Skyhook Contact Mat Review Summary
Skyhook Contact Mat Review - Greatest Jump Mat Of All Time!
The Skyhook Contact Mat is, by far, the easiest, most effective, and most affordable way to test and track the vertical jump progress of multiple athletes.
5
The Good
Amazing app that tracks progress for an entire team of people.
Plug-and-play experience with minimal setup required.
Extremely portable + wireless.
Free cloud storage and no annoying subscriptions!
Awesome customer service!
The Bad
There’s not really anything I don’t like about the Skyhook Contact Mat!
Recommended For
The Skyhook Contact Mat is perfect for trainers or sports teams wanting to do jump testing and track the progress of multiple athletes over a short OR long period of time.
Why We’re In Love With Our Skyhook Jump Mat…
The Skyhook Contact Mat is the most impressive vertical jump mat we’ve ever used, for countless reasons we’re about to get into…
It’s the solution for team jump testing with its roster creation option, many useful features, tracking capabilities, and lifesaving portability!
I recently put the Skyhook Contact Mat through its paces, testing it with some local athletes to really get an idea of how well it performs so that I can show you exactly why we crowned it as our best digital vertical jump tester for 2024!
The Skyhook Contact Mat Is Perfect For Team Use
I’ve worked with a ton of athletes, and one of the most annoying things is trying to keep track of all their individual stats and scores.
The Skyhook Contact Mat is a life-saver here, as you can create a whole roster of individual athletes or clients and keep their scores organized and separated from everybody else’s!
It does this through a handy app (which we’ll talk more about down below), and also through its simplicity and portability…
It’s the absolute worst having a lengthy setup every time you want to put an athlete through different tests – the Skyhook Contact Mat takes care of that by just having you place it down, turn it on, select your test, and jump away!
Easy setup, able to use anywhere, and perfect for tracking an entire team of athletes – it’s hard to believe there’s even more to love…
Free Cloud Storage & Free Software!
Some jump mats force you to cough up extra cash for software license fees, but that makes things more complicated (and expensive) – and the Skyhook Contact Mat is all about keeping things as simple as possible!
There are absolutely no sneaky fees with the Skyhook Contact Mat.
Once you hit that purchase button, you get everything you need without needing to buy any subscriptions, storage space, or extra software licenses.
You can even link between different devices – saving my data on the cloud lets me do the tests on my iPad and then see the data again later with other coaches from my phone!
My Skyhook App Is BRILLIANT
The app – called “My Skyhook” – is a free addition you can download from the App Store and the Google Play Store that basically acts as the hub for all your jump testing data.
It’s straight-forward, intuitive, and easy-to-use, making jump testing with the Skyhook Contact Mat a breeze – and it works in real-time for instant data!
Quick & Easy To Install & Operate
You follow a simple sign-up process that takes less than 2 minutes, and you can find a step-by-step guide on their website that holds your hand throughout the entire process!
The mat comes with the “BrainBot,” which is a little device that you stick into the mat – it’s the brains of the whole thing (aptly named).
Once you’re setup, you connect your device to the mat via Bluetooth – and you’re ready to go!
You can also easily create profiles for multiple people – like an entire team – to keep individual stats, simply switching between people in the app whenever you want to test them.
The App Tracks A Ton Of Data
The Skyhook mat tracks a lot more than just your basic vertical jump numbers, and allows you to test a whole suite of different metrics including,
- Reactive Strength Index (RSI) – RSI is a measure of explosive strength that displays how well an athlete copes with and performs plyometric activities (great to know for sports).
- Ground Contact Time – The amount of time that your foot is touching the ground between each jump.
- Flight Time – How long you’re floating in the air during a jump (there’s also an option to test 5-jump and 10-jump air time).
- Scandinavian Rebound Jump Test (SRJT) – This test checks the elasticity of athletes through repeated bounces, which is important for sports performance and injury prevention.
- Single Depth Jump Height – Perfect for testing reactive strength on depth jumps!
- And more!
You can really customize what kind of tests you want to do and get a wide range of data to really hone in on your or your athletes’ strengths and weaknesses…
The App Is Dead Simple To Use
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not very gifted when it comes to technology, which is why I was very thankful for the easy app navigation!
It’s a very simple design that allows you to change your roster, test, and much more with just one or two clicks, keeping it quick and simple for those busy training sessions.
