Break Speed is software that runs on your smart phone. Break Speed can capture a pool break shot and tell you how fast your cue ball was moving.

Breaking faster, with accuracy, results in a better spread of balls and a greater chance of making a ball on the break.

The average player breaks at around 17mph. Professional players, breaking for power and control, break around 24mph. Achieving a consistent break over 20 MPH is a significant achievement. Breaking purely for power, with no concern for control, break competitions have reported speed over 30 MPH!

Getting above 20 MPH requires coordinating a number of muscles in your arm, body and even your hand. As you are working on your break, try just changing one component of your body mechanics at a time and let Break Speed provide feedback on the impact of each individual change. For example, if you incorporate a wrist-snap, use Break Speed to determine if the change is a benefit? Without feedback it is very difficult to determine how small changes effect your break.

Windows Mobile users can go to the download page with the web browser on your phone and install the software directly -or- you can download the program to your computer and install it on your phone via a USB cable connected to your phone (see download page for more details.)

Yes, we accept major credit cards and often your debit card can be used as a credit card as well. You don't even need a PayPal account.

I've had great luck with the phone just about anywhere in the vicinity of the breaker or on the drink tables near the pool table. Usually, though, I just put the phone on the side rail near the head string. Just be careful not to put the phone in a place where it might get damaged from flying balls.

Nope. Just break like normal.

Yes. There is one catch, though. If you are hitting a second-ball break, then Break Speed will give you a speed that is just a bit slower than the actual speed because the cue-ball actually has to travel a bit further than Break Speed thinks. To counter-act this, adjust the cue ball position (within Break Speed) forward by about a half-ball.

Bar boxes that take quarters are often 7-foot but may be 6-foot. Standard pool hall tables are usually 8-foot or oversized 8-foot tables (9-foot tables are also common). If you are unsure you can use your feet as a guide. Simply walk along the side of the table, one foot in front of the other, putting your heel up against your toe on each step and count the steps. One foot is 12 steps so divide your total by 12 to get the table size in feet.

Yes. I do this all the time.

In order to calculate speed, you need distance and time. This is why we say “55 miles [distance] per hour [time]”. So here’s how it works in a bit more detail:

Distance
Break Speed allows you to select your table (8-foot, Oversized 8, 9-foot, etc.) and gives you a visual interface to set the cue-ball position to specify where you are breaking from. From this, the software can calculate the distance.

Time
Break Speed records the audio of your break shot and locates the exact moment in time when your tip hits the cue ball (this is when the cue starts moving) and the exact moment when the cue ball hits the rack (this is when the cue ball has reached its destination.)

Speed
That’s really all there is to it – the accuracy of the final speed value is dependent up on the accuracy of the distance and time values going into the formula.

The iPod Touch comes with earbuds that have an inline microphone (at least, mine did.) This works great. For convenience during development, I purchased this mini microphone that plugs into the headphone jack. This also worked really well.

Yep. Thanks for asking.

It turns out that audio is actually a perfect fit for the problem of figuring out your break speed. It's only coincidence that it happens to work on portable devices.

High-speed video is often used to determine the speed of something (maybe you’ve seen this in an episode of MythBusters.) Those high-speed cameras run at 1,000 frames (or more accurately, “samples”) per second. When Break Speed is recording your break, it is actually sampling at over 44,000 times per second.

The short answer: Somewhere between a few hundredths of a MPH (best average case) to as much as one-tenth of a MPH (worst average case.)

The long answer (this will be for my fellow geeks, but non-geeks are welcome to try to follow along): The theoretical precision limit is 0.0043 MPH (for a 9-foot table, breaking from the spot at 22.6 MPH.) Unfortunately, that’s theoretical and not practical.

In practice, the accuracy of the final speed is determined by the accuracy of the inputs (distance and speed.) If you are placing your cue ball in an arbitrary position, you’re not likely to get that position exactly right within Break Speed’s interface. Also, the rack may not be exactly spotted on the head spot. So some human error will be introduced here. Also, the precision of the auto detection is very good, but even a human will often have a hard time determining exactly which audio sample represents the exact start of a sound event – it’s not always a black and white answer.

If you can, break from the head spot. Make sure that the cue ball is exactly on the head spot. This maximizes your ability to be precise when specifying the cue ball position within Break Speed. The Windows Mobile version includes an option to spot the cue-ball.

