me feel like you're a professional when you're playing because
the system is just calling it out for you.
It's like you have a ref on the court.
Well, I will tell you right now, it is funny to have it on the watch
with the folks that I play with.
Every once in a while, you'll get that.
We're friendly with, Did you see it? Did you see it?
Everybody's trying to get the call right, and then they're like, The swing vision.
What does the swing vision say, CJ?
It definitely has become a very popular feature with the group that I play with,
so I can't wait to try out the voice call so that we know what's going on.
Yeah, that'll be super fun.
Now, let's talk a little bit about the equipment that you need for swing vision.
I know one of the things that I want to make sure you mention is the swing stick
because I'm a YouTube creator, so I'm all in on all the different things we have to
do to get shots and use video, and it can get complex.
But man, the swing stick, I got to tell you, it's killer.
It makes it so easy.
Talk a little bit about the equipment you need to use the Yeah.
You don't need a lot of things, mainly it's just an iPhone.
We're only on iOS right now.
We're hoping to go to Android at some point in 2025.
But on the iPhone side, you basically just need an iPhone 11 or newer.
We support a pretty wide range of devices there.
Then all you do is attach your phone to a swing stick.
I actually have one here.
For your viewers, I guess, who are able to watch this on video, this
is what it looks like.
It's like a tripod or selfie stick.
You could think of it like that, but it has a little hook on the back here, and
then this hooks onto the behind you.
If you're playing on a court that has a fence behind, you can
just stick this down.
If you can't reach the top of the fence for whatever reason, there's even a little
knob right here, and that can just rest on the diamond of the chain link.
If you have that, that's another way to do it.
Then you basically just put this up, and then it gives you a nice
simple angle of the court.
It's just a lot easier to set up than a tripod because a tripod has three legs
and you have to fiddle with it a bit.
But you can use a tripod as well.
Let's say you're playing on a court, maybe indoors in a bubble or something, and
you don't have a place to put the stick.
You can also use a tripod, but we recommend the stick for the best results.
We actually have a patent on the design for the stick.
It's really cool, really unique design.
It just slides into the fence there.
As more courts get built with dedicated infrastructure, everything,
it should become even better.
Then I guess that's one other thing I should mention is the app has definitely
been optimized for being more accurate on dedicated standalone pickleball courts.
But I know we always get people saying they're playing on courts that have
like, pickleball on top of tennis courts.
We've been recently hearing a lot of people playing pickleball
on top of basketball courts.
Those are very challenging for the AI and for the app because the
lines are harder to see.
But over time, they will get better on those courts as we get more data.
It's just going to take a little bit longer.
But if you want the best experience, like today, I'd say play on a dedicated court.
But if you don't have the access to that for whatever reason, then the app will be
able to get more accustomed to those different kinds of courts over time.
But I think as more investments being made in the sport, we're seeing a lot
of more facilities being made.
I think that will hopefully be solved long term, and hopefully everybody can
play on a dedicated court long term.
But it's nice that it's so accessible.
One of the things, too, that I want to talk about the swing stick
is there is a sun shade.
You do not have to worry about your camera getting hot in the sun.
It's very unique how you put the shade on.
Once you go through the directions, and I have to give you a hats off to team,
the directions for setup are excellent.
You don't have to be a techie to do this.
If you're not naturally dealing with tripods or phones, you probably want
to go through and watch the directions.
But the team at Swing Vision has put together some great documentation to help
players understand how to get it set up and how to set it
up properly so that the AI can do it job.
I'll pass off on that one.
Yeah, I'll bring you to that.
We definitely put We work together a lot of content as well on the video side.
If reading is not your thing, you can always watch your video, too.
We have some YouTube videos on it. But the sunshade is great.
We always get questions about that, especially people playing in the Southern
half of the US where it can get really hot in the summer.
These phones are really robust.
Then with the SunShade, they can last all day.
You can play as much as you want. It'll be fine.
I'll tell you, my first time recording, I told you we got this.
You sent us to us.
We are down at the US Open, and Tony was playing Senior Pro matches.
This was the end of March, and it was down in Naples, and it's 80
degrees with humidity.
