The HangTimer from DropZone is just like the name sounds. It’s a small stopwatch sized gadget that’s used to measure your hang time when doing any type of activity that involves you being temporarily airborne.

It works through a Tri-Axis Accelerometer that measures the changes in acceleration that occur when you take jumps and then records the total time from when you left the ground until you return. The HangTimer controls consist of simply two buttons to run all the functionality. At first this was slightly confusing to switch between the modes but once we figured it out it was pretty simple to work. The two larger buttons on top actually made it easy to operate without having to remove our gloves.

This hang time measuring gadget will automatically switch modes and record your jumps without having to have it in the “Hang Time” mode. This was very nice since sometimes the best jumps are not planned. It then keeps a rolling list of the last 10 jumps you took of which you can scroll through. It will also show the average air time, the longest jump and the total cumulative time you spent in the air from the last 10 jumps you took.

In addition to the hang time features, it also has a clock, a stopwatch and a temperature gauge that will show you the current temp along with the highest and lowest the gadget has experienced, after all the temperature does drop if you jump high enough.

We put this gadget through a fair amount of abuse, trying it out with different jumps from a standstill, throwing it, snowboarding, biking and even on a trampoline. It’s water resistant feature held true and it even managed to accidentally pass a vodka resistant test at one point.

We found that when applying enough spin to the device we were able to cause it to not register any air time due to the centrifugal force put on it, but it required a rate of around 4-5 rotations per second which seems highly unlikely while wearing it. Overall the HangTimer turned out to be a serious reality check for some story spinning snowboarders who brag of 8 second hang times which in reality turn out to be less than half of that.

The carbineer-like clip locks securely onto a belt loop or pocket-glove-clip and is spring loaded which makes it difficult to come unhooked. Since throwing the device in the air when no one is looking can be a sneaky way to rack up some serious air times the company actually included some one-way plastic ties which go through the small hole on the clip and prevent it from being removed.

The HangTimer goes for $99 on the HangTimer website and is a handy and fun gadget for any sports involving some big air time and a little competition.