StatShot

March 27, 2014

statshotIt is endlessly frustrating to miss the Big Moment. Especially during live sports, when victories and losses can hinge on a matter of milliseconds. Missing the Big Moment while you’re sitting on the couch, surfing for athlete stats on a second device, is even more maddening – all it would take to remedy this is to combine those devices.

Enter StatShot, a mobile device that turns a sports viewing experience into a statistical database for sports fans who want something beyond color commentary. StatShot uses multiscreen technology to create a seamless interaction between two different smart-screened devices.

The app uses free and public XML data streams online to bring specific and coordinated stats to the user. Because the scope of the sports statistics world is unfathomably huge, we stuck to the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics as a testing ground for the tech and idea (specifically USA’s hockey team). Users open the app and enter their Smart TV’s pin code, which automatically synchs the two devices. The user can then search the app by athlete, sport, or country, then swipe the profile they’re looking for up onto the TV screen. The swipe creates either a dialogue box in the top corner or a crawl at the bottom of the screen, depending on the event being watched and which method interferes with the viewing experience the least. The user can then learn the medal counts, records, and fun facts of the chosen athlete or team.

The fundamental idea behind the app is extremely scalable. Imagine fantasy sports leaguers all around America tuning into Sunday NFL games, and getting instant updates, on their TVs, when one of their tracked athletes gets taken out of the game. The tech is easily implemented and the popularity of smart TVs is on a steady rise. StatShot has the potential to become as crucial a part of sports viewership as peanuts at a baseball game.