All Smartspeed models use our Error Correction Processing algorithm to eliminate errors caused by hands, feet and other equipment, proven by independent research* to be superior to other single and dual beam systems. Errors caused by hands and knees seriously affect the accuracy of your results, especially at the start and ruing the acceleration phase.
If your timing is not reliable, there is no way to objectively identify improvements in your athletes. Hand timing results in errors of up to 10%, while even many timing gate systems can suffer errors of 5-7% with hand breaks and false starts. With inaccuracy like this, an athlete may improve by 5%, but your timing method could tell them they have become slower.
Systems such as Smartspeed are programmed to interpret all events as an athlete passes through the light beam, and takes the start of the largest event, which is always the torso. Using this correction method, there can be any number of hand breaks, trailing foot breaks etc – the microprocessor will simply take the largest event, and take the start of this event as the time point.
*Source: Earp, J.E. & Newton, R.U. (2012) Advances in electronic timing systems: considerations for selecting an appropriate timing system.
Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 26(5):1245-8.