Make sure that the head ball on the rack is centered perfectly on the foot spot.

Place the phone near the break. The farther from the break you are, the more the speed is likely to be affected by echoes. I usually place the phone on the rail near the head string diamond to avoid accidental damage to the phone when the balls start flying.

Hit the rack square. This not only gives you more power, but any deviation from a perfectly square hit means that the cue ball travels just a bit farther before it reaches the target (which affects distance, which affects the final speed calculation.)

Break in a quiet environment. Break Speed has some very powerful break recognition technology, which is usually as good at locating the break shot as a human. However, louder environments make the exact start of the break shot harder and harder to determine. Consider what happens when the environment gets so loud that it is louder than the break shot – the break becomes impossible to determine.

Verify your results. Look at the waveform and zoom all the way in to each of the selected points. Make any adjustments you think are necessary. However, if you’re not sure, defer to the automatically detected points.

Break Speed is software that runs on your smart phone. Break Speed can capture a pool break shot and tell you how fast your cue ball was moving.

Breaking faster, with accuracy, results in a better spread of balls and a greater chance of making a ball on the break.

The average player breaks at around 17mph. Professional players, breaking for power and control, break around 24mph. Achieving a consistent break over 20 MPH is a significant achievement. Breaking purely for power, with no concern for control, break competitions have reported speed over 30 MPH!

Getting above 20 MPH requires coordinating a number of muscles in your arm, body and even your hand. As you figure out the right form for your body, Break Speed provides feedback on how each new thing you try impacts your actual speed. For example, if you incorporate a wrist snap is it working (is your break speed faster) or slowing you down? Without feedback it is very difficult to determine how small changes effect your break.

You can go to the download page with the web browser on your phone and install the software directly -or- you can download the program to your computer and install it on your phone via a USB cable connected to your phone (see download page for more details).

Via PayPal we accept major credit cards and often your debit card can be used as a credit card as well. You do not need to sign up for a PayPal account but if you have you can apply any balance you have towards purchasing the software.

Break Speed finds the sound of the tip hitting the cue ball and the cue ball hitting the rack (these show up as large spikes in the graph but differentiating breaks from other large spikes is where the new Break Recognition technology comes into play). The tip and break hits provide time while the cue ball placement (on the options screen) provides distance required to calculate your speed.

Using the "play" button (or P hotkey) to review the audio is a good way to both see and hear the break that was detected.

The timer counts down while the phone is recording your break. Recording your break consumes phone memory and longer recording times lead to slower break recognition and audio decoding (making the application slower to work with). Testing has shown that 45 seconds is normally more than enough time to complete a break shot.

If you get distracted by a conversation and have to start your break shot over simply hit the back button (to the left of the red phone button) and start the timer over again.

The graph shows the audio that was captured during your break. You can move around in the graph view pane to zoom / out when selecting a break manually. Track ball users are encouraged to only use the sliders below the graph area. Touch Screen users will interact with the graph directly for zooming and moving the graph.

The sliders start out located where the auto detection found a break. You can move them individually to adjust the break start and stop points.

The time labels indicate when the data shown on the graph was captured (starting from when the timer started). Each point in the graph window may represent multiple points of actual data in the audio. If the zoom level were say 10 that would indicate that each point on the screen represented 10 points and you could zoom in further to see more detail.

Auto detection is the first and best tool but it may not work in all environments. Playing back the audio stream, using the sliders to select the start and stop of the break, zooming in and out of the graph view and using the zoom button (zooms to selection or back to full screen size) all assist in finding breaks when auto detection isn't possible.

You can use the options screen either before or after you break. The options screen allows you to set your cue ball, which calculates break distance, as well as select the size of the table you are playing on. The options you set are automatically saved so if you have a regular breaking position you can set it once and not have to change it again.

Bar boxes that take quarters are often 7 FT but may be 6FT. Standard pool hall tables are usually 8 FT or oversized 8 FT tables (9 FT tables are also common). If you are unsure you can use your feet as a guide. Simply walk along the side of the table, one foot in front of the other, putting your heel up against your toe on each step and count the steps. One foot is 12 steps so divide your total by 12 to get the table size in feet.

Please watch the user video to learn all the tips and tricks (especially how to find breaks manually for those rare times when auto-detection doesn't find it).