Technology is rapidly expanding in the fitness industry. Different ways in which we have combined tech with exercise can be found in today’s smart watches or at-home workout machines that not only offer great exercise material, but also the analytics and data to track our performance. Fitness technology has undoubtedly added flexibility and independence to the workout experience.
The Covid-19 pandemic only sped the adoption of fitness technology as people all over the world had to creatively think of new ways to workout at home. In fact, when looking at the home-fitness equipment market, the industry grew from $8.42 billion in 2020 to $9.9 billion in 2021. Thus, it is no surprise that technologies in this industry are being developed at a rapid pace to accommodate different sports and exercises.
One sport that has been a bit slow to adopt at-home fitness equipment has been basketball. Well, that was until a new company launched earlier this year. This new company is called Huupe, which prides itself on being the world’s first smart basketball hoop, with a screen for a backboard, that allows you to train like a pro, track your performance and play against other Huupe users right from your driveway. The Huupe works both outside and inside. With a digital screen for a backboard, the Huupe offers a variety of options to use when training, including the ability to stream games while you play or being able to watch training sessions on-demand. The streaming capability functions as a TV with all the major platforms available. As for training sessions, the Huupe not only offers thousands of on-demand options that can guide you through drills, strategies, and techniques, but also scheduled live trainers who can do the same. Their current roster of trainers each have significant experience in the sport, as well as their specified skill specialties.
When using Huupe’s technology while you play, you will be able to track your shooting percentage, swishes, trajectory, position on court, speed, vertical jump and more. Having this amount of data while practicing can be helpful in setting up goals while being able to follow your progress over time and make adjustments. After taking Huupe across the country during the summer of 2021, the company was able to gather insight from focused tests of players both young and old. In turn, many saw it being the future of basketball because of its ability to track so many unique stats. For instance, one player said, “our kids are going to be playing on it, a lot of people around the world will be on it.” Another said, “you can use it a lot because it can track your shots, it can see when you are shooting from the three point line, the free throw, and you can watch games that you missed.”
As Huupe plans their rollout, the company has stated that it will only be manufacturing a limited number of huupes in 2022. In addition, the company has stated that it plans to expand their group of world class trainers to make the product even better for their users. We remain excited to see where the future takes them, you can follow their mission on Instagram and Twitter.