If you've run a Sideline Scout system, the argument about whether underwater video works is over for you (If you are still in doubt read our comparison with GoPro here). You are most likely here because you want to compare two systems head on, and I will try to do as fair of a job as I can.
However, we built Athlee with Sideline Scout already as an established player in swimming, because we thought there was an opportunity to build a product with a razor sharp focus on making working with video feedback specifically in swimming much easier.
If you are about to choose between Sideline Scout and Athlee, here is, in short, the verdict of this article.
Outdoors is hard on both systems. You have to deal with the glare of the sun, and with the fact that Wi-Fi is notoriously hard to get working outdoors. Ask any IT department. We have solved the sun glare issue with custom-designed shades (more on that below), but if you cannot get a proper pool Wi-Fi outdoors, the cabled setup Sideline Scout provides is your best option.
In all other situations cabled systems become a daily hassle.
Go with Athlee if you want the camera in the water in a minute, and a system designed for swimming right in your hand on an iPad or iPhone. You can still get the picture on a TV if you need.
Compared to GoPro where the conclusion was "Fine 1-to-1. Nobody Does It with 20", the conclusion with Sideline Scout is "Rig it for a session vs run it for a season"
Why a cabled system like Sideline Scout becomes a hassle during the season
With a cabled TV cart system, this is what you do before the session. Roll the cart to the lane, plug the surge strip into deck power, turn on the TV and the Apple TV, lower the underwater camera on its mount, pay out up to 35 feet of network cable back to the switch on the cart, open the app, find the cameras...
The same steps run in reverse when practice ends, and a version of them runs every time the cart moves. Switching lanes mid-session means lifting the camera out, getting it past start blocks and swimmer gear, wheeling the cart over and lowering the camera and its cable back in. Between the wall outlet and the water, that cable lies on a wet deck that assistant coaches and swimmers cross.
None of this is a problem once except perhaps for the obvious risk of tripping over a cable. For a single session with no moving of the camera, a delayed feed on a big screen serves a lane of twenty swimmers, and serves them well.
The problem is the season. A system you have to rig every morning or just when changing lanes or to a side perspective is the system that starts staying in the storage room by October, and a camera in the storage room gives nobody feedback. It's the same shape as our GoPro conclusion. A GoPro is fine one-to-one and falls apart across twenty. A cart is fine for a single session and wears you down across a season of them.
What a 60-second setup like Athlee's brings you
The camera has one button, on or off. Everything else happens in the app, because every Athlee camera carries a dedicated Wi-Fi router inside it, running our own firmware. Power it on and it hosts its own network, or joins your pool's access point. Setup is 60 seconds, router boot included. How the Wi-Fi works, including streaming over your existing pool Wi-Fi, is documented in our support article: https://www.athlee.com/support/how-does-the-athlee-wi-fi-work
What the 60 seconds buys is not a minute vs. the time it takes to set up a cabled system. It's that the system comes out of the bag every day, which is what daily feedback runs on. Braden Holloway at NC State, on the camera system he used before: "When we had the other camera system, it would be a pain to set them up. Now with Athlee we'll just go get them and … boom."
By the way, when you travel with your Athlee system and normally have your cameras stream via your pool Wi-Fi, the cameras will automatically start to host their own Wi-Fi until you are back home again.
Outdoors, where both systems struggle
This is where Sideline Scout and other cabled solutions win: signal transfer rate and stability. Wi-Fi is an amazing technology that can send loads of data through thin air. But it is blocked by water and any body of water absorbs Wi-Fi. In addition, especially outdoors, Wi-Fi can be challenged because routers use walls and other hard surfaces to bounce and transfer signals.
To be honest, this means that in some environments the built-in Wi-Fi router in the Athlee cameras can have a hard time transmitting a strong enough signal for a completely stable connection. Our wireless range is pool-dependent, 75 meters or more in some indoor pools and under 5 meters in some outdoor pools - especially if there are other Wi-Fi networks making lots of noise. For a few of our customers an outdoor pool is no problem. For many of them it is a fight.
So here is what we tell a coach with an outdoor pool. Do not rely on the router inside the camera. Have a strong pool Wi-Fi that reaches the water, or bring your own access point, something significantly stronger than a battery-driven router sitting inside a camera down in the lane. With that in place, Athlee works outdoors. Without it, at most outdoor pools, it will not, and a cabled system like Sideline Scout is the better buy. The different Wi-Fi modes an Athlee camera can operate under you can find here in our support article.
Then there is the sun. Glare can render any screen useless, including your 55-inch TV on a cart.
