This past month I have been testing the Pongbot Omni S Pro. The is a table tennis robot with advanced functionality. Its aim is to compete with other top-of-the-range robots, such as the Butterfly Amicus Prime and the Power Pong Omega.
But here’s the thing – the Pongbot Omni S Pro is significantly cheaper than its competitiors. In fact it is more than half the price. Now, this raises some alarm bells. How can this robot claim to have so many features, but the price is so low? Either the other top-of-the range robots are massively overpriced. Or the Omni S Pro is an inferior product. Or somehow Pongbot has managed to manufacture a robot with advanced features at a much lower price point. Hmm, which one is it?
Well, I spent a month trying to solve this puzzle. In this review, I will give my honest verdict of the Pongbot Omni S Pro. I will explain what the robot does well, its limitations and crucially how it compares to other top-of-the-range table tennis robots.
The robot
Let’s start with the robot itself. It took me around 15 minutes to unbox the Omni S Pro and get it set up and ready to use. The set-up instructions were easy to follow and most of the set-up time involved attaching the ball collection net. But this is a one-time job. Once you have done the initial set-up you won’t need to do it again.
Like other advanced robots, the Omni S Pro uses a ball recycling system. A collection net is attached to the robot, so when you hit the balls, the net catches them and they fall into a tray to be fed back into the robot. This allows for continuous play, with far less stopping to pick up balls from the floor.
The ball collection net for the Omni S Pro is quite large. This has pros and cons. When folded (for storage) it is quite a bit bigger than my Power Pong Omega. I’ve had to be a little inventive in finding a space to keep the robot when not in use. The extra size of the net also makes it a little more cumbersome to lift onto the table and clamp into place.
However, the larger size collection net does a much better job at actually catching the balls. The collection net is quite deep and there are two extra netting flaps to slow the balls down and prevent them from bouncing out. This means more balls get fed into the recycling tray and less time is wasted picking up balls from the floor. So even though the collection net adds extra height and weight to the robot, it does make the playing experience more enjoyable.
The recycling tray can take 200+ balls, but since the ball collection net does such a good job, you can use fewer balls (100-150 may be optimal) and still have a lot of continuous play before needing to do a sweep of balls from the floor.
The robot uses a two wheel system to generate different speeds and spin. But you don’t see any of this as it’s all hidden inside the robot head, which looks quite futuristic. The head itself moves left to right and up and down and can rotate. Thus it is able to generate any type of spin. This is different to the Butterfly Amicus Prime and Power Pong Omega which use a stationary 3 wheel system and moving plates to deflect the ball.
I much prefer the moving head on the Omni S Pro for one simple reason – it helps me see where the ball is going to go. This makes any drills with a random element more worthwhile, as you can focus on the movement of the robot head and then react accordingly. It’s a good way of training my eyes, to focus on my opponent (in this instance, a robot). The robot head also has lights to indicate what spin will be on the ball. Again this is another nice feature to help train eyes whilst using a robot.
In this short video, I show how quick it is to set up the robot and I also give a closer look at the ball collection net, recycling try and robot head…
The software
The Omni S Pro can be controlled from the Pongbot app on your phone or tablet. It’s the same app which is used for both the Pongbot Nova S Pro and Pongbot Halo S Pro. It’s pretty easy to use, especially if you prefer to focus on the pre-programmed drills.
Each of these drills come with a difficulty level of 1-star, 2-star and 3-star. You simply click the drill, choose the difficulty level and set how long you want to do the drill for. For players who are not tech savvy, it really is very simple to use. There are so many drills, you’d probably never need to use any of the more advanced features of the app.
The more advanced features of the app are still pretty simple to use. For example, when setting up your own custom drill, you have a few settings which will adjust the placement, spin, speed, ball trajectory and frequency. It does take a little time to get used to what all these different settings do, but it’s really not that difficult.