The app also makes it super easy to export data if you’re wanting to send an athlete’s stats somewhere else (to another app, a coach, a scout, as an email, etc.).
Choose Between Two Helpful Modes
You can choose “Playground” mode, which is a great way to see real-time results for depth jumps and repeated vertical jumps.
It doesn’t store the data long-term in Playground mode, making it useful if you’re just needing some quick data or working with one-time clients or teams!
The other mode is called “Jump and Record,” which is where you can choose from the many different jump protocols and tie it directly to an individual.
This is perfect for tracking progress over the long-term, and is very handy if you’re dealing with multiple individuals.
You can also opt to go into offline mode and store data locally if you’re at a training site that doesn’t have Wi-Fi!
What I Liked About The Skyhook Contact Mat
The Skyhook Contact Mat is obviously great, so let’s dig deeper on a couple more features that make it such an incredible product!
Extremely Portable
The Skyhook Contact Mat is super portable!
It comes with a built-in handle that makes moving it around a breeze.
Plus, it’s only 35 lbs, making it lightweight and easy to carry around to wherever you’re training!
That also makes it super practical to store pretty much anywhere!
Much More Affordable Than Alternatives
Compared to other similar digital vertical jump mats, the Skyhook mat is significantly more affordable, making it a no-brainer for most sports organizations and even for personal use!
No Annoying Wires
There are no wires to trip over or plug-ins forcing you to scour the walls for an outlet – simply put the mat down, connect to your device via Bluetooth, and off you go!
Super High Quality Materials
The Skyhook Contact Mat feels great under your feet, and has a rubbery design to it that will handle many jump tests without wearing down.
It’s also very solid, giving you peace of mind that it won’t snap on you when you’re transporting it.
Great Battery & Quick Charging
The battery life on this mat is awesome.
It’s handled multiple jump testing sessions – and then some!
Plus the charging is super quick – it comes with a cord that you can plug into your phone charger or any other wall charger.
Responsive & Helpful Customer Support
I had a bit of an issue with finding the Android app – but I emailed their support team and they got back to me quickly and ready to help!
It’s not available for Android where I live at the moment (Canada), but they let me know that they’re working on updating that very shortly – I did easily find it on my iPad however, and you should have no problems getting it!
Their team was a pleasure to communicate with, and you can definitely tell that they’re proud of their product and will do everything to make sure your experience with the Skyhook Contact Mat is a great one!
What I Disliked About The Skyhook Contact Mat
There’s not really anything negative I have to say about about the Skyhook Contact Mat – everything works great!
I already mentioned the tricky time finding the Android app, but their support team was on it quick and helped me out, so there was no problem there.
The only thing I could say is that (and this applies to all jump mats) you can’t really test your running vertical jump on this – but again, that’s just a drawback of using a digital jump mat.
How Does The Skyhook Contact Mat Compare To Other Jump Mats?
There are some sweet jump mats out there, but honestly they all pale in comparison to the Skyhook…
EZEJUMP Mat
This product is another wireless digital vertical jump mat that also has a number of advanced tracking capabilities.
However, it does come in at nearly twice the price of the Skyhook, and barricades access to all the features except the basic ones behind a subscription.
It does have a nice stainless steel top, and the app looks great if you’re willing to pay the price to get the extra features…
But it’s a hard pill to swallow paying that much more than what you would for a Skyhook, especially since you get full access to all of its features right out of the box.
Just Jump Mat
The Just Jump Mat is a more budget-friendly option that works great if you’re only concerned with testing vertical jump height.
It’s super portable, and very simple to use as well.
It is completely analog though, so it won’t track your data, forcing you to manually write down and track your results.
They’re also extremely difficult to get ahold of and 9 times out of 10 this product will be out of stock.
If you’re working with a team, I would definitely recommend the Skyhook because it saves so much time keeping track of all the numbers.
Who Should Use The Skyhook Contact Mat?
The Skyhook Contact Mat is perfect for sports teams wanting to track jump testing data from multiple different tests for many separate athletes.
It’s especially great for teams that travel due to its portability and wireless design, plus you get free cloud storage and don’t have to worry about any extra subscriptions!
Even if you just want to track your own personal vertical jump progress, the Skyhook does a fantastic job.
What’s The Verdict?
The Skyhook Contact Mat is, hands down, the best vertical jump mat on today’s market.
Period.
The wireless design, the app, incredibly customer service, and the fact that there’s no hidden costs make this quite simply unbeatable.
