AI-Powered Acemate Tennis Robot Debuts at IFA 2025: A Game-Changer in Sports Tech

I Played Tennis With an AI-Powered Robot at IFA and It Humbled Me

I'm PCMag's senior writer covering smart home and wearable devices. I've been reporting on tech professionally for nearly a decade and have been obsessing about it for much longer than that. Prior to joining PCMag, I made educational videos for an electronics store called Abt Electronics in Illinois, and before that, I spent eight years covering the smart home market for CNET. Don't miss out on our latest stories. Add PCMag as a preferred source on Google. BERLIN -- The Acemate Tennis Robot is set up on one half of a mini court at the IFA tech showcase here. I enter the small playing space and gently lob shots back and forth with the robot. Given that I'm a complete novice, I'm relieved that the machine takes it easy on me. If we were on a full-size court, I'm pretty sure it could have crushed me. Developed by SwitchBot, a brand known for robot vacuums and smart home accessories, the Acemate Tennis Robot goes above and beyond the capabilities of traditional, static ball-tossing machines thanks to its dynamic AI and wheels. It doesn't just toss you simple lobs; it can actually volley with you. The squat, rectangular robot has a reservoir for tennis balls on top, a slot that shoots them on the front, and wheels in each corner on the bottom. The robot uses a camera and AI to watch your shots and move accordingly so that they land in its net. Then it returns the next one in its reservoir within milliseconds, effectively acting as an opponent. I saw demo videos of it in action on a full-size court, and it seems able to put some speed and even spin on the ball for added challenge. You can use a companion mobile app to adjust the difficulty level of its return shots, and it can tailor its placement of the ball accordingly. You can also have it send the ball to random locations or a fixed point. And the company says it can deliver shots traveling at a speed of up to 70 miles per hour. Aside from acting the part of a challenger, it also doubles as a coach. As it tracks your shots to catch them, it also records the spin, speed, and location of your returns. You can see all of that information charted in the app, along with recommendations to help, so you can make any necessary corrections to your form. The hopper holds up to 80 balls, and the 6,700mAh battery lasts for up to three hours of play. If that's not long enough, you can swap in a fresh battery to keep playing. The company will also offer a version tailored to pickleball. Because it can be a volleying opponent and a coach, the Acemate Tennis Robot should be a fun and useful gadget for anyone looking for a bit of active practice before playing their next human opponent. It's available for preorder now. At launch, it'll cost $2,499, but the preorder discount puts it at $1,599. We've seen a lot of cool tech at IFA, including a robot vacuum accessory that can climb stairs. Check it all out here.

I just played tennis against a robot -- the AI-powered Acemate totally humbled me

Being real, when it comes to tennis ability, I'm more Andy Bernard than Andy Murray, so the chance to play against an AI-fueled robot made me nervous -- especially in jeans in 80-degree heat. And just as expected, the Acemate handily defeated me with zero fuss at IFA 2025. But in taking to the court against it, the bot is humble in victory and actually teaches you a thing or two to improve your technique. Let me tell you about it. There's a lot happening here -- looking kind of like a net hammock on wheels. Up top, there's the catching mechanism, which is wheeled around on Mecanum omnidirectional wheels to catch balls you hit back towards it. Those wheels can work on clay, grass and hard tennis courts, and can travel up to 16.4ft per second to chase down shots. Then there's a firing mechanism in the base that spits them back out towards you at different angles and speeds to keep you on your toes. With serves up to 80mph and the ability to launch lobs, backspins and more, this machine can really put you to the test -- it's rated for players from NTRP 1.0 to 6.0, just shy of pro level. To figure out where the ball is going to go to catch it, there are two 4K cameras on the base that are connected to an AI chip (NPU), which has been trained on a whole lot of court footage and different shots to anticipate direction and where the ball will bounce. The AI side of things does a lot more than this, too, but more about that later. On average, it caught around 90% of my returning shots (ignoring all the times I hit it out). On the stamina side of things, you've got a swappable 6,700 mAh battery that gives you three hours of playtime on one charge. But of course, as we're learning about a lot of tech here at IFA, AI is the secret sauce that brings it all together. The companion app is where you can customize the game style you get from the bot, get accurate statistics on what your ball return rate is like and net clearance, too. Digging even deeper, you can get a generated coaching report that processes all this data and gives you a tailored response to how you're doing and what you can improve. As you'd expect, the response I got was not pretty, but it did point out some key issues with my forehand shots with actionable ways to up my game. Let's tear off the band-aid -- the Acemate tennis robot is $2,499. Early pre-order bonus means you can get it for $1,599, but this is a steep price. But in terms of what has been achieved here, this is a phenomenal piece of fitness tech. You see, there's a whole lot of wearables and fitness AI options that will give you some generic advice on how to improve your sporting performance. But to actually have a robot play you at tennis, while learning your play style and giving real advice, feels futuristic. It's seriously impressive.