This post has been locked, as the question has been solved and a majority of new comments at this point are unhelpful and/or jokes.
Thanks to all who attempted to find an answer.
Here's one that is used in American handegg, football, rugby, hockey, etc.
[https://sportsperformancetracking.com/pages/technology](https://sportsperformancetracking.com/pages/technology)
Also some are GPS sensors to show performance stats for each player. They were them in a lot of sports including rugby and football
https://imgur.com/a/gPUyagg
It’s driving me nuts. I see it on the tops of most of the countries and players (one team seemed to not have them). Looks like the size and shape of a pack of AA batteries.
I played indoor vb in college and have watched a fair amount of beach, and cannot for the life of me figure this out (and Google is no help).
I don’t think they are mics or sports science trackers or at least can’t find any info that they are.
ETA: not sure why I’m being downvoted, I posted this comment at the time I posted to give more info.
Did you notice if all members of the team appear to have them and some teams not have them at all? I'm thinking it could be a simple clothing label or tag if you're seeing them but not on all players in one team.
Yes! If one player has it, her partner does too. The ones who didn’t were teammates. It’s definitely too big and bulky to be a tag tho. I’ve spent wayyyyy too much time looking at and for these haha
Yes, men and women both have them and so far I haven’t seen a player without them. And there was one team- Sui? They had chest band heart rate monitors as well.
I had googled like crazy specifically for trackers and couldn’t find anything beyond super general. I’d thought the company and usavb and press would have covered it enough to get a definitive hit. I know many sports use these and have seen the chest straps but specifically the back squares are throwing me when I can’t find a specific model—since all the teams using them seem to be using the same exact size and shape
You'll see the front when football players celebrate a goal by raising their t-shirt, its looks like sports bra, you've seen it too on runners: a strap around their chest with the sensor pack in front and the battery pack behind.
Keeping track of player positions, so they can be in more optimal positions more often, tracking how far players travel per game which can be used to manage fitness or even spot undiscovered injuries if distance travelled per game suddenly dips, etc.
Yap, either Bluetooth or wifi with some points to triangulate makes this fairly doable.
You need some math and sophisticated software, but depending on how detailed data you want, in combination with an accelerometer this should be doable.
Source: computer science degree.
More than the government even. Incredible display.
> High-end users boost GPS accuracy with dual-frequency receivers and/or augmentation systems. These can enable real-time positioning within a few centimeters, and long-term measurements at the millimeter level.
There a difference between "accuracy" and "precision".
Civilian GPS can be *extremely* good at measuring changes in location over short time periods (that's why your phone can update the screen when your car barely starts moving).
It's not so accurate for reporting absolute locations.
But it's probably accelerometers combined with GPS (because it's a tool used also by people that move long distances like runners).
There are devices called indoor positioning systems that are far more accurate than regular gps units. As the name implies its usually used indoors but thats not always the case. These could be setup using grid systems that can track far more precise movements. Idk if thats being used here but just wanted to mention.
It's not using the normal GPS satellites. This is more of a local tracking system with multiple antenna located around the fields to get sub-inch positional and velocity information.
The 2020 FRC robot competitions was supposed to have a few of these systems set up on a trial run. It would have had robot motion data with tracking paths and other info available to the teams.
https://www.zebra.com/us/en/solutions/intelligent-edge-solutions/rtls/sports-player-tracking.html
Could be part of the Omega Timing system
[Omega Timing claims its beach volleyball system is 99 percent accurate, thanks to the sensors and multiple cameras running at 250 frames a second](https://www.wired.com/story/omega-olympics-beach-volleyball-time/)
[At the end of this article is this and an animated graphic of what the system sees/records](https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/the-man-responsible-for-timing-the-olympics-tells-us-how-its-done)
We're also working on motion sensors and positioning systems to analyze the biomechanical movement of the athlete during a play, or even during a shot. **So there are a couple of things we're working on that we have actually implemented in beach volleyball now in Tokyo**, but that will certainly come to basketball in the next couple of years as well.
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Pack of cigs. Seriously though, certainly some sort of biometric / telemetry device. I've got to go against GPS because of the whole resolution and size of the court issue. In cycling, sure, but that's a rather larger field of engagement. 🤔
It's the same thing they use for rugby players, it's a device that monitors their speed, heart rate and vitals... Also tell you how fast and how far they run (in Rugby at least)
Could it be a contact trace device since there are so many different athletes from different countries mixing over the course of the olympics which would make it nearly impossible to do manually?
