Clarity.Golf will be available at the PGA Show (ETC-5) to discuss the future Savant Smart Ball, and its fully resolved first-principles ontology for instrumented golf balls.
At the core of the Savant Smart Ball lies advanced MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems)
technology, researched and developed at the University of Michigan, frequently ranked the
world’s top MEMS university with three of the top five ScholarGPS Lifetime MEMS Scholars on
faculty.
“The magic is in a patented algorithm that emulates the gyroscope”, said Bill Bales, Clarity
co-founder. “Gyros are frail, power hungry little guys. As the accepted standard for measuring
the angular velocity (spin stuff) of a ball employs gyros, the required hardware melange
constrains designs to idiosyncratic protective cores that look like giant marbles.”
“They remind me of the ‘shootin’ taws’ my dad taught me to use shooting marbles. Big guys.”
The Savant architecture eliminates both the brittle gyro and the heavy, hot rechargeable battery
traditional design concepts have demanded. By integrating Clarity’s patented camera IP, the
hybrid design minimizes hardware in the ball while the camera increases fidelity.
“Smart balls require apps. Apps run on smartphones. Smartphones have cameras,” said
Clarity.Golf co-founder Dave Bisbee. “The Savant Smart Ball simply uses the camera that is
already there.”
The result, compared to prior designs, is improved durability, tighter quality control, more robust
manufacturing consistency, long-term stability and–perhaps what the market will appreciate
most–collapsed cost and robust fidelity.
The Savant Smart Ball’s internal electronics are contained within a tiny metal puck weighing less
than two grams. The puck generates virtually no heat, is tolerant to extreme shock, and sits
inside an otherwise normally architected ball core.
The protective puck is embedded in a way that is mechanically indistinguishable from the
surrounding core materials, preserving feel, balance, and on-course performance.
Depending on the type of play, the Savant Smart Ball is expected to function for not less than
15,000 shots and, in some use cases, well over 100,000 shots across the life of a single ball.
The smartphone camera, operating through the app, provides a real-world reference frame for
direction and motion. This addresses limitations that ball-only smart systems can encounter over
time by resolving ambiguity and drift through vision-grounded calibration.
The Savant Smart Ball is being built to operate across the full spectrum of use, from the lightest
putts to the most violent long-drive impacts.
“Clarity.Golf’s intent over the next 12 months is to bring logical instrumented ball capability to
market,” said Bisbee. “We define logical as delivering launch kinematics equal to or better than the finest launch monitor systems available today, combined with a ball that cannot be distinguished from a non-instrumented ball, at the same price as a non-instrumented ball.”
Clarity.Golf will exhibit at booth ETC-5 at the Golf Show and will be launching Cicero, a free
commons that enables independent golf practitioners to gain access to a fully free, growing, and
meaningful suite of emerging golf measurement technologies under Clarity’s belief that golf is
human, and its practitioners should be empowered by emerging technology and not be
disintermediated or diminished.
