Samsung Galaxy Watch Actiive 2 -- and Tittle E6 Connect ready

[Chuck]

Hi folks.

Over on youtube, I was watching a video of a guy playing a demo of E6 Connect using a Samsung Galaxy watch as the swing monitor. With the launch of E6 Connect, Tittle (Ulike.co,kr) released the beta of the watch app for the Samsung Galaxy series. So imagine instead of a swing monitor device attached to your clubs, instead, you use your watch. It's easy to install from a galaxy smartwatch. You can think of a Samsung galaxy as being like a watch-sized android with an odd interface, and just like google play store (or iPhone App store) you select the Samsung shopping (icon with a shopping bag on it), select search and type in Tittle. The watch app has the familiar Tittle X-Play (green X). Next, you need to get the E6 Connect Demo (Download, Install, and get licensed). The last step is easy If you already have a Tittle, the E6 Connect is ready to use. Make sure you have E6 1.6 Registered. Ask on the Truegolf forum if you have difficulty.

So how does it play? Well... it's still very much beta and I found many issues. I have the Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 (the latest in galaxy series of smartwatches with the 44mm watch face. It functions and all features work but changing clubs is an interesting edge of the rim swipe like rolling your finger around the rim of a glass. I found that the club selected for the game can get out of sync with what the watch says. It appears the communication between the game and the watch is one way, from the watch to the game. Tittle provides a very decent swing and ball flight model, whereas the Galaxy watch plays erratically with many hooks and slices. With that said, I have heard that a new release will be arriving soon that should fix many of these issues. But for those that want to get in and try it, or perhaps you already have a Samsung galaxy it's worth a little time. If you give it a try, drop in a note and let us know what you think. It seems pretty cool to me, with lots of promise for the future.

[Brettster]

Interesting Chuck - I looked at that for a Samsung Note 10, but it seemed that if you wanted putting green undulation mapping you could only get that for courses in Korea? Maybe make a video of using it so we can see how it works... This would be a secondary launch monitor for me as I'm building out a ProTee setup. I've also considered either a Rapsodo Launch Monitor, or a Garmin Launch monitor (both are around $500), as secondary and portable launch monitor that I could take on the practice range for ball flight analysis/testing.

[Chuck]

That's really cool. Yeah, the S. Korean's are really pushing the limit on "Screen Golf" and do they have some extremely good PGA players... I started off needing an exercise routine and fell in love with golf, then an Optishot, a laptop, and a net and a few years later it's amazing where we are. As a real soldering iron EE nerd type, with physics and gaming in my background, I love simulators... they are incredible machines of technology that have to be admired not only for the data acquisition mechanism but for the beauty of rendering of the virtual environment. I'm also big on opensource as, without it, I think tech knowledge dies with age. I would love to see a Rapsodo Launch monitor publish a PC interface, or Garmin, or anyone of the optical systems out there.

After much study, I'm of the opinion that a 9DOF tracking device has the potential to sink everything out there if it's 10-DOF. (yeah, just like string theory, 10 dimensions). You would have the orientation of the club in space, so (X,Y,Z) Magnetometers, (Rho, theta, phi) Gyrometers, (Dx, Dy, Dz) from Accelerometers (Gavometers). You get all of those on a good sensor loaded cell phone. 10D would be something additional to indicate true clubface orientation. There are other parameters too, club length, club flex, and other little details. But with a good neural net and a large enough sample, a little device like a Tittle, or R-motion should be able to outperform the best radar/camera system in ball flight predictions. (caveat: at least by today's standards).

Anyway, I wanted to mention that if you have an Apple watch, or Samsung Galaxy watch, you may want to check your app store for the Tittle X watch app. It's pretty swinging (har - har - har). Have fun, and enjoy the distance for now.

[Brettster]

Chuck - cool to hear your story! Kind of reverse of mine, I started out playing golf around the age of 8 or 9, played all through school (in junior tournaments: junior tour) on high school team and got pretty good, eventually playing and almost winning city tournament. All this time, I was learning computer science and picked up a BSCS 1987... Living up North (Northern Indiana, almost to Michigan), I was always practicing putting in the basement, as that was the only option - so of course Simulator Golf is very appealing to me - both for playing courses, and for practice during the winter months...

