Pongbot Nova S Pro owners' review and discussion thread

[olanga]

Thank you very much @olanga and @smee0815 for your amazing contribution to the robot! Thanks to you the robot feels way more advanced for the price!

I want to make some suggestions:

Make the webapp independent of the keyboard, as when using it in the phone it scrolls out of the position pre keyboard and it's quite messy. I would place some arrows to up and down the values.
When changing the speed, the spin always goes to 2, I guess it is because not for all speeds we can use the same spin. But it's annoying when fine tuning an exercise. Is there a possible solution?

Also, it would be nice to share in this forum some of the drills, as they take a lot of time to fine tune, and we could all benefit of this info. I will start posting mine as soon as they mature.
Regarding the promotion of the webapp, I wouldn't. Because if in PongBot they find out, the logical way to go is to update the firmware so it doesn't work anymore (in fact, it would be a smart move to save the current firmware, if possible, just in case).

Probably, most of their users will never come to this forum, so for them it should'n be a threat to their business. I really was very disappointed when I saw with the app couldn't program more than 5 balls, and this doesn't appear on the specs (I wouldn't have bought it if I knew). That's how I found about the webapp (searching on how to extend the 5 balls).

@Imperfecto I train with the robot in shared tables in my town's sport center and I am not using wifi. With bluetooth and data connection is enough. No wifi is needed, in fact I don't even know how to set it up, it never asked for a wifi connection, even with the official app.

Hi @SergiArias, welcome to the forum and thank you.
The issue with the spin value occurs because deleting the speed value momentarily treats the input as "0," which has a maximum spin limit of 2. I will look into it. And 100% agree, it would be great if users would share their drills.

 

[The_mfk_Dude]

My white nova s arrived today. With tax I paid roughly 210€ and the shipping took 40 days.
It came with only a chinese plug, but I had a adapter and it seems to work fine. I also tried olangas webapp and it connected instantly. Then I tried a few balls and everything worked.
So if anyone is interested, I could share the name of the shop on aliexpress (I also have my omni from this shop).
Just pm me.

 

[olanga]

Hi @SergiArias , version 2.2h is now online to fix the annoyance with spin always going to 2 when changing the speed. Please test.
Hi @The_mfk_Dude ,looking forward to hearing how the robot works.

 

[pongbot68]

My white nova s arrived today. With tax I paid roughly 210€ and the shipping took 40 days.
It came with only a chinese plug, but I had a adapter and it seems to work fine. I also tried olangas webapp and it connected instantly. Then I tried a few balls and everything worked.
So if anyone is interested, I could share the name of the shop on aliexpress (I also have my omni from this shop).
Just pm me.

how much tax did you have to pay?

 

[The_mfk_Dude]

how much tax did you have to pay?

I would say around 30$. Alibaba collects the tax at checkout.

 

[Alex56]

Hello, please tell me, when charging the power bank for the Nova S Pro, should the power button on the power bank be turned on or does it not matter?

 

[plunder]

should the power button on the power bank be turned on

Hi fellow powerbank user! It's the first time in this thread that an owner posts something about the "original" powerbank (as we all know, Pongbot company is neither the designer nor the manufacturer of the powerbank). Feel free to share photos of your powerbank up close (labels, interface, anything), tia!

My multi-voltage powerbanks manufactured by Pweite company do have a power button which doesn't matter for charging. When it's turned off and one plugs a cable (either DC charging cable or USB-C charging cable), the device gets turned on automatically, recognizes the plugged port (DC vs USB-C), the mode (input vs output), the voltage, and the amperage. Wonderful, highly matured, stable, reliable product, with a long track record. This is the German distributor's old version of my updated newer Pweite (which costs ~80US$ on alix):

I operate my Nova S Pro exclusively with this powerbank. One full charge lasts for 5h of operation. After every session (say 3.0h), i quick-recharge the Pweite from ~25% to 100% within 1.0h, really fast.

💃
(( but as i mentioned before, i haven't been training with robi2 for months! instead, i've been training with rb1 rb3 rb4, up to 3.0h/session nonstop ))

 

[Alex56]

This is a photo of my power bank

 

[Alex56]

Это фотография моего портативного зарядного устройства.

Это фотография моего портативного зарядного устройства.

 

[Alex56]

Hello, please tell me, when charging the power bank for the Nova S Pro, should the power button on the power bank be turned on or does it not matter?

Response from pongbot customer service

 

[The_mfk_Dude]

So, first real try with olangas app. Very good job. I could program a fairly realistic drill in a few minutes (Short underspin serve as variant, push as variant followed by a variant drive).
While the app from olanga is very intuitiv and has a lot of options, the balls the robot produces lack rotation.
For a complex combi-drill, this is ok, but if you want to train a loop on underspin, with isolated pushes from the robot, the spin is too weak.

I also have the omni. So the nova is the opposite of the omni. Hardware not very good, but software (thanks to olange) is better than all I have seen so far!