I recorded all of Tony's matches without an issue in the hot Florida Sun.
Same thing up here in Tahoe.
It's been fantastic with that.
But there is one thing for those of us now, I happen to have an Apple Watch, and
I will tell you this, it is super convenient how the watch
ties into the app.
Can you talk a little about that?
Yeah, I mean, we definitely recommend using the app with an Apple Watch.
It just makes it so much easier and more fun, honestly.
But the first thing you'll notice right away is when you're trying to set up the
camera, you can check the camera from your watch, which is just so convenient.
You can take a peek, make sure everything looks good.
You're able to see the whole court.
You get that green checkmark, you're good to go.
That's already so convenient for being able to set up the camera.
But then while you're playing, there's so many benefits to having the watch.
Firstly, if there's a really good rally that happens, you can just
bookmark it right away.
We have this concept of favoriting the last point or the last rally.
That makes it really easy because you can just add it to your bookmarks.
Then later on, after the recording, you already have a separate highlight
reel of just those bookmarks.
It makes it super easy to relive those really fun points.
Then a big thing that we've added is the ability to keep score.
Especially for new players, the scoring is a little tricky sometimes.
You can actually update scores.
It'll even show you which side you're supposed to be serving from.
Is it the first serve or the second serve? You can see all that.
You can know what the score is.
Is it one, two, two or one, two, one? What is it?
You can see all that right away.
You won't have any arguments on the score either anymore if you
use the Apple Watch app. It's so fun to use it for that.
It even teaches you a bit more about how the scoring works.
And so I think those are just some of the great benefits.
Then obviously the line challenging that we've already been talking about, but
being able to from the watch is just so killer and so easy, so fast.
Definitely recommend using the Apple Watch for the best experience.
If you don't have an Apple Watch, we actually do have this ability to pair
another phone as the remote control.
You can just pull up a QR code and scan with another device.
It can actually even be an Android device.
Just right from the browser, you'll be able to check the camera and
do the same kinds of things.
But I think with the watch, it's just so easy, and it's just right on your wrist.
I just learned something I didn't know.
Which sometimes we were talking about this before we started.
I said sometimes with my watch because I play with my contacts on, sometimes it's a
little hard to steam my watch just because the screen is so small.
Now, I will say this, it's super convenient with the lines.
All I'm looking for to set it up are the lines and getting the green
checkmark, so that I can generally do.
But sometimes some of the other features might be difficult to see.
I think I'm going to have to try it out using somebody else's his phone as a
remote because at least you have a little bit bigger screen.
Totally. Yeah, exactly.
Now, one of the things you brought up is you brought up the fun points and some of
the stuff that happens during matches, not just our stats, but reliving
some of those super fun points.
Can you share matches with other players who maybe aren't Swing Vision users?
Yeah, you can.
We've just built so much into making that as easy as possible, but it's really cool.
You can create as customized as a highlight reel as you want, these five
specific points or something like that.
You can generate a unique link for that highlight reel, share it with somebody
else, and they'll build it, just watch it in the browser.
They don't even need to have the app installed.
It's literally like Google Docs. It's so easy.
You could take those favorite rallies, share that with somebody.
If you want to look at just your third shots, you can share that with your coach.
Whatever you want to do, it's so easy to share it, and they don't
even need to have the app.
They can just watch it for free on the website.
It's a great way to give your friends and family or your coach an introduction into
the app and also just share content from the app.
I think that's been a really neat function that we built.
But then separate to that, if you're really into posting on social media,
there's a really cool feature there.
Typically, when you're recording at Swingvision, you're recording in
Landscape, so you have that wide screen view of the court, which is what you
want to be able to capture everything.
But these days, when you're sharing content on Instagram or on your stories,
it's always that vertical content.
What Swingvision does is it It allows you to export your highlights in a vertical
format where it will follow the ball for you.
Even though you've captured your video in this wide screen, it will create
this vertical video and it's perfect.
You can post it on social media and it'll look like you have a
cameraman following the ball. It's really cool.
It's all just automatically generated. You don't have to do anything.
I use this personally a lot.
I'll post really fun rallies on my stories all the time.
