Huupe, a US-based sports technology start-up has introduced what it describes as the world's first smart basketball hoop gaming console, the Huupe Mini.
The co-founders of Huupe, Lyth Saeed, a Palestinian-American, and Paul Anton, a Greek-American, both from Milwaukee, say the Huupe Mini brings the driveway basketball experience of the company's standard hoop product consisting of a backboard doubling as a monitor to indoor locations on a miniature scale.
"It goes over the door in your bedroom, office or dorm room, and it allows people to play against each other around the world,” said Mr Anton, during an interview with The National.
"It also tracks all of your makes and misses, your shot distance, one pointers, two pointers, and three pointers, and we create a bunch of fun games.”
Huupe Mini is currently available for $599, while its standard sized offering, Huupe Pro, is available for $9,995.
While there are no other competitors in the smart basketball hoop marketplace, Huupe's co-founders acknowledged they are entering a crowded marketplace.
"Mini hoops have been around for 40 years or so now, Nerf was one of the first companies to pioneer mini hoops and both Lyth and I had one,” Mr Anton said.
"They're a lot of fun, a great way to play basketball indoors, and they're still a good workout … you can really get a good sweat going.”
The Huupe Mini, like Huupe Pro, has the ability to track and analyse shooting performance through the use of advanced radar as well as light detection and ranging (lidar) technology.
According to Mr Anton, Huupe made a conscious decision to avoid using cameras in the product that would have been able to help keep track of statistics to preserve privacy.
"We didn't cut any corners on this, we could've taken the easy route and put a camera on this thing, but we decided not to because this thing is going to be in homes,” he said, explaining the technology Huupe uses instead.
"It was three times as hard to get the accurate levels for shot tracking without using a camera, but we did it.”
Huupe Mini allows for users to play with other Huupe Mini owners around the world, and with an HDMI port and built-in WiFi, it can also be used to connect to streaming services like YouTube or Netflix.
According to a news release from the company, in addition to shot tracking and statistic keeping capabilities, several built-in games for the Huupe Mini enable users to take part in daily challenges with other users.
Huupe Mini also allows for custom user avatars through in-game purchases.
Mr Anton said that while Huupe's initial Huupe Pro generated ample excitement and media attention in recent years, the company was even more excited about the potential of Huupe Mini given the lower price point and larger potential user base.
"This is something that most people can afford … it's small and people can travel with it,” he said.
"We never got into this to only make at $10,000 basketball hoop.”
Since its founding in 2016, Huupe has raised approximately $11 million from investors.
It took several years for the start-up to perfect the technology behind its initial smart hoop, which it unveiled in 2022 and started shipping around the world in 2023.
During a 2024 interview at the Leap technology conference in Saudi Arabia, Mr Saeed said the company had installed its Huupe Pro at one of Saudi Aramco's facilities.
Both Mr Anton and Mr Saeed said that several venture capitalists from the Middle East have invested in Huupe, and in particular, the UAE.
"Now we're taking full revenue and our goal is to be a self-sustaining company,” said Mr Anton.
"We're doing well, we're almost on our way, and we're really close,” he added, noting that thousands of orders for the Huupe Pro have been placed, with hundreds of those orders shipped around the world.
Mr Anton also said that while Huupe is incredibly focused on basketball related products, they have not ruled out expanding sports-technology offerings.
"We can tell you that we're working on a soccer application,” he said, stopping short of expanding upon the details of what that application or product might entail.
"We'll talk more about that in the future,” Mr Saeed added. "But overall we do plan to expand into other sports.”
Both co-founders say they have had Huupe Pro orders from NBA players and other professional basketball entities around the world.
They also say the company and its products continue generate interest from sport leagues.
While it remains to be seen if Huupe will achieve a level of success and ubiquity equal to the current traditional basketball hoops in parks, driveways, gyms, or in the case of Huupe Mini, homes, Mr Anton is not looking back, and said he would still be doing something involving basketball if Huupe did not exist at all.
"I'd be coaching kids in basketball or something,” he said.
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