Fiend at Court Unplugged
I have a complicated relationship with my Spinshot Player Ball Machine. It was purchased because I needed something that could deliver a precise series of shot patterns. When the machine is fully programmed and tuned, it does that very well. In fact the word I use to describe that state is nirvana. However, anyone considering purchasing a Spinshot should be aware that it takes considerable tinkering to get to that point.
Last Tuesday I mentioned that I store my Lobster Ball Machine in the garage. The SpinShot is much more delicate, so it is housed indoors in the bottom of a spare coat closet that we use as secondary pantry. In fact, I installed an outlet into the bottom of that closet specifically for charging the Spinshot. On the surface, it might make it seem like this makes the Spinshot my favored machine. Like I said, it’s complicated.
The Spinshot is designed with a feedback mechanism with sensors that determine if the machine is positioned in the correct position for the ball delivery. Unfortunately, one of those sensors was not functioning when my ball machine was initially delivered. I did not make that discovery until I was already out on the tennis court. To compound matters, if any of the sensors fails the initialization test, the machine does not transition into the operational mode. In short, my unit was dead on arrival.
Customer support for the Spinshot is really good. In addition to replacement of the sensor, the entire control board later failed when I accidentally rattled a ball around in the machine by hitting it through the opening where the feed is delivered. Replacing the parts was reasonably straight forward. However, this is an appropriate time to mention that I have an Electrical Engineering degree and work in a job where I am comfortable cracking open electromechanical equipment. Additionally, the internals of the machine are pretty tight so my smaller female hands were definitely a plus when making the repairs.
If that hasn’t scared you off, the programming and tuning of shot sequences is also fairly involved. Programming a complex series of shots takes a significant investment in time. In fact, my build up of the full 12 sequences of shots was basically done one sequence per session. While I would agree with the manufacturer’s assertion that the app provided for programming the shot series is “easy” it is tedious and at times counterintuitive. I should additionally remind people that I have a masters degree in Software Engineering. I literally do that kind of stuff for a living.
One thing that I do not appreciate about the Spinshot is the fact that the app which is needed to program the machine does so through a wi-fi network. That means that when I am using the app on the machine’s wi-fi network, that I cannot stream music through my phone. That annoys me to a much greater extent than I would have anticipated.
I should also disclose that haven’t used my Spinshot recently because after the complete control panel replacement the machine lost all the settings. It is depressing for me to have to basically start over from square one. Additionally, I have not had the bandwidth to spend on the reprogramming. This blog doesn’t write itself, kids.
Someday when I have more time, I would like to explore some… uhm… let’s say custom upgrades that might make the machine work more intuitively. I am thinking along the lines replacing the control panel with a Raspberry Pi, and creating my own app for programming it that operates over Bluetooth. Essentially, my future intentions for the machine are as a hobby project. That’s right… someday I will have a custom souped up ball machine hot rod. I live for that day.
The tennis centers in my area usually rent commercial grade ball machines for about $20 per hour. That means that for the price of a Spinshot, you can rent a machine about 100 times and break even. I suspect that renting a ball machine might be more attractive for most tennis consumers.
But if you are crazy like me, consider the Spinshot. It takes some investment, but once fully programmed and tuned… it delivers commercial grade shot series. Nirvana.
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Hi Teresa,
Thank you for very interesting information about Spinshot Player. I recently bought one and wanted to share some of my observations to see if you came across the same issues.
1. I notice that machine settings heavily favor add side of the court, even after calibration and adjustment, where balls in positions 1 and 20 hit both corners, the angel between positions is much larger on the deuce side than on add side, so horizontal distance between position 20 and 19 is much greater than between 1 and 2. I just wonder if this is a defect or a normal setup for these machines
2. I find that wifi connection between my machine and the phone (iphone 11) is dropping very frequently and I need to reconnect to stop/start the machine.
Please let me know if you encountered the same issues (particularly the first one).
Kind Regards,
Anvar
I did not experience your first issue with my Spinshot player. However, I have seen those symptoms with another ball machine. In that case it turned out that the machine legs weren’t level. If that isn’t it, I wonder if giving it a degree or two of twist might help.
The wifi connection is very very flakey. That exacerbates the labor intensive nature of getting it programmed correctly.
When I practice tennis I stream music from my phone to a bluetooth speaker. It annoys me that I cannot program the machine while listening to streamed music since that requires an *connected* wifi connection.