With the Omni S Pro, you also get an e-pad, which is an alternative way of controlling the robot. This has all the pre-programmed drills and can sync with the phone app to store any custom drills you create. This e-pad works great for doing the basic drills, probably better than the phone app. Although I preferred the phone app for creating custom drills. But either option – the phone app or the e-pad are both pretty user-friendly.
Pre-programmed drills
The Omni S Pro comes with many pre-programmed drills. On its website Pongbot claims there are ‘522 built in drills’. This is misleading. Using my good old-fashioned counting technique, there are actually 66 separate pre-programmed drills in the app. Each drill comes with three difficulty levels and Pongbot have counted these towards the total. But how they managed to get to 522, I’m not sure.
Let’s stick to my number of 66. It sounds a lot less than 522, but actually it is still a lot of drills. And crucially, these drills cover most things you actually want to practice. I have been using table tennis robots for over 10 years and there are probably 15-10 key drills that I use again and again. And all the key drills I like to do are already pre-programmed in the app. This makes my life easier, as I don’t need to programme them myself. Pongbot has done a good job here.
The pre-programmed drills are divided into three sections.
- Basic – These are one shot drills, e.g. forehand drive from one position
- Combined – These are two shot combinations, e.g. backhand push, forehand loop
- Complex – These are three or four shot combinations, e.g. backhand flick, forehand drive, backhand drive
One of my ‘go to’ drills is push, loop, drive, which is located in the complex section. Pongbot has included all the variations of this drill, so I can do …
- BH push, BH loop, BH drive
- BH push, BH loop, FH drive
- BH push, FH loop, BH drive
- BH push, FH loop, FH drive
- FH push, FH loop, FH drive
- FH push, FH loop, FH drive
- FH push, BH loop, BH drive
- FH push, BH loop, FH drive
I have used these drills more than any other, and I’m very happy they are all included, so I can quickly and easily switch between any variation.
For each drill you select the difficulty level (1 star, 2 star, 3 star). This will alter the amount of spin, speed and ball frequency. You can choose how long you want to do the drill for. The minimum is 1 minute and the maximum is 120 minutes. Or you can select an exact number of repetitions.
In this short video, I demonstrate setting up and doing a few of the pre-programmed drills …
Custom drills and community drills
With Omni S Pro, you can also create your own drills. This is a feature I have used a lot with my Power Pong Omega robot, so I was keen to see how Omni S Pro compared.
On the Pongbot app, I can create a 7 ball sequence. For each ball I can alter the placement, speed, spin strength, trajectory, frequency and spin rotation. All these settings mean I can be quite precise in creating a drill with the type of ball(s) I want to receive.
In the app, there is a visual guide which shows whether the ball you are setting up will actually land on the table. This is a really useful feature and saves a fair amount of time when setting up a custom drill.
I also like how you can precisely choose the spin rotation of each ball. Mainly I just stick to backspin or topspin, but the sidespin settings are really useful when using drills with serves (more on this later).
Even though Pongbot has done a decent job with their custom drill section, it isn’t as comprehensive as Power Pong Omega or Butterfly Amicus Prime. Both of these robots have additional features which means you can set-up even more complex drills.
For example, in the Power Pong Omega app, there is a ‘shuffle placement’ feature. This means I can set up a drill as follows … BH or FH push > BH or FH loop > BH or FH drive. This adds a useful randomness to each ball, which is more match realistic. There is a ‘scatter’ option, which increases the area on the table where a ball may land, which again increases the challenge of any drill you do. You can also easily group drills together to create specific training programmes. At the time of writing, the Omni S Pro does not have these features.
Even though Omni S Pro is behind its competitors in terms of advanced custom drill features, it still does 80% of what other top-of-the-range robots are capable of doing. And the robot price is much lower. So overall I don’t have too many complaints. And maybe there will be some updates in the future which will close the gap.
One area where the Omni S Pro is much better is the ‘community’ aspect of its app. There is a large library of drills which other users have created. You can test these drills, adjust the settings (if needed) and save them to your own library.
