How to Measure Bat Velocity Without a Radar Gun

Bat speed is how fast the barrel is moving at contact. It's one of the biggest drivers of how hard a hitter can hit the ball. (It's not the same as exit velocity, which is the ball's speed off the bat.) You don't need a radar gun to measure it. Here are the main options.

(We rewrote this article. The original had several steps that didn't make sense, like measuring distances to first and second base. This version sticks to methods that work.)

Option 1: a bat sensor

Bat sensors attach to the knob of the bat and pair with a phone app. They measure bat speed and other swing metrics on every swing, with or without hitting a ball. Brands like Blast Motion and Diamond Kinetics make them.

Good for: tracking every swing, including dry swings and tee work.

Option 2: slow-motion video and math

You can estimate barrel speed with a phone that shoots slow-motion video.

1. Put a strip of tape on the bat near the sweet spot (about 6 inches from the end of the barrel).
2. Film the swing from the side or above with the phone on a tripod, using the highest frame rate you have (240 fps is ideal). Put an object of known length in the frame for scale.
3. Find the frames just before contact. Measure how far the tape moved between two frames, using your known-length object to convert to feet.
4. Speed (ft/s) = distance ÷ time between frames. At 240 fps, that time is 1/240 of a second.
5. Multiply ft/s by 0.6818 to get mph.

Example: the tape moves 4 inches (0.333 ft) between two frames at 240 fps. 0.333 × 240 = 80 ft/s, × 0.6818 = about 55 mph.

It's an estimate: the camera angle and your measurements add error. Average a few swings.

Good for: a free, rough number and seeing the swing itself.

Option 3: phone apps

Some apps estimate bat speed from video. Results depend on the app, the phone and the setup, so treat them as estimates and use the same setup every time. We cover apps for pitch speed in radar gun apps vs real radar guns.

What about a bat-speed radar?

If you want a simple dedicated device, a small radar made for swing speed sits on the ground and reads the bat. See the Swing Speed Radar in our under-$100 guide. A regular pitching radar gun aimed at a swing can read something, but it isn't designed for it and may read the hands or the ball instead.

Using the numbers

• Compare to yourself. Bat speed varies a lot by age, size and bat. Track your own trend.
• Same setup every time. Same bat, same drill, same measuring method.
• One change at a time when testing stance or swing tweaks.

For drills, see how to increase bat velocity.

Want a simple swing-speed device? See the Swing Speed Radar in our under-$100 guide →