This Engineer Invented the Apple Pencil, Now He’s Reimagining the Pickleball Machine

Hydrogen Sports debuts the Electron, a 17-pound ball machine powered by app-driven intelligence and capable of drilling a range of pickleball shots from heavy topspin drives, fierce kitchen firefights, and even high, looping lobs

If you're reading this, Hydrogen Sports has officially launched the Electron, a sleek, 17-pound pickleball machine designed to feel less like a clunky piece of training equipment—and more like a thoughtfully engineered Apple product.

That comparison isn’t accidental.

Hydrogen Sports' founder and CEO, Jonah Harley, spent eight years at Apple, where he led the Input Devices group responsible for innovations like the Force Touch trackpad and haptic “Taptic Engine” feedback still featured in the iPhone and Apple Watch today.

Most notably, there's also this: Harley is credited as the primary inventor of the Apple Pencil.

Now, he’s brought that same innovative design philosophy to pickleball.

“We’re trying to make it as low friction as possible to just use it all the time,” Harley said during a recent conversation. “The goal of the Electron is to make it feel spur of the moment. You can say, ‘Hey, I’m taking this machine out for a 20-minute practice,’ and you’re up and running.

That mindset—removing friction, elevating usability, and obsessing over experience—is what sets the Electron apart in an increasingly crowded pickleball machine market.

A Pickleball Machine That Doesn’t Feel Like a Chore

The first thing you notice about the Electron isn’t what it does.

It’s what it doesn’t do.

• It doesn’t weigh 45 pounds
• It doesn’t require a dolly the size of a Costco cart
• It doesn’t feel like something designed in 1998 and never updated

At just 17 pounds, the Electron is less than half the weight of many traditional ball machines. It includes a carrying strap, fits easily in a small roller bag, and is powered by a compact 18V 5Ah quick-swap battery capable of delivering over 1,000 shots per charge.

Harley’s frustration with bulky machines was personal.

“The one I had was 45 pounds,” he said.

That pain point became the catalyst.

By replacing outdated lead-acid batteries with lithium-ion power tool batteries and swapping legacy brush motors for lightweight brushless motors, Hydrogen Sports dramatically shrank the footprint without sacrificing performance.

The result: a truly portable machine you’ll actually use.

Tap to Aim: The Smartest Interface in Pickleball

Portability is only half the story.

What really differentiates the Electron is its app-driven intelligence.

Instead of turning knobs labeled “1–10” and running back and forth across the net to test finicky adjustments, users simply open the app and tap a location on a digital court.

“I would like a ball to land medium deep on my backhand side, with 1,000 RPM of backspin at 50 miles an hour,” Harley explained of a hypothetical scenario. “The machine figures out, ‘Here’s the angle I need. Here’s the wheel speed.’”

That precision comes from feedback-controlled brushless motors and motion systems inspired by the 3D printer industry—technology Harley integrated during Hydrogen Sports’ earlier success in tennis.

The Electron delivers:

• 70+ mph top speeds
• Up to 1500 RPM topspin or backspin
• Full side-to-side programmability
• Motorized elevation for varied trajectories
• Predictive landing control based on launch physics

It’s not just faster. It’s smarter.

With the patented Tap to Aim system, players can create fully customized drills in seconds.

Want two balls wide to the forehand and one short to the backhand? Tap, tap, tap. Done.

“Suddenly the usability was just so different,” Harley said. “In a matter of four taps, you’d say, ‘I want a ball here, here, here at these three different speeds.’ You could make any routine you wanted in seconds.”

Built for Real Pickleball Scenarios

Pickleball isn’t tennis. And Harley learned quickly that adapting his successful tennis machine playbook wouldn’t be simple.

“I thought it would just be, ‘Okay, pickleball is a little bigger than a tennis ball—adjust a few minor things,’” he said. “It was a lot trickier than I expected.”

Pickleballs don’t compress like tennis balls. That meant Hydrogen Sports had to redesign its throwing wheels from scratch—creating contoured, ribbed wheels that move the compliance into the wheel rather than the ball for better grip, spin, and velocity consistency.

After extensive iteration, the result is a machine capable of everything from soft kitchen feeds, high-velocity drives, and even high, looping lobs.

The optional Apex Stand takes it further—raising the Electron up to seven feet to replicate realistic kitchen line play and attacks from shoulder height or above, a critical training scenario most machines simply can’t deliver.

If hand speed battles at the kitchen line are your weakness, the Electron can fire balls every two seconds—with programmable timing variability between shots. Its pre-load chamber and optical sensor allow precise “shot-on-demand” control, including a dedicated Coach Mode.

“For coaches, instead of being the ball feeder all day long, they can just press a button and get an immediate shot,” Harley said.

An Apple Watch app even allows real-time control from the opposite side of the court.

Wilson Tsai, who leads growth and strategy at Hydrogen Sports, believes Harley’s background is evident the moment you interact with the product.

“Think back to when you first used an Apple product,” Tsai said. “The level of detail and care that makes you feel like the designer actually spent time thinking about how you would experience it. That’s very much the heart and care put into Hydrogen Sports.”

Harley is modest about his résumé, but it’s hard to ignore.

At Apple, he helped develop:

• The Force Touch trackpad
• The Taptic Engine in Apple Watch and iPhone
• The original Apple Pencil concept

“I probably have 50 patents from those days,” he said casually.

His philosophy hasn’t changed—only the industry.

“In the end, you’re still trying to make a good customer experience,” he said. “It’s just a different scale.”

That mindset shows up in subtle details: active motor braking for rapid speed changes, consistent wheel RPM regardless of battery level, seamless firmware updates, and an app that supports both tennis and pickleball machines within the same ecosystem.

It feels engineered—not assembled. Because it is.

Jonah Harley

Performance Meets Price

The Electron launches at $1,695, undercutting several competing smart pickleball machines currently retailing above $2,000.

According to Tsai, the goal wasn’t to build a premium-priced niche product.

“We feel like the customer gets a ton of value,” he said.

Ball capacity sits comfortably around 72 balls—roughly one standard bulk pack—striking a balance between session length and portability.

A Training Aid You’ll Actually Use

Ultimately, Harley believes the Electron’s biggest advantage isn’t spin rate or top speed or varying launch angles.

It’s likelihood of use.

“My tennis machine was such an adventure to get set up and going that I used it for a few weeks, and then it kind of started to sit,” he admitted of the clunker he used to lug out of the garage. “We want this to be the machine you’ll use the most.”

Low friction. Quick setup. Immediate payoff.

For players stuck on a plateau, trying to speed up hands at the kitchen, survive the transition zone, or groove third-shot drops with repeatability, the Electron offers something traditional machines haven’t: precision without hassle.

At Apple, Harley obsessed over small details that translated to a better experience with a product countless people use over and over, every single day.

Now he's taking aim at your pickleball game.