The dust has settled on the Darts PDC World Championships. I used to follow the darts quite a bit when living back home, but I haven’t watched it in years. But today, I’ve seen loads of live streams of people playing darts. While the final was great, and Humphries a deserved winner, all the talk was about Luke Littler. Littler a 16-year prodigy dart player who made the final and could have won it. But back to the darts streamers. They are all using a brilliant scorekeeping app. Russ Bray Dart Scorer Pro seems to be the best dart scorekeeping app on Android and iPhone/iPad out there. Here’s why.
Russ Bray
The name Russ Bray is synonymous with darts, perhaps only falling in behind Phil Taylor and Sid Waddell in terms of stature within the game and outside it. Bray is a darts referee, known most for his raspy and loud calling of scores including a bordering on silly but brilliant calling of 180 scores.
Bray retired after last night’s final to become a PDC ambassador for the sport, but his scorekeeping app will live on. By linking up with Bray, the app makers have created a World Championship-style darts experience for the home with some very clever innovations.
One of my favourites is the expansive bank of names Bray has voiced within the game himself.
Game Modes
The app offers a variety of game modes, including 01, Cricket, Practice, and Tournament, catering to both casual players and serious dart enthusiasts. Practice yourself or against a computer scoring their own game with varying difficulty levels to match your ability.
You can even play online against others. The app supports cross-platform play too. This means you can challenge friends to online matches, regardless of their operating system (Android or iOS), thanks to the app’s cross-platform support.
Voice Recognition
This is perhaps the best feature of the app and the one I’ve seen most streamers using. You can toggle voice recognition within this darts scorekeeping app. That means that after you’ve thrown your darts, simply call out what you’ve hit and the app will tot up your scores. Before you throw, Bray himself will call out what you require to finish, if finishing is within reach.
Stats Tracking
Track your performance over time with detailed statistics, including win-loss records, average points per turn, and percentage of triples and doubles. Great to monitor your practice progress or track games against your best friends.
If you have a mate big into their darts but can’t get down the pub, this app on a tablet while you video call on your phone is a great combination for darts fans.
There is a certain amount of functionality free within the app, with premium costing just €6.99 to unlock everything.
Russ Bray Dart Scorer Pro Alternative
I’m awful at maths and this app still requires me to keep track of scores. In a world of smartphone technology, I hoped this problem would have been solved. And it has. Scolia is the mega premium option. This uses cameras to detect your score, tracking it for you in an app. I love the idea, but at €649 – it’s spicy.
Instead, I’m really interested in this Reddit user’s app that’s currently in iOS Beta. Simply pop your smartphone on a stand, point it at your board, open the app and watch it track. It’s really impressive and I gotta say a combination of this and Russ Bray’s existing functionality would be about as good as you could hope to see these apps getting.