To solve this issue, we built the Tripod Shade for your iPad. It's an oversized hood, with a depth, width and angle that make it perfect for one job: keeping the picture readable with the sun at its highest. You look into the hood and you see the stroke, not a reflection of the sky. $120, and it clips onto the tripod with an elastic cord. The Pool Box does the same job at the wall, with a black interior, so a swimmer looking into it after a length sees the video and not herself.
A TV on a cart has no equivalent. You can put up a tent, angle the cart away from the sun, rig something over the screen, and coaches do. It sort of works, and it's a job every session.
If you are in doubt if Athlee will work at your pool, we have always had a 60-day full-satisfaction guarantee. If Athlee does not work for you, just ship it back and we will refund you as per our terms.
The price, and what the yearly subscription fee pays for
Both upfront cost and subscription are more affordable with Sideline Scout compared to Athlee, if we stick to equipment cost and not try to do some estimated cost/hour of video feedback. A starter kit with a single underwater camera is $1299.99 with cart and Apple TV but without the LCD flat panel TV. The subscription is then $499 a year. Current prices for an Athlee camera can be found under pricing but both camera and subscription are notably higher.
So Athlee is more expensive than Sideline Scout in any configuration. So what are you buying?
Hardware first. Try to have a look at their underwater camera and then look at our camera. Sideline Scout has a solution for swimming. Athlee has a custom-built camera engineered for swimming, accessories like the Pool Box and the Tripod Shade, and an app designed to make video feedback a daily habit. The Athlee Camera has only one button, a built-in Wi-Fi unit, and a battery that runs up to 10 hours. It is completely waterproof but made to float, by the way, if you accidentally drop it in. Why? Because it makes it easier to use then. Full spec here.
Now for the subscription that is required by both Sideline Scout and Athlee. It can be difficult to assess what an annual fee buys you. All apps have their history available on the App Store and even though update frequency is a crude measure of how much a company invests in their software it can be used as an indicator.
If you go to the App Store, Athlee's Athlee Coach app shows 24 releases since launch in December 2024 and four major versions, with named capability at each step:
- Version 2.0: Analysis interface with drawings and voice support
- Version 3.0: Video library with tagging and swimmer profiles
- Version 4.0: Full iPad integration with 240 fps start recording for practicing starts
and 21 minor updates in between.
Apple's public history for Sideline Scout's PoolSide Live app shows seven updates, the most recent 2.0.30 on May 29, 2026. Not one of them names a new feature: two are iOS 26 compatibility fixes, one resolves a playback bug, and the rest read "General Fixes and Improvements". Their separate Viewer app, the one a swimmer needs to receive a clip, last shipped in October 2024.
The daily rhythm with Athlee: Swim. Watch. Fix. Repeat.
Athlee sells to swim programs only, which is a smaller business and a narrower product. This section is what the narrowness is for.
The camera comes out, one button, and goes in at the lane. Sixty seconds later you're holding the picture on an iPad or an iPhone, live, or delayed by 5 to 60 seconds and adjustable while a swimmer is mid-length.
Record captures what happens next. Replay grabs what just happened. Either one opens straight into the analysis screen: drawing on the stroke, angle measurement, a timer for a stroke cycle or a breakout, frame-by-frame, and two videos side by side in sync.
When a moment is worth keeping, tap the mic. Athlee records your voice, your annotations and the playback into one synced file and saves it under the swimmer's name, in a library you can filter by swimmer, stroke and tag and share straight to their phone. Both systems replay the length the swimmer just swam.
At the wall itself, the Pool Box holds the iPad where swimmers finish, splash-protected, with a black interior that kills glare, and the swimmer replays, records and moves the delay without you. Quad-screen shows the same sequence four times at staggered delays. Mel Marshall, who coached Adam Peaty: "The instant replay, split across a four-way split screen with 10, 30 or more seconds delay between each is such a user-friendly way of understanding and improving every skill."
When a lane should watch on a big screen, an Apple TV mirrors the iPad to the TV. On outdoor decks the Tripod Shade keeps the coach's iPad visible on a tripod even in full sun.
Which system should you choose for working daily with underwater video feedback
The twelve rows below put both systems on the same axes.
In our experience the choice is not really between Athlee and Sideline Scout. It is between daily video feedback and perhaps video feedback a few times a year.
Matthew Trodden, Depute Head of Swimming at the University of Edinburgh:
It’s been the best bit of kit we have ever bought for impact across the squads!
Swim. Watch. Fix. Repeat.
Thanks for reading!
Thomas
About this comparison
I'm co-founder of Athlee. So yes, I have a stake in what you decide. I've used Sideline Scout's data as Sideline Scout publishes them, and I've said where they beat us. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell me and I'll change it immediately. That goes for anyone at Sideline Scout too.
thomas@athlee.com