If you look at our streaming vision app page on Instagram, it's all the posts are
basically just players around the world sharing their rally.
It's really cool to see that.
I have to tell you, as somebody who does video and edits video, that is such a time
saver because it is not an easy thing to take a landscape and turn it into
a horizontal to be able to do...
I'm sorry, a vertical.
A vertical to be able to post on social media.
That's one of the super fun features.
My My friends are always like, You are going to send that to me, right, CJ?
That's the thing that they want before they leave the court because they're
going to analyze their own play.
We talked about everything that Swingvision does right now, but
I know that you are not stopping.
As I mentioned earlier, we are recording this at the end of 2024.
It's just before the holidays, but I think you've got some tricks up your
for new features in Swingvision for 2025.
Is there anything that you can tell us?
Yeah, well, I mean, definitely can share a bit about what we have coming up on the
pickleball side and just the app in general.
But yeah, the pickleball, specifically, we've had a lot of customers reach out
asking for support for a ball machine and just drilling in general.
So having those dedicated session types.
So that's definitely something we'll be doing next year.
And ball machine is something we've offered for tennis for a while.
So it's a slightly different mode.
You're not playing against another human.
So requires a certain amount of data before that tracking gets good.
But we are planning to release that next year, so that'll be really exciting.
Then another feature that we're going to bring over from tennis is this concept
of automatically scoring your match.
Currently in tennis, what's cool is you can record your match, you can put the
final score of the game, and then it will automatically fill in every single point
who won that point, and then it'll put a scoreboard onto your video automatically.
We're going to bring that to pickleball, and I think that's going to be so neat
because it just elevates it's the quality of your video because now you'll see
a little scoreboard in the corner.
It just makes it feel more professional.
But then also it's nice because you could add additional filters to your video and
say, show me the points that I won or the points I lost.
There's just additional context that you can add or show me just the points
on my serve or whatever it is.
I think that's really convenient to be able to just
be able to take more advantage of your video and get more out of it.
But then aside from that, we've been just pushing really hard on line calling, and
we have a lot of exciting stuff that we're working on to bring that to competition
play, both at the amateur and maybe even at the professional level.
We're talking with various different organizations about that, and
there's a lot of excitement there.
Obviously, there's a need to solve the line calling problem in pickleball.
I That results up really well to do that, given our experience in tennis, and really
excited to bring that to more people.
Just every competition you play, and you'll get to feel like
you're a professional.
You have this line calling system in place, and it'll be different.
Instead of a watch, there'll be an iPad that you can walk up to to challenge,
and both players can see the results.
There's a lot of stuff in the works there to just improve that part
of the experience, too.
But we're always working on new things and always listening to feedback.
If there's anything that we're missing that you think we don't have, just write
into our support team, leave us feedback.
We're always looking to improve the experience.
As I can attest, and I mentioned this a little earlier in the podcast, there were
so many changes from the time that I first got it to to recording now.
You just kept improving and improving and improving and listening to the feedback.
Regardless, if you're just getting it for line calling or if you're getting it
because you want to see yourself on video or the stats, It is, Hey, I'm really
working on this and I want to find out what my problems are because I can tell
you as the coach, most players are blind to their own problems.
That includes the coach.
I'm blind to my own problems.
That's why I want to see myself on video and what I'm actually doing.
Yeah, that's it.
Slipnail, you have been very generous with us.
If anyone is interested in the Swingvision technology, I think we have a special link
and a special code where with a subscription,
they get one of the swing sticks for free. Is that?
That's right. Yeah, it's a great offer.
Normally, the swing stick is $100 on its own, but if you get it with our
subscription, our subscription is $15 a month, filled annually.
It's a really great price point.
If you purchase that through this special link, then you'll get the stick for
free, and that's the best way to set up.
You'll just be set up for success that way.
If you are listening to this rather as a podcast or on the YouTube channel, you
can check it out in the show notes.
But the easiest way to do it is go to our website, betterpickleball.
Com/resources.
You will see the latest link, the latest code, so that you get the
best deal on Swing Vision.
Neil, it has been wonderful to have you here with us and to explain
all about Swing Vision.
Yeah, likewise. Thank you so much for having me.
Super fun.