While the topic of ball inflation is still buzzing around the sports world, a new and improved way to accurately inflate (and deflate) a ball is about to enter the market.
The AER, an automatic ball pump that just hit IndieGogo, is able to inflate sports balls that requiring pumping to their proper PSI without any of the manual work and trial and error.
The pump includes an easy-to-read LCD screen, regulation presets, a retractable (and replaceable) needle and a manual deflate button. Its rechargeable battery allows users to inflate 40 balls every time they charge it.
With the LCD screen, users can scroll through the presets for either a football, basketball, volleyball or soccer ball. While those are just the presets, the pump is capable of inflating anything that has a port to receive the needle. The needle is secured inside the pump with a sliding lever to eject or retract the needle any time. This removes the issue of losing pump needles before or during use. 
AER is designed to be small and maneuverable to easily fit into an athlete’s bag or pocket and comes at a reasonably affordable price: $29 for one pump, one needle and one charger.
AER’s IndieGogo campaign launched today and has a month to reach their goal of $80,000, which will be put towards building and producing the product. So far they have a partnership with Dick’s Sporting Goods through the Stadia FirstLook Initiative, a project that SportTechie is proud to be supporting because it can help identify new sports tech products and help bring them to market.
This product seems like it would be especially useful for larger organizations or camps where numerous balls need to be pumped fairly often and share the exact same PSI. But with that being said, we can reasonably see this pump being used by youth soccer coaches on up to professional teams.