First and foremost - if you are looking at purchasing this device:
Go to Google, and search for "Zepp Coach Bundle"
This will lead you to a place directly on Zepp's website where you can purchase the Zepp Sensor, 5 bat mounts, and a flexible clamp style mount for just $150! If you do the math, you'll see that that is clearly the better deal for the extra bat mounts alone. Both of my kids have multiple bats, so this saves a lot of effort of removing the mounts. I honestly didn't care for the clamp mount that came with it, and see no usability for it, but others might.
DEVICE REVIEW:
Pretty awesome! I've been coaching my kids for years now, and no amount of me "telling" them what they were doing wrong had the same effect that the visual output this device provided. We have had multiple "Ah-ha" or "Ohhhh I see now" moments since using this device! Sure you can take videos of your kids, and use apps like Coaches Eye to slow-mo it, but the metrics this device provides are far beyond that! This shows your kids where their hands were through the swing, the angle of their bat, their speed, what the speed was when they actually made contact, at what point they made contact, and more. As if that's not enough, it provides hours of drills from known baseball/softball trainers! As with anything, this is not a miracle device. This is a training tool - yes, a TRAINING tool. Nothing takes place of practice, and using this device a couple of times will not make a better batter. Practice, with aids like this, will surely (and has) provided positive results.
If you are considering this or the Blast Motion, I have no metrics to provide on the Blast Motion as I didn't try that one out. However, I have a couple of friends who did get one and their complaints are this:
1. Hard to remove from the bat
2. Hard to use for multiple players
With the Zepp, even if you don't get multiple bat mounts, is not insanely difficult to remove from the bat. It's not coming off by itself by any means, but it is removable. If you do get multiple bat mounts, the sensor is EASILY moved between bats since it's on the outside of the bat mount. I have read where others claimed that the sensor has fallen out, and I don't know how they managed to do that. I have a 7 year old, a 10 year old, and myself using one sensor, we have done over 1000 swings, and not once has it fallen out, or even looked like it might fall out.
As far as players, this device allows to easily manage players. Although, I don't know what it would be like to set them up on the fly and on the device. I heeded other reviewers advice, and set my kids up online on a computer first. After that, switching between my kids using the same sensor was as simple as a drop down. I set my kids up with their own accounts, and tied to their devices. Through the SYNC capability, we can use any of our devices to track swings, and then review on any of our devices. So if my kid uses his device to track his swings, I can open Zepp on my phone and review his swings. Pretty cool!
The battery lasts quite awhile, and charging is simple. My only critique there is you cannot charge the sensor while it is in the bat mount as it won't make contact. In order to make that work, they would have to change the bat mount, which I would suspect might compromise how well the sensor is held in the mount. Anyways, the sensor is easily enough removed.
As far as player management, while you can record a players swings on any device, and review on any device, you cannot assign a training plan to a player except for on the device they are directly logged into. Yes, you can set swing goals and such, but the training plans that this offers based on the Analysis can only be set on the device they are logged into. So if you are logged into your device as the Coach, you can change between all of the players, capture their swings, set their goals, etc, and they can review that themselves back at their home on their device. But if you do an Analysis on your device as the Coach, it recommends a training plan from that Analysis, and if you set that as the training plan you will be setting your own training plan, not the player who just did the Analysis. If I were coaching a team that would kind of suck because I couldn't manage that for a player at practice who might actually have a Zepp at home. It would be nice to work with them at practice, do an Analysis, set their training plan, and when they get home they jump into Smart Coach and start working the drills from the training plan that I assigned them while we were at practice. Not a big deal as this information can be provided to parents so they can just manually assign it when they get home on their device, but would still be nice to get that implemented.
Apart from that, I have managed to fill up my devices storage with captured videos, and have found no way to retain the videos elsewhere for later review. However, our swings are normally reviewed after each practice, before each new practice, and then we don't review the "old" swings any longer after that. So really, I don't need to retain them. Still looking for a simple way to remove those videos without losing swing data.
Overall, a great device for the price - as long as you are disciplined to use it. Sure beats paying training coaches for multiple sessions - assuming you have the equipment at home already to do BP at home - and the discipline to get outside and do this at home.
| Item Package Dimensions L x W x H | 6.6 x 4.5 x 1.9 inches |
|---|---|
| Package Weight | 0.16 Kilograms |
| Item Dimensions LxWxH | 6.6 x 4.5 x 1.9 inches |
| Brand Name | Zepp |
| Number of Items | 1 |
| Manufacturer | Zepp Labs - Team Sports |
| Part Number | ZA2B1NE |
| Model Year | 2016 |
| Included Components | Zepp 2 Sensor, Charger, Bat Mount |
