Status Lights
The LEDs on the front of the Element report what the unit is doing at a glance, so you can check it mid-stance without looking at the dashboard.
Colour and movement together
Every state pairs a colour with a movement, and the movement tells you what kind of state it is:
- A slow pulse — the unit has timed out and is waiting for you to do something.
- A sweeping dot — it's looking for a ball.
- Steady — it's locked on and ready.
- A fast flash — something needs fixing.
The colour then tells you which one. That means you're rarely reading colour alone.
At a glance
| Lights | Pattern | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | A bright dot sweeping back and forth, trailing a fading tail | Searching for a ball |
| Green | Steady | Ball found — ready for your shot |
| Blue | Slow pulse, fading up and down over about six seconds | Ball sat too long — take it out and put it back |
| Yellow | Slow pulse, fading up and down over about six seconds | Idle — restart from the dashboard |
| Lime green | Steady | Alignment mode |
| Orange | Every other light lit, swapping twice a second | The unit is not level |
| Off | — | No status to report |
The two pulsing states share an animation and are told apart by colour; so do the two steady states.
During a session
Two states alternate as you hit:
- Sweeping blue — the unit is looking for a ball. A bright dot runs the length of the strip and back, roughly one and a half seconds per round trip, trailing a fading tail behind it. If it stays in this state with a ball in place, the ball is outside the detection zone; move the unit until it turns green.
- Steady green — the ball is found and the unit is armed for the shot. This is your signal to hit.
After your shot the unit goes back to sweeping blue for the next ball.
Ball left in place too long
Pulsing blue means a ball has sat in the hitting area for 15 minutes without being hit, and the unit has stopped tracking it. It's the same blue as the search, fading slowly up and down rather than running along the strip.
This one doesn't clear by itself, and hitting the ball won't restart it. Take the ball out of the hitting area and place it back in — the unit picks the search up again and returns to sweeping blue.
Idle
Pulsing yellow means the unit is powered and healthy but not in a shot cycle. It's the same slow pulse as the blue ball timeout above — both are the unit waiting on you — so read the colour to tell which is which.
The unit goes idle either because you put it there from the dashboard, or on its own after 30 minutes without activity. Finding it pulsing yellow after a break is normal and doesn't mean anything has gone wrong.
Idle is left from the dashboard — the unit won't wake on its own when you place a ball, so start again from there before your next shot.
Alignment
Steady lime green means the unit is in alignment mode, which you start yourself as part of Calibration. It's steady like the ready-to-hit green, and the two greens are close in shade — if you're unsure which one you're looking at, the dashboard will tell you.
Levelling
Flashing orange means the unit is not sitting level with your hitting surface. Every other light comes on, swapping back and forth about twice a second. Adjust the unit until the orange clears — it won't detect the ball reliably until it does. See Setup for placement.
The lights are off
Lights off means the unit has no status to report. If it's powered on and the lights never come up, give it the full 15 seconds to boot, then see Troubleshooting.
The lights report the unit, not the network
There's no LED state for a network or connection problem — the lights track ball detection and positioning only. If the unit looks healthy but you can't reach the dashboard, that's a network issue: see Connect.