Ernest Sports ES Tour Plus 2.0 (Upgrade!)

[Chuck]

I just received an email I've been wanting to receive for a long time now. Ernest sports has an Upgrade path for current ES Tour Plus owners to it's new ES Tour Plus 2.0 model. This email was sent to all ES Tour Plus owners from the CEO that says;

[QUOTE][The major improvements you will notice are:

Requirement to face the logo on the ball toward the camera.
Intermittent difficulty registering a shot, aka getting a “green” light.
Shots that hit the mat before the ball causing a “no read.”

Additionally, the 3.5 second delay to see data appear on the screen makes the user think that shot did not register. To resolve that issue, we have changed the algorithms to display the data as it is received internally so that information like club speed and ball speed will show up on the screen immediately.
/QUOTE]

Sounds good. Anything to get rid of the "no read". Anything that improves the side spin and spring angle amplification I sometimes see. I'm all for accuracy. While the upgrade isn't cheap (nor free), it does take the old reliable ES Tour Plus to a more competitive position, given competitors like Rapsoda MLM2PRO, the Garmin R10, and the Skytrak 1 and 2. The change is both software and hardware so not a trivial upgrade. The email says to Just "call or email for an RA number and send us your unit so that we can incorporate these very important hardware and software changes," Lastly the cost for this; "The cost of the upgrade is $395.00 with one-way shipping included, but we are offering this upgrade for $350.00 through the end of August."

I'm so glad to see this. Although I have a really good setup now with my R10 including a home-brew putting system that is close to the bees-knees of putt sims, I would always turn on the ES TP16 for TGC 2019 tournaments once a week. Anyway, it's good to see ES jumping in and not forgetting the base.

[Bubba22]

Keep in mind this is the second or third hardware upgrade with this unit. I really hope they get it right. A lot of the issues are related to the microphone trigger etc
Please keep us posted with the outcomes Chuck as you are our resident expert with the ES16 Tour plus and soon to be 2.0
Software changes are a given with any launch monitor.
What hardware changes are being done?

[Chuck]

I'll let you know how it goes. I have the unit boxed up and ready to go, I need to get the RA and well see. This is the first hardware-software combo upgrade I've seen and given the competition at the low end, I'm hopeful for a unit more dialed in and realistic. If this is for the announcement of the ES16 2.0 with a sneak peak upgrade, I can dig that.

[Bubba22]

As far as I know, the hardware changes are related to circuit changes to allow for better microphone trigger timing. I am not a big fan of the microphone trigger but let's see how they do it. The big things to check will be logo placement, fat shots and also chipping with say 8 iron etc.
The last hardware update was a change in lens and it did improve things. I'm interested to see what this new update brings and how many people will pay that amount.

[Chuck]

I'm with you on that Bubba22

[YetG08]

Thanks for the info Chuck. I just received my RA#, Ernest Sports said it would be about a 1 week turnaround. They also said the logo placement fix will require ball with special markings which they "may" provide with the upgrade.

[Chuck]

I should have my unit Monday. I'm really hoping this resolves the wedge play which was always broken. The workaround I've used is if less than 40 yards, go to the lob-wedge chip mode (in TGC2019) and use my pitch-wedge. More than that, and it was a wildcard but always some type of pitch-n-roll.
The other issue I've had is the spin axis could be extreme at times when it shouldn't have. I'm hoping the logo fix solves that issue. Looking forward to some testing and playing a little more. Since I have my R10 working extremely well, it will be interesting to see how this upgrade impacts my comparisons. BTW, if you have an R10, you can run the ES 16 and the R10 at the same time without conflicts between the radars. It should be an exciting week with the Ernest Sports ES Tour Plus 2.0.

[Chuck]

Well, maybe I have the date wrong. Looks like I need a little patience. I wish ES had a status web page for RA's

[Ditdr]

Well, maybe I have the date wrong. Looks like I need a little patience. I wish ES had a status web page for RA's

Lmk how this goes for you. I'm definitely going to do the upgrade if its worth it. I'm new here and just picked up the used es16 in the classifieds from a member here. For only 550 its a good deal.

I only have a srixon divide ball which reads spin about 4 out of 10 shots, I bought some regular srixon balls on Amazon they should be here Wednesday. I'm hoping that gets spin to be more reliable

I have a rapsodo mlm2pro that I use outside but its too stinking hot being out in the direct sun, and I want club path data and I'm planning on this being the star of my garage sim build. If the upgrade can get it to where I get spin 9 out of 10 shots ill be a happy camper.

