One of the requests for things to check out at SHOT was to preview the NEXT area (which showcases manufacturers and vendors that haven’t been to SHOT), and I had decided to make Wednesday a day to look for cool things related to training. Based on that tip, I went by to check out some companies that all had something to offer in that realm—this highlight will be about Salted Earth’s ATLAS.

Pretty small unit with a great feature set.

Salted Earth has a laser based training system that is pretty ruggedized and has some interesting features I didn’t see in the other systems I checked out. The heart of the system is a little box with an array of colored LEDs. These little boxes can be mounted nearly anywhere by utilizing the UNC threads (just like most camera mounts). So with a magnet you can mount to vehicles, metal door frames, etc. You can install it on a tripod. You get the idea. The ATLAS can also be networked to other units allowing for more complex scenarios.

LEDs are SUPER bright and would work very well outside. The ATLAS has a number of training modes like Simon/Memory, “Crowd”, and Hostage which allow for very different training opportunities.

Each ATLAS has a number of modes built in for training and “gamification”, including things like shoot/no-shoot areas, progressively tightening target areas, hostage scenarios, timers, etc. It also has an internal rechargeable battery so it doesn’t have wall wart requirements. Really a versatile system.

Another benefit is that it will work with your preferred laser training device (red, green, blue, infrared) and has a paired mobile and desktop app to pull out feedback about your training (though really I would hope all modern training systems would at this point).

You can check out a promo video at:

You can learn more at their website: http://www.thesaltedearth.com/