An open letter to Foresight

[mthunt]

What's strange is they clearly target the professional teachers and fitters. JNPG or TGC are great for the home user. They are cheap and work great but have a learning curve and lack features needed as a pro. My club got my set up and I recommended FSX. They asked what I have and I said "get FSX". They did. The thing is these things are 7 grand. They could sell more for people to use with TGC/ JNPG. I doubt too many of those software users would ever consider FSX. People went used to get it because of the extra fees. Now they try to stop them. Foresight could be selling more. How many people would buy a new one over used if they didn't have to pay stupid fees. I bought mine new.

[kaaayelll]

Why the secrecy about what they're bringing out shortly? I'm guessing they are buying up whatever Golfsmith units remain and selling them as refurbs, in which case I return to my speculation that this policy may beva ploy to tank the market temporarily. Once they do all this, they'll reverse the policy as a means of trying to repair customer relationships.

Apparently, they were owed about $1.5mm from GS before the bankruptcy, so I imagine they're working at strategies to get some of that back. With how hard the sales rep was pushing me towards a new GC2, I don't think the new announcement mentioned could be a new model.

[col forbin]

There are two sides to every story. Foresight probably lost quite a bit of cash when Golfsmith declared bankruptcy. I understand why some people would be upset with the registration fee, but after all is said and done, you are still getting the best launch monitor on the market that is not called Trackman. Actually, if you put the GC2/HMT combo against the Trackman, I would find it hard to see the benefits of Trackman when it comes to club data. If I were to do this all again, I would still buy a new unit, but I have had mine for close to 4 years and it is still going strong. Foresight has always been helpful no matter who I have had the pleasure to talk to and you do get top of the line service. At least I have. I was frustrated a little with the FSX promotion, but it has come a long way and I have been assured that it is the engine of the future. Bottom line, they are a relatively small company and can take their time to make the right decisions.

[Bigmean]

I am sure that their situation is complex, and I am sure they got screwed, no one is being a whiney cheap consumer in all this, we all spent thousands of dollars, and WERE happy to pay hundreds more for flashes and tune ups etc. But cutting to the chase and through whatever the complexity entails, what they have announced, is that they intend to extort hundreds of new clients, as a business practice.

In my business I sell finished construction goods to clients. If one of my large clients goes under and screws my receivables but is bought by a new company that has nothing to do with the old, but wants to now use our services, yet has zero responsibility for what the previous company did, I can't put that receivables burden on them, or make them think I am trying to make up for a past bad deal by screwing them, especially since they had nothing to do with that and are trying to do business with me.

Maybe Not the best analogy, but again, $100 per unit for a legitimate 5 minute owner/unit number update in their system is a legitimate office cost they incur because of the situation. Normally it would be nothing as it is a small amount of time, but given the volume of this circumstance, I think everyone would get it and they could make some easy money as they straighten out their system with who has what serial number. I mean, I don't know their software, but pretty sure this entails a secretary typing a name and address and linking it to a serial number, we are talking 5 minutes. When you announce (using that term lightly) you are going to extort (That is what $500 for this is, let's call a spade a spade) money from all your new (albeit not new by the way you would have preferred) clients it is just a horrendous business decision that seriously is so bad the legality of it was actually questioned. I am not saying it is or isn't legal, but the fact that it is even legitimately questioned speaks volumes as to the perception of this. Again, this is a great time to look at the current climate and if anything run specials on the flashes and refurbs and try to get the $100 transfer and get the high margin service work in volume. Not to beat a dead horse, but this current landscape could have been navigated in a manor that has the new client base happy and more apt to upgrade things/have service done and make more money both directly from how those upgrades and services are promoted, as well as strong long term sales from being known as a strong company with only good things said.

[Ookie]

aeroburner, are you talking about the GCQ coming out? If so, they're going to be $18k with club data, $10k without, and they'll only sell to customers who have bought a new GC2 from them. The only positive is that they're going to allow those owners to trade in their GC2 for 95% credit toward the GCQ.

I was told this as well.

They expect demand for GCQ to be off the charts. So much that only existing GC2 owners are going to be allowed to buy for the first year or so. Also interesting that they are promising to buy back GC2s from original purchasers at very high percentages.

I'm not sure what the endgame plan is. But one thing is clear--they are looking to put an end to the used market.

Very glad I bought new earlier this year. With the premium that used units have been going for on eBay, it was absolutely the smarter move.

[aeroburner]

yes 6000 for used and there selling is crazy

[bm11]

If Foresight was planning on doing something, logic would tell me that they should have done it already. Their silence speaks volumes in this case.

