THE APP
Back to Phil:
“Wow, right!? I mean that’s quite a lot of functionality and potential
isn’t it? I got in touch with the guys who own and run this UK-
based company to see if I could borrow a set for a review and I
was delighted when a few days later a couple of boxes arrived. I’d
been sent the starter pack, which retails for UK£395 and includes
five targets, five batteries, five tree mounts, a battery charger and
five replaceable front panels. What you’ll need on top of this if
you want to run them on stands, is a set of camera light stands
(available from the AttackSense shop or Amazon/eBay) and an
Android device to run the app that controls it all. You can buy
a tablet pretty cheaply to do this and the guys had included a
LenovoTab E7 in the boxes. They offer this an option with the 3D
printed mount and a tripod stand, for a very reasonable UK£79
extra.”
SETTING UP
When you receive the sytem I can now say that setting up is a
breeze! Once the tablet is on and you’ve opened up the app, you
just connect the batteries to one of the targets and it will become
the “Master”; wait until you see this one on the screen and then
plug the rest in. Any target can be the Master unit so there’s no
worries that you’ve connected them up wrong. You can attach
up to 32 targets to one control unit but trust me; after having a
go with ten, that’s more than enough and that number had both
the old heart rate and adrenaline going at max output! Once they
are connected, they will be able to communicate with each other
anywhere in a square 100m x 100m, and that’s a pretty big area.
Through the app you get real time data on the status of the
targets, their batteries and of course the all important data on
how well you’re shooting. I would suggest that to get a baseline
score do a round of “Shoot When Lit” first, before you do anything
else and then crack on with whatever you want to have a play
with but at the end of your session (the supplied batteries can
last for the best part of a day so you could be a while!), repeat the
“Shoot When Lit” program and then, using the in-app recording,
you can check your scores and see, hopefully, an improvement.
The first time Phil used it he noticed he was approximately 50%
faster than his first run and he tells me hes has improved more
since then too, mainly in mag changes and transitions, which, in
his words, “were frankly shocking to begin with”.
So how does this magical system work then? Basically the
“target” is an aluminium sheet with a plastic correx faceplate
screwed to it, which is replaceable. In the centre of this is a
CNC milled opaque lens, protecting the RGB LEDS that provide
the different colours for “Shoot No Shoot” or other and they
are perfectly bright enough to be seen at distance so you know
you’ve hit them. Each hit also registers on the controller and
there’s a beep too, so it guarantees that you know what’s what.
They don’t currently say where on the target they are hit, just that
they are hit. Phil tells me that so far his set shows absolutely zero
signs of use or damage on the lenses, not even a slight indent
after extended use.
Everything to make the targets work is contained inside 3D
printed boxes on the back of each aluminium backing and there
are no moving parts to be knocked about by continued hits and
the aluminium sheet is plenty thick enough to provide years and
years of trouble free use with 6mm BBs. The batteries are also
protected in 3D printed cases that slide onto mounts next to the
target box so there is no danger of damaging these during use.
Once you’ve finished a round, the app can display a multitude
of stats to embarrass you, including your worst split or worst
reaction time but it really does drive you to do better.
I got together with Neil from AttackSense a short while back
and he told me;
If it is in dense woodland though, these numbers will be reduced
as the signal will obviously have interference but it is rarely more
than a few metres difference. From here it is simply a case of
entering your name if you so wish and then picking your poison.
Speaking of which, there are eleven options on there, which
include things like “Shoot When Lit”, “Target Practice”, “Shoot No
Shoot” and a particular favourite of mine, an electronic version
of a dueling tree, where you have to get all the targets your
colour whilst another shooter does the same. That is an immense
amount of fun but the first few times I guarantee that as good as
you may think you are you will fluff a mag change or transition
and you will get it so wrong you just start swearing!
There is also a “Custom Round Configurator” option, so you
can program the targets to do exactly what you want from them,
even having previously “hit” targets coming back into play at a
predetermined point, which is a pretty cool feature and a definite
improvement over paper targets or knockdown ones. The team
at AttackSense are always evolving the product offering and
can write pretty much anything for it. They welcome feedback
and suggestions; there have already been three updates to the
software since Phil receieved his set!
pmcimagazine.com