For curling clubs
Live scores, your TVs and a stream of every sheet
A tablet at each board. Scores on every phone and on the lounge TVs. Each sheet on YouTube with the scoreboard and your sponsors on the picture. Run from a phone by the volunteer who has ten minutes before the draw.
What a club gets
Everything a club needs, and almost nothing it has to run
Score on a tablet
One tablet per sheet, mounted at the board, with a stylus on a cord because curling gloves do not work a touch screen. Big buttons, two taps per end. If the Wi-Fi drops, the tablet keeps the score and catches up on its own.
Watch from anywhere
Your club's page shows every sheet live: family at home, teams in the lounge, the next draw waiting to go on. It updates the moment an end is entered, and a finished game stays up as a final for three hours.
Your TVs, from your phone
A small computer behind each TV shows the cameras for two sheets, one sheet, a web page of your own, or a sheet's live stream. A new TV shows a code; you scan it, name the screen, and choose what it shows.
Stream every sheet
One box at the club takes both ends of the ice, adds the live scoreboard and your sponsor panel, and sends each sheet to YouTube. One link per sheet, straight from the scores page.
Sponsors on the picture
A panel for the club logo and sponsor logos on every stream. Give a sponsor one sheet or the whole club, from the admin site, with no video editing and no restart.
Looks after itself
Screens and the box keep working with no internet, update themselves from released versions, and put themselves back if an update does not come up. If something is wrong, the TV says so in words.
How it works
Scores live in the cloud. Only what has to be at the club is there.
At the board
A volunteer or the team enters each end on the tablet. It works offline and syncs when it can.
One address per club
curling.cam/yourclub: every sheet, live, on any phone and on the lounge TVs. Nothing to install, no accounts for curlers.
Screens that join by code
Plug a new TV's computer in; after a minute it shows a six-character code. Scan it with your phone, or type it on the admin site, and the screen's settings arrive over its own connection. The streaming box joins the same way after one install command, typed once on the box.
On the stream
The box at the club composites your cameras, the live scoreboard and the sponsor panel, and pushes each sheet to YouTube. Each sheet's link survives restarts and keeps itself up to date on your page.
A night at the club
Tuesday, the 6:45 draw
6:20The lounge TVs are already on: two sheets of cameras each, the bar menu on the one by the door. Nobody touched them; they came on with the building and showed their last settings.
6:40The vice on sheet 3 picks up the stylus, types the two team names, presses Hammer beside the team with last rock, picks eight ends and Start game. The sheet appears on curling.cam/yourclub within a second, and the stream for sheet 3 now carries the live scoreboard instead of "nobody is keeping score".
7:05Two taps after the first end: the rock for the score, then Next end. The hammer moves by itself. A grandparent in another province has the Watch live link open and sees the two on the board as the stones are swept out.
7:30The Wi-Fi at the far end drops for a minute. The tablet's corner says "2 waiting to send" and the vice carries on. When it comes back, the ends arrive in order.
8:50End game. The final stays on the club page for three hours, so the next draw coming in sees who won. Nobody stayed late to reset anything.
ThursdayA new sponsor signs for sheet 5. An admin uploads the logo from a phone, adds it to sheet 5's panel and presses Save rail. The stream changes within seconds; nothing at the club is touched.
In detail
Each part, as it is
Scoring at the board
Each sheet has its own tablet link, and the link is the tablet's key: whoever has it can score that sheet. There are no logins, because a vice between ends has no time for one and scores are public anyway. The sheet's QR code is printed from the admin site, scanned once with the tablet, and never typed.
- Team names, hammer, six, eight or ten ends, Start game. After each end, tap the rock for the number scored in that team's colour, then Next end. The board fills in and the hammer moves by itself. Previous end fixes a mistake.
- Every tap is saved on the tablet before it is sent and removed only when the server has it. The corner of the screen says Saved, N waiting to send, or Offline. Nothing is lost to a Wi-Fi gap.
- Dark by default, white on black for the glare off the ice; a club may switch its tablets and TV page to paper.
- The club page shows a card for every sheet where someone is keeping score, the other sheets in a row, your logo, a notice if you set one, your address and hours, and up to six buttons of your own. Add a sheet number to the address to show one sheet; curling.cam/tv/yourclub is the big-print version for a lounge TV.
The club's TVs
Behind each TV is a Raspberry Pi running an image we build. A new one shows a six-character code and a QR; scanning it on your phone adds it to your club with a name. From then on, every change is made on the admin site and reaches the TV within seconds.
- Four things a screen can show: the cameras for two sheets, away end left and home end right with the sheet numbers down the middle; the cameras for one sheet; a web page you name once, such as your signage or a menu board; or a sheet's live broadcast with the scoreboard and sponsors on it.
- Identify puts the screen's name across it in large letters, so you know which is which from the lounge. Reload starts the picture again; Reboot restarts the computer; Update software takes a newer release when the operator has made one available.
- Every screen restarts itself once a night at a time you choose, and keeps its last settings with no internet. A screen with a problem shows a sentence saying what is wrong and the screen's address; it never shows a blank TV.
Streaming
Streaming needs one box at the club, on the same network as the cameras. It reads each camera once and shares the picture with every TV and every stream, so old cameras are never asked for more than one copy. For each sheet it composites both ends of the ice, the live scoreboard and the sponsor panel, and sends the result to YouTube. One box streams six sheets at 1280 by 720 with room to spare.
