Dear WCA Community,

From January 2, 2027, all official WCA attempts performed with a speedsolving timer will be required to use a Speed Stacks G5 StackMat™ Pro Timer in 4-pad mode. The adoption of 4-pad mode will provide greater certainty that official times are achieved in accordance with the WCA Regulations and will strengthen the integrity of the results recognized by the WCA.

Since our formation, the WCA has recorded times based on a speedsolving timer with two sensor pads. Although these timers are capable of precise measurement, the accuracy of this measurement in timing a speedsolving attempt requires the timer to be started and stopped in accordance with the WCA Regulations.

It has become clear that the use of speedsolving timers with two sensor pads causes difficulties in enforcing these Regulations, especially since Regulation infractions may not be visible to a judge when viewed live. Frame-by-frame video offers one route around this, but performing this analysis is time consuming and reliant on high quality video being available. No viable changes to the current Regulations wording or other suitable means have been identified that would provide a satisfactory resolution using existing timer requirements.

The WCA has therefore decided that switching to 4-pad represents the best solution to these challenges. This new requirement will replace the existing requirements in the WCA Approved Timer List, which currently requires 2-pad mode, and also allows for use of the G4 StackMat™ Pro Timer and G3 StackMat™ Pro Timer.

4-pad mode will require changes to the Regulations for starting and stopping the speedsolving timer. Draft Regulations changes will be published for community feedback in September, as part of the annual Regulations cycle.

Time differences between 2-pad results and 4-pad results are negligible for the vast majority of competitors and events. As such, existing records will stand until broken under 4-pad mode and 4-pad results will be ranked alongside 2-pad results. Although no record reset is considered necessary, the WCA Rankings page will be updated to support filtering between all results and 4-pad results for 2x2, Clock, Pyraminx, and Skewb.

All regions which are currently using timers without 4-pad capability will have Speed Stacks G5 timers provided in time for the effective date of this change. Costs will be covered and logistics will be handled by the WCA.

For more information on the factors behind this change and the process followed by the WCA to arrive at this decision, please refer to the 4-Pad Decision Process Explainer Document.