The ball was out. Your opponent says it was in. You’ve been playing club tennis together for years, and now a three-inch patch of clay could start an argument. PONGBOT, the company behind the most-funded tennis ball machine in Kickstarter history, built the solution into their new machine: the Aura — a next-generation AI training robot for tennis, pickleball, and padel. The most impressive feature? A modular camera system called the Spotter, which pops off the top of the machine and functions as a fully automated referee.
It Pops Out. Points at the Court. Calls the Lines.
The Spotter sits atop the Aura during training, and when you want to play a match, you pull it out and place it courtside in seconds. From there, it takes over. Its dual-camera system shoots at 120 frames per second with a 180-degree wide-angle lens covering the entire court. It tracks every ball in real time, logs shot landings, and calls the lines. Close calls get hawk-eye replay. Players can contest calls, and the score updates automatically. No chair umpire, no line judges, no arguments.
What You Get After the Match
The Spotter generates a full performance breakdown for both players: aces, winners, unforced errors, shot distribution across the court, rally tracking with point-by-point breakdowns, and a highlight reel edited automatically from the 120fps footage. You can filter for points you lost, live stream the match, or share the content directly from the app. For club players, this kind of detailed data is a game-changer.
What the Data Actually Tells You
The shot distribution map often surprises players. You might think your backhand cross-court is reliable, but the Spotter’s data could show it drifts under pressure or lands shorter than expected. The rally tracking breaks down how points unfold, how many shots average rallies last, where you tend to lose points, and structural tendencies coaches use to identify tactical weaknesses. The unforced error breakdown logs shot type, court position, and score situation, revealing patterns you can target in your next training session.
The highlight reel, shot at 120fps, lets you analyze mechanical details in slow motion — racket head position, split-step timing, and shoulder rotation. Most players have never seen themselves play at this level of detail. It transforms how you work on your game.
The Ball Machine Side Is Just as Serious
The referee and analytics are built atop a machine worth buying on its own. The Aura supports tennis, pickleball, and padel from a single device, with a patented adaptive wheel track that reconfigures for each sport. It handles balls from 40 to 80mm without manual adjustments beyond switching modes in the app. During training sessions with the Spotter docked, it tracks your court position and waits until you return to your preset zone before releasing the next ball — the Recovery Trigger, first introduced on the Pace S Pro, now paired with advanced AI and multi-sport capability.