Track your movement on the soccer pitch with Playertek
Catapult Sports announced this week the launch of a new way to track soccer performance analytics for amateur players.
Called Playertek, the wearable GPS tracker monitors your movement and measures your physical performance during training and games with distance covered, top speed, sprint distance and number of sprints.
Essential reading: Smart gadgets for soccer/football
Catapult Sports is a global leader in sports analytics. Born just over a decade ago, most of its wearables are designed for professional athletes. The company now provides player analytics to a host of professional soccer teams including Chelsea FC and Tottenham Hotspur, along with more than 1,250 clubs across 20 sports at elite level. This is its first wearable that tracks performance of amateurs on the soccer pitch.
“Wearable technology is ubiquitous at the amateur level in many sports,” Benoit Simeray the CEO of consumer at Catapult told WIRED.
“But football has lagged behind. Aside from gut feel and, of course, the score line, players have been left in the dark as to their individual performance.”
The little pod attaches to a vest that features a compression crop top with a neoprene pocket and back panel, and a lightweight breathable front panel. It then monitors your performance on the pitch with the help of an accelerometer, magnetometer and GPS.
All your data is stored on 8GB of on-board storage, which can hold up to 1,250 hours of football data. At the end of your session, the stats are synced via Bluetooth to the accompanying smartphone app for detailed analysis.
The software shows heat maps based on GPS data so you can see how your positioning changed throughout the game. Full match data is broken down into two halves so you can see whether you need to work on your fitness. The app will also compare your performance to match outputs of Premier League players, so you can see how you stack-up against the game’s best.
“From those metrics, competitive footballers can understand how they physically compare to a Premier League player’s performance over 90 minutes,” Simeray adds.
Playertek is now available on Amazon.
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