Catapult, the global leader in sports technology solutions for elite teams, has built the first smart American football for sports teams. In partnership with Energous Corporation (NASDAQ: WATT), a leading developer of RF-based charging for intelligent wireless power networks, Catapult has created the football of the future with an embedded tracker that can charge wirelessly, providing the data precision that Catapult customers have come to expect from its wearables & video solutions.
The football will be on display at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas this week (#50726 Venetian Expo Hall), the world’s most influential technology event.
This new innovation reports the football’s movements in real-time to the cloud, allowing coaches to track and analyze not only an athlete’s every move but the ball itself, giving a more complete picture of practice and game time activities. Similar to Catapult’s athlete monitoring technology, the ball tracking uses an LPS (Local Positioning System) chip that is so small and lightweight that it can be sealed inside the football during the manufacturing process, making it completely undetectable to athletes.
The chip uses similar instrumentation to Catapult’s best-in-class player tracking devices. This includes a triaxial accelerometer, gyroscopes, magnometer, and LPS antenna which are used to create more than 1,000 metrics in Catapult’s player devices. This allows the coaching staff to understand not only how the ball moves but the demand a player is under when they are interacting with the ball, combining both player and ball metrics in one live ecosystem, which to-date have been reported in isolation.
Energous, whose WattUp solution is capable of charging multiple devices simultaneously at-a-distance, powers a first-of-its-kind wireless charging cradle for the football, which removes the need for charging the balls on the sidelines and allows teams to practice and compete without any interruptions to their workflows or schedules. Although other companies have attempted such an innovation, Catapult and Energous were able to combine their respective expertises in performance data and wireless charging to build a ball that holds a charge through an entire game and does not sacrifice the precision of its data.
“Catapult is redefining the future of sports performance, and this innovation is yet another example of how we continue to disrupt the sports industry with solutions that truly enhance the game for coaches and athletes,” says CEO Will Lopes. “Just as Catapult invented elite athlete monitoring two decades ago, we are yet again putting a new lens on the performance of the best teams in the world while creating the most robust performance ecosystem in football.”
“We were excited to partner with Catapult when they approached us about creating the football of the future,” says Cesar Johnston, CEO of Energous. “Our WattUp solution is the only technology that supports both contact and distance charging through a fully compatible ecosystem, and the sports industry was the perfect frontier for showcasing its power.”
During its two-year development, the football was tested by a select number of football teams, including division-1 teams Boston College and the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
Catapult solutions are trusted by the best teams in the world, including all 32 NFL teams, reigning College Football Playoff Champions University of Georgia, and 95% of Power 5 programs in the U.S.
Energous and Catapult will showcase the new football at the 2023 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week (#50726 Venetian Expo Hall), from January 5-8.
About Catapult
Catapult (ASX: CAT) exists to unleash the potential of every athlete and team on earth. Operating at the intersection of sports science and analytics, Catapult products are designed to optimize performance, avoid injury, and quantify return to play. Catapult has over 400 staff based across 24 locations worldwide, working with more than 3,425 elite teams in 137 countries globally. To learn more about Catapult and to inquire about accessing performance analytics for a team or athlete, visit us at catapultsports.com. Follow us at @CatapultSports on social media for daily updates.
About Energous Corporation
Energous Corporation (Nasdaq: WATT) is the Wireless Power Network global leader. Its award-winning WattUp® solution is the only technology that supports both contact and distance charging through a fully compatible ecosystem. Built atop fast, efficient, and highly scalable RF-based charging technology, WattUp is positioned to offer improvements over older, first-generation coil-based charging technologies in power, efficiency, foreign device detection, freedom of movement and overall cost for industrial and retail IoT, smart homes, smart cities and medical devices. Energous develops silicon-based wireless power transfer (WPT) technologies and customizable reference designs, and provides worldwide regulatory assistance, a reliable supply chain, quality assurance, and sales and technical support to global customers. The company received the world’s first FCC Part 18 certification for at-a-distance wireless charging and has been awarded over 200 patents for its WattUp wireless charging technology to-date.
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