Spin quality
I’m very happy with the spin quality and spin intensity of the Omni S Pro. Because the robot head moves into different positions, I actually think the spin is more realistic than my Power Pong Omega robot. This is important, as I want to practice against balls which are similar to those I receive against real world opponents.
The spin intensity is very high. When I set the robot to maximum topspin it is similar to what I might expect against a really high level opponent. For maximum backspin, the spin is stronger than I get against human opponents. So there is not much point in setting the spin to maximum, as it’s not realistic. But it’s reassuring to know the robot is capable of generating such heavy spin. It means for any custom drill you set up, you can select the exact spin intensity you want to practice against.
Compared to my Power Pong Omega robot, I would say the top speed and spin of the Omni S Pro is a little less. But I never use the top speed settings in the drills, as it isn’t realistic. So this small top speed / spin difference doesn’t really matter. The Omni S Pro can generate enough spin to challenge very high level players.
In this short video, I demonstrate both the spin quality and spin intensity…
Serves
One area where the Omni S Pro is much better than its competitors is for practising returning serves. Because the robot head moves, it can find a much better position to simulate a range of serves – backspin, float, sidespin and topspin. These different spins can all be served short and long.
By comparison the Power Pong Omega struggles to do realistic serves, so I never really bother to use it for this. With the Omni S Pro, I can now practice my receives a lot more. This is very useful for me, since it’s probably the weakest area of my game!
Reliability
So far, I have found the Omni S Pro to be very reliable. Misfeeds have been less than my Power Pong robot and I haven’t experienced any ball jamming yet. Once or twice I have lost bluetooth connection between the app and the robot, but this is quick and easy to restore.
All mechanical devices will eventually experience some wear and tear. I have not used the Omni S Pro long enough yet to know about the long term quality of its components. So far so good, but I’ll update this review if there are any causes for concern.
Comparisons
So how does Omni S Pro compare to other table tennis robots?
I also own the Pongbot Nova S Pro. This is a popular entry level robot (you can read my review here). Both the Omni S Pro and Nova S Pro have similar hardware and the app is the same. But everything with the Omni S Pro is bigger and better. It comes with the ball collection net and recycling tray, which makes it significantly better for continuous training. The spin from the Omni S Pro is stronger and more realistic. The robot head has a wider range of movement, which means you can do more complex drills. Overall, the Omni S Pro is more advanced than the Nova S Pro, but it is also more expensive.
But the Omni S Pro is nowhere near as expensive as other top-of-the-range robots, like the Power Pong Omega or the Butterfly Amicus Prime. Compared to these robots, the Omni S Pro actually holds up pretty well.
Yes, the Power Pong and Butterfly robots do have more features to create complex drills, but there are many things I actually prefer about the Omni S Pro. The app is generally easier to use. The spin is a tiny bit more realistic. It’s easier to do ‘random’ drills, as the head moves and lights indicate what spin to expect. The ball collection net does a better job at retaining balls. It can simulate serves much better. And of course, the price is significantly better.
Final thoughts
Overall, I have been very impressed with the Pongbot Omni S Pro. The design is sleek. The set up was quick. The app is easy to use. The pre-programmed drills are comprehensive. Setting up custom drills is straight-forward.
For the fast majority of players – beginner, intermediate and advanced – the Omni S Pro has enough features and capabilities to keep you satisfied for a long time.
It really is a very good match for the more expensive robots. Some functionality isn’t quite as good, but other functionality is better. And since the Omni S Pro is half the price of other robots, it absolutely wins the prize for ‘most affordable top-of-the-range robot’.
I have no hesitation recommending the Omni S Pro. It’s a really good robot and a lot of fun to use. I guess Pongbot really has managed to manufacture a robot with advanced features at a much lower price point. Good job Pongbot!
You can see more information and purchasing options on the Pongbot website.