- Each sheet goes to your own YouTube channel, under your own Google account. YouTube allows about ten live streams per channel, so a twelve-sheet club uses two. The first time a channel goes live, YouTube makes you wait 24 hours; after that the box makes each sheet's broadcast itself and fills in the Watch live links on your page.
- A broadcast keeps its link across restarts of the stream. You choose whether streams are public, unlisted or private. YouTube keeps every stream as a video on your channel; tidying those up is yours to do in YouTube Studio.
- The streams carry the picture, the scoreboard and the panel, with no sound. Cameras have no microphones, and music in a lounge draws copyright claims on YouTube.
- When nobody is keeping score on a sheet, its scoreboard shows a message you write. If the club's internet goes, the box keeps compositing from the local cameras and the scoreboard holds its last score until the link returns.
- Streaming is licensed per sheet. Your admins choose which sheets each box streams within that number; a sheet streams from one box only.
- One sheet's stream looks wrong? Restart that sheet from the admin site: a few seconds off the air, the other sheets untouched. The box also has its own status page on the club network, in plain words.
A club brings its own Google Cloud project for the YouTube connection, a one-off, with the steps listed on the admin site. Stream keys and camera passwords are stored encrypted and never shown again once entered.
Sponsors and the club logo
The rail is the panel beside the camera picture on every stream: your club logo, a title such as "Proudly supported by", and up to twelve sponsor logos in a grid that sizes itself. Upload a PNG from a phone, put the sponsors in order, press Save rail, and the streams change within seconds. Every sheet can share one rail, or a sheet can have its own, for the sponsor whose name is on it. The club logo also sits at the top of your public page.
The admin site
admin.curling.cam is where your club's admins run all of this, from a phone. Each admin has their own account, set up from a link another admin sends; every change is written in a change log with their name. One screen per job: Screens, Cameras, Streaming, Sheets and tablets, Kiosk pages, Sponsors, Public page, Links, Admins. Lists update by themselves, saves say in words what happened, and a help page explains every button in the order you will meet them.
When something goes wrong
- A TV shows a code instead of its picture: it is new or was removed. Add it again.
- A TV is offline: it has lost power or network. It keeps showing its last choice and catches up when it is back.
- A tablet says it is not connected: keep scoring; the ends go when the Wi-Fi returns.
- The scores are not on the stream: check a game was started on that sheet's tablet.
- Every stream is down: the box has lost power or network, and that needs someone at the club. Everything else can be seen and fixed from anywhere.
Screens and the box take new software only when the operator releases it, verify what they download, and roll back by themselves if a release does not come up. The admin site says which version each one runs.
What you need
The honest list
What it is not
So nobody is surprised
- It is not a replacement for the scoreboard on the wall. The tablet sits beside it; the numbers on the wall are still turned by hand if your club likes it that way.
- It is not self-serve. We set your club up, with you, and you send us your sheet count, your time zone and who your admins are. There is no sign-up form on purpose.
- It does not stream without a box at the club, and it does not stream sound.
- It does not keep statistics, league tables or schedules. It shows what is on the ice now and the finals of the last three hours.
- It does not need anyone at the club to be technical. It does need one person who will answer when a TV shows a sentence instead of a picture.
Questions
The ones clubs ask first
Does it work with the cameras we already have?
If they are network cameras that speak RTSP, almost certainly. The box reads each camera's default stream once and shares it, which is exactly what older cameras need. Send us a model number and we will say.
Do curlers or viewers need an account?
No. Nobody signs in to score or to watch. Only your club's admins have accounts, on the admin site.
Who can enter scores?
Anyone with the sheet's tablet. The tablet's link is its key, which is why the admin site asks you to keep the printed QR codes away from the ice. A lost tablet's link is replaced on request and the old one stops working.
What happens when the internet goes down?
Tablets keep the score and send it when the connection returns. TVs keep showing what they showed. The box keeps compositing from the local cameras; YouTube will not receive the stream until the link is back, and the broadcast resumes on the same link when it is.
Can we stream to our own channel?
Only to your own channel. You connect it from the admin site with your club's Google account; curling.cam never holds your channel's password, and you can disconnect it at any time.
Can a TV show our bar menu or our signage?
Yes. Add the page once under Kiosk pages, then choose it by name on any screen. The club's name, the time and the screen's address sit on a bar along the bottom.
Our club has four sheets. Is it still worth it?
Scoring and the club page cost a tablet per sheet and nothing to run; they are worth it at any size. Streaming is licensed per sheet, so a four-sheet club streams four, from one box.
How do updates happen?
We release a version, test it on our own screens, then name it for your club. Your screens take it at their nightly restart; the box takes it when an admin presses Update software, because its streams restart for a few seconds. Either rolls back by itself if the new version does not come up.
What does it cost?
Email us with your sheet count and whether you want streaming. Scoring and the club page are priced for a club budget; streaming is licensed per sheet on top, and the box and cameras are yours to own.
Who is behind it?
Gareth Jones, a curler, who built it for his own club. It runs there now, on twelve sheets, and this page is written from what that took.
Interested
Talk to Gareth
For a look at it running, pricing, or to ask whether it fits your club.
gareth@gareth.com