SmartGoals, our own IP-protected infrared training system that measures football performance to 0.01-second accuracy
Industry: Sports Technology
Service: Hardware Design, Embedded Software, RF & Bluetooth Communication
Used by: Football clubs from grassroots to professional level
Status: Commercially available — smartgoals.nl
SmartGoals is SPINNOV's own IP-protected infrared and sensor technology, complemented with a Bluetooth communication protocol to train awareness, reaction, agility, and team play in dynamically changing game situations.
The system is trusted by over 2,000 clubs worldwide, including Manchester United, Ajax, PSV, Derby County, and Schalke.
What SmartGoals is
SmartGoals is SPINNOV's own IP-protected sports training system, infrared-equipped smart cones that detect the moment a ball or body part passes through a gate, transmit that signal wirelessly to the next cone in the sequence, and measure the performance of each exercise with an accuracy of 0.01 seconds.
The system is used by professional and amateur football clubs to train and measure reaction time, agility, cognitive decision-making, and team coordination in dynamically changing scenarios.
The engineering challenge
Building a system that works reliably on a football pitch placed specific demands on the hardware and software.
The infrared detection had to be accurate enough to register the exact moment a ball or limb broke the beam, at 0.01 second resolution, without false positives from ambient light, wind movement, or players running close to the cones without triggering them. The detection logic in the embedded firmware had to distinguish a genuine trigger from noise, every time, across a full training session outdoors
The wireless communication between cones had to be fast enough that a signal detected at one gate reached the next gate, activating its light, before the player arrived at it.
Any perceptible delay between detection and the next visual stimulus undermines the cognitive training value of the exercise. The RF and Bluetooth communication stack was designed and tuned for the low-latency, reliable transmission the system required across the distances typical on a training pitch.
Durability was a non-negotiable. The cones are placed on grass, kicked, knocked over, left out in rain, and packed into charging cases at the end of sessions. The hardware had to survive regular use in field conditions without degrading in performance, which meant careful choices in enclosure design, connector specification, and component selection.
What We Built
Infrared detection hardware: sensing circuitry accurate to 0.01 seconds, engineered to perform reliably in varying outdoor light conditions
Embedded firmware: managing sensor triggering, timing logic, signal validation, and inter-cone communication
RF and Bluetooth communication stack: low-latency wireless protocol coordinating detection events and light activation across a network of cones on the pitch
Smart lighting system: visual stimulus hardware integrated into the cones, driven by the communication layer to activate in response to player triggers or pre-programmed training sequences
SmartCharger integration: charging hardware for field-ready power management across a set of cones
Full IP protection: the technology, firmware, and system architecture are SPINNOV's own proprietary intellectual property
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The difference between a 0.3 second and a 0.32 second reaction time is invisible to the human eye but meaningful to an elite coach tracking whether a training intervention is working. SmartGoals was designed from the beginning around measurement accuracy as a core product value, not a feature, but the reason the system exists.
The infrared detection circuit was engineered to capture the moment of beam interruption with consistent precision across all lighting conditions. The firmware timestamping logic was built to minimise jitter between the physical event and the recorded time, ensuring the numbers the system produces are comparable across sessions, players, and environments. This level of accuracy is what separates SmartGoals data from the subjective assessments coaches otherwise rely on.
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The training value of SmartGoals depends on the next cone lighting up before the player reaches it, giving them something to react to, not something to confirm they already decided. This means the communication loop between cones, from detection at one gate to light activation at the next, has to complete in well under the time it takes a player moving at speed to cover the distance between them.
We designed the RF communication protocol specifically for this use case, prioritising latency over throughput, with a simple, deterministic message structure that the firmware could process and act on with minimal overhead. The result is a system where the light response feels instantaneous to the player, maintaining the cognitive pressure the drill is designed to create.