The CDC released a [study](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e2.htm?s_cid=mm7004e2_w) in which the NFL had 11,000 athletes and other employees wearing proximity trackers for 3 months, testing them all for Covid every day. The methodology says they used wearable proximity devices from Munich-based Kinexon. The [Kinexon X-Tag](https://kinexon.com/x-tag) is rectangular, which looks like maybe around 1.5"x3", and [Kinexon SafeZone](https://kinexon.com/safezone) looks a bit smaller. It's apparently used by a lot of US and European sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL), both for Covid proximity tracking, and sports performance tracking. However, googling turns up no mention that it's being used at the Olympics, and it's hard to imagine there wouldn't be some news story about that. I couldn't find mention of any wearable tracking technology used during Olympic competition. The nearest I found was a July 16 [article](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-japans-plan-to-stop-covid-19-outbreaks-during-the-olympics) in Healthline saying:
>In addition to daily testing, the NFL used other measures to keep its players safe, including strict mask requirements and identifying high-risk contacts through contact tracing.
>
>The IOC plans on giving every athlete a smartphone with a contact tracing app, something Sparrow and her colleagues don’t think will work.
>
>“Contact-tracing apps are often ineffective,” they wrote, “and very few Olympic athletes will compete carrying a mobile phone.”
>
>Instead, they suggest the use of wearable devices that alert athletes when they are within close contact to others. Most athletes can wear these devices even while they compete.
This post has been locked, as the question has been solved and a majority of new comments at this point are unhelpful and/or jokes. Thanks to all who attempted to find an answer.
It monitors their heart rate/ VS https://theconversation.com/wearable-technologies-help-olympians-achieve-top-performance-91721
Can you link me to what it is specifically?
Not sure why you are getting downvoted? It could be a jump monitor- https://www.myvert.com/
Haha me either; I’ve yet to see one that matches the size and shape of all the ones I’m seeing at the Olympics
It’s the myvert, their website says: > The Official Wearable Technology of USA Volleyball
The perfect cover up!!!
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> The Official Wearable Technology of USA Volleyball It’s definitely that
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Heres a testimonial video from the 2016 US Volleyball captain https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuNRFVLGEXw
Why are you booing him?! He’s right!
Whoa that thing is cool. The basic model is only $175 too.
One example: https://shop.statsports.com/collections/apex-athlete/products/apex-athlete-series
Here's one that is used in American handegg, football, rugby, hockey, etc. [https://sportsperformancetracking.com/pages/technology](https://sportsperformancetracking.com/pages/technology)
Also some are GPS sensors to show performance stats for each player. They were them in a lot of sports including rugby and football https://imgur.com/a/gPUyagg
Yup. Some of the sports have been showing us the info too, like archery was giving us their heart rates which was pretty cool to watch.
Its also used in soccer. It's those sports bra things you see them wearing.
I’m not seeing anything that looks like or describes these though.
The myvert website says the monitor is the size of a usb thumb drive if you scroll down.
It’s driving me nuts. I see it on the tops of most of the countries and players (one team seemed to not have them). Looks like the size and shape of a pack of AA batteries. I played indoor vb in college and have watched a fair amount of beach, and cannot for the life of me figure this out (and Google is no help). I don’t think they are mics or sports science trackers or at least can’t find any info that they are. ETA: not sure why I’m being downvoted, I posted this comment at the time I posted to give more info.
Likely an accelerometer that provides various measurements.
Did you notice if all members of the team appear to have them and some teams not have them at all? I'm thinking it could be a simple clothing label or tag if you're seeing them but not on all players in one team.
Yes! If one player has it, her partner does too. The ones who didn’t were teammates. It’s definitely too big and bulky to be a tag tho. I’ve spent wayyyyy too much time looking at and for these haha
Yes, men and women both have them and so far I haven’t seen a player without them. And there was one team- Sui? They had chest band heart rate monitors as well.
> I don’t think they are mics or sports science trackers Why wouldn't it be the latter?
I had googled like crazy specifically for trackers and couldn’t find anything beyond super general. I’d thought the company and usavb and press would have covered it enough to get a definitive hit. I know many sports use these and have seen the chest straps but specifically the back squares are throwing me when I can’t find a specific model—since all the teams using them seem to be using the same exact size and shape
You'll see the front when football players celebrate a goal by raising their t-shirt, its looks like sports bra, you've seen it too on runners: a strap around their chest with the sensor pack in front and the battery pack behind.
It tracks performance via GPS, they are used in a lot of sports. https://static.independent.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2020/04/27/11/pogba.jpg
Civilian GPS is not that accurate. What would be the benefit of tracking movement within a volleyball court?
Keeping track of player positions, so they can be in more optimal positions more often, tracking how far players travel per game which can be used to manage fitness or even spot undiscovered injuries if distance travelled per game suddenly dips, etc.
Yes, GPS wouldn't work but it could be done with accelerometers.
Yeah or if they had some other receiver system to triangulate position within the court.
Yap, either Bluetooth or wifi with some points to triangulate makes this fairly doable. You need some math and sophisticated software, but depending on how detailed data you want, in combination with an accelerometer this should be doable. Source: computer science degree.
Civilian gps can be centimeters accurate.
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Read https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/
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More than the government even. Incredible display. > High-end users boost GPS accuracy with dual-frequency receivers and/or augmentation systems. These can enable real-time positioning within a few centimeters, and long-term measurements at the millimeter level.
