Titan ACE Pickleball Machine

This machine is absolutely amazing. I’ve had it two weeks and it has made learning fun. Great drills and very robust machine. The new Titan Pro app makes adjusting the ball dynamics easy. I hope there will be a Start/Stop function for Apple Watch coming.

As a pickleball coach, this made it much more efficient to help students. They can recieve a constant consistent feed while I can stand and coach/correct form right next to the student. I customized drills to feed to 2 players and even just a single player on the court. The app is the best part of this allowing for the ultimate customization of ball feeds and drills. However the app is not as user friendly as most may think. When asked if I’d rent out the machine, I think it’s not as simple as people may find. So I am hesitant on renting it out right now. I’d say if there was a version where it could be a guest account on the app with extremely simple and intuitive operation it would make for a perfect product. In addition to the simple side, have the advanced more detailed side if one chooses to do so. Allowing for both simplicity and complex operations on the user end.

Love the machine but the app has a steep learning curve which makes loving the machine early on harder. I am sure this will be less and less of an issue as time goes on.

This machine rocks! Everyone loves it in my family. The only con is the very short memory - only 12 drills supported. You have to replace any of them with your custom drill and then reset it to revert back to pre-loaded one. Also, the app can be improved and be more user friendly in terms of building your custom drills.

Titan Ace is an excellent machine. I am coming to the Ace from having an Erne pickleball machine for the last year.

Compared to my old Erne, Ace is way lighter, making loading and unloading the machine from my van effortless. Ace has smaller more compact footprint, which make storing in my home easier, too. In my opinion, it is more aesthetically pleasing as well. Erne is made from a hard plastic and I would routinely get scuff marks on Erne from transport. Ace is made from a softer but still firm, almost rubbery feeling plastic and it seems to be resistant to scuffs so far. The Ace has a more open, airy design. There's a cut out in the back to which I am assuming is for quick access to the electrical components when needed. The base has plenty of holes to allow for air flow and for sand, grit, ball residue to pass through. It makes cleaning the machine a breeze. After each lesson I take my leaf blower and clean the machine. Erne has a full shell type design with the only opening in the front where the balls are launched. It made thoroughly cleaning the machine more difficult. There aren't any good "grab" points on Erne unless you remove the hopper. With Ace's more open design, I don't have to remove the hopper and I get a good grip to lift it in and out of my van. Finally, Erne sounded like a Mack truck rolling down the sidewalk. Erne just felt clunky and clumsy when rolling it to the courts. Titan Ace is virtually silent and rolls very smoothly. This pet peeve might not mean anything to others, but the clunkiness of Erne was annoying to me.

Titan Ace has a more powerful motor and braking system which allows you to customize each ball in a sequence, standard out of the box. Erne cannot do that without the added expense of an upgrade to it's firmware. Also, the throwing wheels on Titan Ace do no require the constant cleaning that Erne's does, unless you invest in upgrading Erne's throwing wheels for an additional cost, too. In my experience, Ace is also more consistent and accurate with ball placement verses Erne. I have a couple of small pet peeves about Erne's ball agitator. The agitator is a butterfly type design that sits in the middle of the ball carousel and it does not always get every ball loaded into that carousel. I would routinely get that one or 2 stray balls that managed the sit just beyond the agitator and visible through the hopper cut outs making you think you had more balls in hopper. Also, the agitator would sometimes get clogged up and pinch balls together and would send them shooting straight up out of the hopper. Ace has a straight bar/wire across the rear of it's carousel and so far I have not had either of those weird Erne issues.

The Titan app is where I see that improvements can be made. While it has a very sleek design, it is not very user friendly and is limiting. I have read that an update is supposed to be coming out this 3rd quarter of 2024, but so far I haven't seen it.

More instructional videos about how to use the app and what the values represent should be made. The arbitrary values in the app don't make sense. For example, the Speed value in the app is represented by 1-20. Actual speed in MPH would be more helpful. The Feed value is represented by 1-10. Obviously 1 is the slowest and 10 the fastest, but I am not sure what each value means... for the first setting of 1, does 1 mean 1 ball every 3 seconds...5..10?

I do not like that you are limited to only being able to save 12 drills and only being able to customize a single drill with only 6 shots. While you can use the MegaDrill setting to string a bunch of drills together, I would like to see an option for a single custom drill of at least 10 shots. With Erne's app I was able to change ball settings on the fly while the machine is actively throwing balls. I can't do that as easily with Ace. There's additional steps and the app makes you save the drill before it applies the new settings so there is a momentary pause before the changes take place. I have become faster at it, but it still bugs me as I feel it creates an interruption in the tempo and flow of my lessons/drill sessions.

Again, these improvements are supposed to be addressed with the app update and I hope they will be. In my opinion, with Ace's app version at this moment, Erne's app is just a touch more user friendly and easier to navigate.

Battery life for the Ace has been fine so far. I have not run down the battery more than 2 bars after 3 hours of instructing. I am looking to purchase an additional battery to have in case of emergency. Ace will also automatically shut down to conserve battery life when it detects that there are no balls left in the hopper. Erne does not and will continue to run until you stop it. Erne's battery is internal and cannot be removed. So you must lug Erne to your charging source versus popping the battery out of Ace and charging it. For me this is really a non issue as I store the machine in my home o...