[Bubba22]

Lmk how this goes for you. I'm definitely going to do the upgrade if its worth it. I'm new here and just picked up the used es16 in the classifieds from a member here. For only 550 its a good deal.

I only have a srixon divide ball which reads spin about 4 out of 10 shots, I bought some regular srixon balls on Amazon they should be here Wednesday. I'm hoping that gets spin to be more reliable

I have a rapsodo mlm2pro that I use outside but its too stinking hot being out in the direct sun, and I want club path data and I'm planning on this being the star of my garage sim build. If the upgrade can get it to where I get spin 9 out of 10 shots ill be a happy camper.

Chuck is our resident expert so he will let us know about the upgrade. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Chuck]

Well, it's taking longer than I expected. Sorry, not much to report. In the meantime, I've managed to strain my right wrist, so if it does come soon, I may not be able to give it a good evaluation. (bummer). And damn it, if I didn't have a nice golf outing planned for Sun. That said, it looks like the ES16 Tour Plus 2.0 is now being sold @ $1795 new. Totally new gear, cameras, CPU, code, and firmware. It sounds like they want something to compete in the Skytrak price range.

[Ditdr]

I sent mine in. To me its a no Brainer ill have 900 into mine all said an done and if its what they say it will be it'll be the best launch monitor in that price range. Skytrak plus and mevo plus with pro package are almost double the price at 3k.

[MikeL]

I ordered the new unit yesterday, so I am looking for advice on how to get this optimized and working well. Do any types of balls work better than others? The split color, full stripe, Truvis/Pix, RCTs, something with a big logo/picture on the side, reflective dots, etc.? I'm hearing I need 8' in from the ball to the net, is that the proper distance or just the minimum needed? For software, are the iOS apps decent for using it as a range? There are a few apps from ES in the App Store, is one better than the other? The unit comes with 5 E6 courses, has anyone bought and used other courses or software? Any suggestions there? Thanks in advance. I'm sure I'll have more questions and I'll post them as I think of them. Couldn't be more excited! I've used a Mevo for the past few years but this unit has a lot of data points I really want to see and doesn't need 13' in front to get them. I was about to buy the Bushnell branded GC3, but for $1500 less and no annual subscription, this definitely looks like a solid choice.

[Chuck]

Well, good news. I have received a UPS Trackingcode from ES, so the ETA is Sat evening or Mon. It should be fun to relearn that LM again. I developed many tricks and ball shots to get around some of the ES16 version 1.0 issues. Specifically to deal with wedge shots. (I found that in Lob-Wedge-Chip with a PW, I could do chip-n-roll from 50 yards to 7-8 pretty easily and well enough to score on occasion. On the R10 there was not a problem except at the unnaturally shortest ranges. 5-2yrds). Anyway, it should be a fun weekend.

[HappyGilmore102]

Hi Chuck

we're all waiting for your review and if it finally works as expected then i see ernest sport current offer is:

"Now $1,795 when you use Coupon Code “GOLFES” and get the 5 pack course software from E6."

which is a good deal, if it finally works, fingers crossed.

[Chuck]

Bummer. It didn't get shipped. UPS had an estimated arrival time of today, but it's not to be. It will be next week sometime probably after Wed. Sorry for the false expectations.

[MikeL]

I just called as I had not received any update on my order from Thursday and I was informed that they are currently moving offices so they don't expect to ship anything this week. I'm rather bummed about that.

[Chuck]

I didn't know that they were doing an office move (Those can be fun... <sarcasm> ). But It finally got out of the warehouse and is now in transient. I will fess up and add, that when I sent it back, I had another issue that needed work, and that was my cracked LCD display on the unit (yeah a million-to-one ball ricochet blasted the top of the unit and cracked the LCD panel. The unit still worked and maintained alignment, but you did need to maintain awareness of club selection in TGC2019) I requested they replace that in addition to the upgraded system for an additional $50 So after nearly a year of the crack display, that will be gone and hopefully all of the other annoying weirdness with the device. Should be fun for the next few weeks. Oh, the anticipation. <Cue in that old Katchup commercial song; Anticipation; making me wait>