 

[pongbot68]

Thanks got I also have the omni. So the nova is the opposite of the omni. Hardware not very good, but software (thanks to olange) is better than all I have seen so far!

do you mean that the hardware ist fundamental different?

 

[The_mfk_Dude]

do you mean that the hardware ist fundamental different?

Yes, absolut. The omni can produce way faster balls and the amount of spin is at least double the nova.
As far as I can see, the wheels are bigger and I think the motors are stronger - but I am not sure.

 

[pongbot68]

I think, the speed and spin is limited by firmware, not by hardware.
But I do not have the Omni. You are much closer.

 

[The_mfk_Dude]

I think, the speed and spin is limited by firmware, not by hardware.
But I do not have the Omni. You are much closer.

I just gave it a second look. The wheels are indeed the same size. Nevertheless I think the hardware differs. The Omni is much louder, and the head is bigger. Also the part where the balls come out look different.
But maybe you are right. For us users, it is of no matter.

 

[olanga]

Version 2.2m
Comfort function: the last played drill is now visually highlighted for easier navigation.

 

[olanga]

I think this will be of interest to all current and potential Nova S Pro owners. I finally got my hands on a Spinsight and performed a series of measurements with the Nova S Pro to objectively determine its spin and speed capabilities.
All tests were performed from position 8, zero degree, drop 0, height 0.
All results are also document here: link

Predefined basic drills, Spinsight rps and km/h. (each drill 5 balls average)​

Drill	Level	rps	km/h
Push	1	13	14
Push	2	19	14
Push	3	26	14
Drive	1	13	19
Drive	2	13	19
Drive	3	13	19
Loop	1	19	17
Loop	2	26	16
Loop	3	32	17

As you can see 'Drive' has the same spin and speed values on all levels. Interesting.

Speed to spin dependency, Spinsight rps and km/h (backspin)​

Speed	Max Spin	rps	km/h
0	2	--	--
0.5	3	--	--
1	4	--	--
1.5	5	28	13
2	6	36	17
2.5	7	43	19
3	8	52	20
3.5	9	56	23
4	10	61	24
4.5	10	66	25
5	9	59	29
5.5	8	53	29
6	8	53	33
6.5	7	46	34
7	6	42	36
7.5	5	33	39
8	4	28	40
8.5	3	21	42
9	2	16	46
9.5	1	13	47
10	0	0	48

Maximum spin achieved was 66 rps and speed 48 km/h

 

[SergiArias]

I think this will be of interest to all current and potential Nova S Pro owners. I finally got my hands on a Spinsight and performed a series of measurements with the Nova S Pro to objectively determine its spin and speed capabilities.
All tests were performed from position 8, zero degree, drop 0, height 0.
All results are also document here: link

Predefined basic drills, Spinsight rps and km/h​

Drill	Level	rps	km/h
Push	1	13	14
Push	2	19	14
Push	3	26	14
Drive	1	13	19
Drive	2	13	19
Drive	3	13	19
Loop	1	19	17
Loop	2	26	16
Loop	3	32	17

As you can see 'Drive' has the same spin and speed values on all levels. Interesting.

Speed to spin dependency, Spinsight rps and km/h (backspin)​

Speed	Max Spin	rps	km/h
0	2	--	--
0.5	3	--	--
1	4	--	--
1.5	5	28	13
2	6	36	17
2.5	7	43	19
3	8	52	20
3.5	9	56	23
4	10	61	24
4.5	10	66	25
5	9	59	29
5.5	8	53	29
6	8	53	33
6.5	7	46	34
7	6	42	36
7.5	5	33	39
8	4	28	40
8.5	3	21	42
9	2	16	46
9.5	1	13	47
10	0	0	48

Maximum spin achieved was 66 rps and speed 48 km/h

This is amazing! And a great help to build drills!

I am wondering, apart from topspin, that I guess you are waiting to test, did you try backspin on serves? In theory spin should be weaker

For example, height -30, 1.5 speed, 4 spin, drop 7. It should give a number below 28 according to your table...

Interestingly, I don't feel this robot as weak in regards to spin as many people complain, but the numbers you show makes people right in this intuition...

 

[plunder]

Maximum spin achieved was 66 rps and speed 48 km/h

the table lists 18 rows with speed values. it should be noted clearly, in the post, if/whether each ball does land on the table. sorry for not testing myself, it's just hard to imagine that all 18 balls do(?) land.

 

[olanga]

the table lists 18 rows with speed values. it should be noted clearly, in the post, if/whether each ball does land on the table. sorry for not testing myself, it's just hard to imagine that all 18 balls do(?) land.

Hi, the second test I performed was for the pure purpose to objectively determine Nova's spin and speed capabilities.
I was not even thinking to land any of test balls on the table.
I'm sure you could make any ball land on the table if you had a big enough room