[mthunt]

Why would Foresight do anything? Their business strategy is clear. Sell to Professionals and sell new stuff. My club has or is in the process of buying 4-6 GC2's, 3 x FSX and 2 HMT's. A golf town in Canada each has 5-6 GC2's with test bays and teaching.

A guy wanting his Bluetooth fixed is a pain and not what they want to do.

[bm11]

So as a little update- my FR1 stopped working after a windows update, and I made a thread on it. I got a PM from "FSE Support," which I assume to be a Foresight account, walking me through troubleshooting steps, and they ultimately worked. This is exactly what a company should be doing to support their product!

Foresight- that was a step in the right direction. Now PLEASE come out with some sort of peace offering- either grandfathered transfers or a golfsimulatorforum discount on registration for second hand owners or something. Now is the time to repair the damage!

[p3eps]

So as a little update- my FR1 stopped working after a windows update, and I made a thread on it. I got a PM from "FSE Support," which I assume to be a Foresight account, walking me through troubleshooting steps, and they ultimately worked. This is exactly what a company should be doing to support their product!

Foresight- that was a step in the right direction. Now PLEASE come out with some sort of peace offering- either grandfathered transfers or a golfsimulatorforum discount on registration for second hand owners or something. Now is the time to repair the damage!

What was the solution, as my FSX has done the same. I downgraded to the previous version, which works. As soon as I upgrade to the latest one, it won't connect anymore after 1 try.

[aeroburner]

window updates are always garbage man they screw up my system everytime i turned that crap off

[theizer]

For a system that has a single purpose - to run your simulator - I would never enable automatic updates. Get the system setup, configured, tweaked and running smooth and then leave it alone. Of course this is made more difficult with Windows 10 since Microsoft wants to force updates on us. There are easy workarounds though.

Of course this also means you will have to be very careful not to use that system to browse around the internet indiscriminately. Only use internet access to download updates for the launch monitor or sim software directly from the manufacturer site...or better yet, download the updates on a separate system and use a thumb drive to install.

I have a dedicated system I use for my recording studio....it is never used for anything but what it is there for and I don't browse the net with it. It is still running Windows 7 and runs as good now as it did on day 1.

[Keyser]

Bottom line is the employees are always helpful and gracious, but only as helpful as they can be. Foresight should have a company meeting and get everyone and every department on the same page.

ForeSight baffles me in a bunch of ways. Their product is superior to radar(FS,TM) in so many ways, yet it seems the whole golfing world thinks that radar is the way to go - even indoors! It just shows that ForeSight's marketing isn't up to scratch. From the layman golfers I talk to every day, TrackMan is on average held in much higher regard as a product. They're completely ignorant that radar has to calculate data that HMT can see, can't dream of measuring rate of closure(and couldn't HMT also measure rate of loft change("rate of flip")) and radar needs more space to see ballflight. Space is a very expensive commodity, simulator users can save the extra space from using GC2 to for other things, or use less space and pay less rent etc. Also plenty of places that simply cannot use radar because of lack of space. Radar also needs metallic stickers on balls for indoor use, and it wasn't until TM4 where radar can pick up chips. It shouldn't even be a contest indoors which to chose. Yet where I live there are quite a few simulators, all of them are radar + E6 and it was even a thought to get GC2. The obvious con of GC2 being with left handed users.

TrackMan has done IMO brilliant marketing. Everyone knows their product, their online school is awesome, they're online and newsletter tech info is great. They get people pay a crapload to be "TrackMan" certified, they take it to higher levels and pay annual fees. They hang these plaques on their walls proudly. In other words, people pay TrackMan a pile of money to advertise their product for them. Brilliant!

FlightScope has been very clever in partnering with others. FocusBand had a lot of buzz at last years PGA show, and now they're working with MySwing and of course works for E6. Now FlightScope is coming out with a product that is a fusion of cameras and radar.

With the product ForeSight has, it should have long ago destroyed radar, before radar has a chance to merge cameras into the units. I´m also not sure if them doing their own simulator software is a good idea. Jack of all trades and master of none it seems. FSX seems to have nice features(live weather update is brilliant), but it's inferior to E6 in graphics and way behind TGC. Why not for example focus on their hardware and have their IT people work with TGC to merge with their product?? And merge a video analyzing(GASP etc.) software into it too. Heck.. merge with score/stat/GPS devices like GameGolf and make possible to upload real scores from rounds played to smoeone that plays same course on simulator.

They don't seem to use social media well for marketing either. They don't have any certification courses.

GC2 - HMT great products(my only gripte would be to make it even smaller and travel friendly), but I think ForeSight isn't even close to reaping it's potential.

[Keyser]

GCQ???? What's that?

[mthunt]

GCQ???? What's that?

Rumoured new Foresight LM. Wait until the PGA show to see if it's real.