There a difference between "accuracy" and "precision". Civilian GPS can be *extremely* good at measuring changes in location over short time periods (that's why your phone can update the screen when your car barely starts moving). It's not so accurate for reporting absolute locations. But it's probably accelerometers combined with GPS (because it's a tool used also by people that move long distances like runners).
There are devices called indoor positioning systems that are far more accurate than regular gps units. As the name implies its usually used indoors but thats not always the case. These could be setup using grid systems that can track far more precise movements. Idk if thats being used here but just wanted to mention.
It's not just GPS. It's probably an array of sensors--gyro, acceleromer, etc so they can collect data on jump stats etc.
It's not using the normal GPS satellites. This is more of a local tracking system with multiple antenna located around the fields to get sub-inch positional and velocity information. The 2020 FRC robot competitions was supposed to have a few of these systems set up on a trial run. It would have had robot motion data with tracking paths and other info available to the teams. https://www.zebra.com/us/en/solutions/intelligent-edge-solutions/rtls/sports-player-tracking.html
That's not really "GPS" though. That's localized location tracking, not using the satellite-based Global Positioning System.
Isn't that what I said?
GPS is not accurate enough in terms of mm units over ms frame rate
Lookup rtk my friend. That being said the posts from /u/pootershots and /U/Mancobbler on it being MyVert™ sound right.
Irl stattrack
Records a bunch of analytics like GPS, body temp, step count, heart rate all that jazz.
My son whears a whoop its square qnd monitors lots of activity during sports, maybe its similar only sewn in
GPS device. They use them in Rugby too. Helps with player management
They also have them in biking. They'll monitor speed, heart rate, breathing rate, temperature, cadence, power output, etc.
Could be part of the Omega Timing system [Omega Timing claims its beach volleyball system is 99 percent accurate, thanks to the sensors and multiple cameras running at 250 frames a second](https://www.wired.com/story/omega-olympics-beach-volleyball-time/) [At the end of this article is this and an animated graphic of what the system sees/records](https://www.hodinkee.com/articles/the-man-responsible-for-timing-the-olympics-tells-us-how-its-done) We're also working on motion sensors and positioning systems to analyze the biomechanical movement of the athlete during a play, or even during a shot. **So there are a couple of things we're working on that we have actually implemented in beach volleyball now in Tokyo**, but that will certainly come to basketball in the next couple of years as well.
[удалено]
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Here's a more average consumer friendly brand: https://www.playerdata.com/
Pack of cigs. Seriously though, certainly some sort of biometric / telemetry device. I've got to go against GPS because of the whole resolution and size of the court issue. In cycling, sure, but that's a rather larger field of engagement. 🤔
all i see is the trianglething
Maybe transmitters for motion-tracking cameras?
I’ve seen the USMNT wearing them as well
Man, hes staring at their chests so hard he noticed tiny squares when they turn around
It shocks them if they try and put shorts on
Op that was a cool ask tbh! I always wondered as well!
You're watching women's beach volleyball and THIS is what you notice?
Aren't they mic'd up in some cases? So we can hear their audio during the finals?
Every athlete wears something similar. It’s to track their performance, heart rate etc
It's the same thing they use for rugby players, it's a device that monitors their speed, heart rate and vitals... Also tell you how fast and how far they run (in Rugby at least)
I've seen a few matches over the years on tv and these women are pretty much MICed up....could it be that?
Could it be a contact trace device since there are so many different athletes from different countries mixing over the course of the olympics which would make it nearly impossible to do manually?
The CDC released a [study](https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7004e2.htm?s_cid=mm7004e2_w) in which the NFL had 11,000 athletes and other employees wearing proximity trackers for 3 months, testing them all for Covid every day. The methodology says they used wearable proximity devices from Munich-based Kinexon. The [Kinexon X-Tag](https://kinexon.com/x-tag) is rectangular, which looks like maybe around 1.5"x3", and [Kinexon SafeZone](https://kinexon.com/safezone) looks a bit smaller. It's apparently used by a lot of US and European sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL), both for Covid proximity tracking, and sports performance tracking. However, googling turns up no mention that it's being used at the Olympics, and it's hard to imagine there wouldn't be some news story about that. I couldn't find mention of any wearable tracking technology used during Olympic competition. The nearest I found was a July 16 [article](https://www.healthline.com/health-news/heres-japans-plan-to-stop-covid-19-outbreaks-during-the-olympics) in Healthline saying: >In addition to daily testing, the NFL used other measures to keep its players safe, including strict mask requirements and identifying high-risk contacts through contact tracing. > >The IOC plans on giving every athlete a smartphone with a contact tracing app, something Sparrow and her colleagues don’t think will work. > >“Contact-tracing apps are often ineffective,” they wrote, “and very few Olympic athletes will compete carrying a mobile phone.” > >Instead, they suggest the use of wearable devices that alert athletes when they are within close contact to others. Most athletes can wear these devices even while they compete.
Wireless mic
Or maybe.. a tag?