Wow, I can barely understand what you're talking about in the 2nd paragraph??? 9DOF (depth of field?), 10DOF, etc... I had no idea that was possible with a phone? Regarding the Garmin, Rapsodo launch monitors - they are not optical, I know for sure the Garmin is Radar, hence the accuracy outdoors and why I would like to use that as a secondary monitor (outside only). I'm not sure but believe the new Rapsodo may also be radar?

I will check out Tittle, but from what I remember that's a swing motion only 1/2 club sensing device and I would be afraid that would not do much for me, as I have to practice/play with the actual clubs I play with IRL to get the benefits - I know that because I've been at this for almost 50 years

Tell me more about 9DOF, 10DOF, and how you see that working into a phone? And if it did, would you really carry a device like that on your body, or even consider it? With all that electromagnetic energy seems that would be nearly deadly, even in small doses?

[Chuck]

Sorry, 9 Degrees Of Freedom (9 DOF). On Samsung phones going back to the S3, they have Sensors for the 9DOF coordinate system making them fantastic systems for VR because of the orientation tracking. The whole process of swing dynamics can nearly be captured perfectly with just 6DOF, except knowing the initial parameters like the aim direction or even an overhead first backswing can really break the math behind good flight simulation. 9DOF (adding the magnetic relative orientation) could allow for aim and perturbed backswings. That should give really good data except there are still a few things that are difficult to determine, where the ball strikes the face of the club. I think you can see it in the torque of the club-shaft in 6DOF but without knowing the club-face size, or basically, where the ball hits the face of the club, it's nearly impossible to really match optical tracking. So with 9-DOF, you have a means of tracking relative aim, and with someway of reading ball strike location (the 10DOF), you then have a nearly complete physics model. Of course, you will have all of the other parameters like club-length, face angle, shaft flex, ball condition, ball placement, ball surface friction, which will make it imperfect. This is where a trained neural-net could come in. Give a large enough sample, it should be able to recognize all of the funkiness that leads to hooks, slices, topped balls and the like, and make a good estimate of spin. Probably within the margin of error that an optical system could give. With a neural-net, you may be able to distinguish the signals of the ball strike location from a limited set of measurements.

And how cool would that be?

[Brettster]

Yeah, I agree on that, but could a neural-net run those numbers fast enough to display the ball strike on the screen instantly like the sensors do?? I've worked with, and trained a few of my own neural-nets back about 25-30 years ago now...

I think I'm going to be doing about as good as I can with my ProTee and the embedded sensors for hitting, and putting. I think there are 130 sensors in hitting mat, and 60, or more in putting sensor, anyway, at least twice what others have, and since it's not an optical system only, you don't have to mark balls like you do with Uneekor, and other all optical systems. I hope someday all of this will change and we have good enough optical cameras to read it all without marks on balls, and for less than $5K, then I might consider it, but until then, not....

[Chuck]

Enjoying the discussion. When you look at the popularity of 'Screen Golf' in the urban areas you can see why it's catching on. Technology can advance extremely quickly and I think neural-nets will miniaturize into CMOS soon enough. It only makes sense to have trainable solvers eventually make their way into silicon and a perfect addon to put in a smartwatch.
So give the tech about 10 years and you won't even recognize it.

Anyway; I had someone on the side ask me for a URL; so let me put that here. I have no relationship with E6 connect or Tittle or any of their parent or sibling companies. I'm just a fan.
For Samsung gear watches ... it's https://tittlexplay.wixsite.com/gear. Essentially you just download the app via the Samsung app store on your watch (use the search). You can find the Apple watch version on the apple play store similarly, but I've not tried it.

[vagolfer]

Calibration Settings?

I just turned on my Samsung Watch with the software, and it recorded 45 mph swing speeds and 65 yard drives. Is it expecting a sensor to be down a club shaft? Is there a calibration setting I can change to get accurate readings? It seems promising once I get it set up. Thanks

[aussiebenny]

I tried this out with my Galaxy Watch 3 and although accuracy isn't really there, it's still pretty awesome nonetheless.

https://tittlexplay.com/product/galaxy-watch-license/11/category/42/display/1/

The fact that you get a E6 Connect PC (or IOS) license with 5 courses and ranges for only $39 is a great bargain imo.
Unfortunately, you can't use that license with any other launch monitor hardware.
These golf simulator software companies are so tight with limits and restrictions!

I was directly comparing between Tittle X on my Galaxy Watch to the Mevo+ and about 1 out of 5 shots were similar in distance / shot shape.
The other 4 were completely different in both shot shape and distance to the Mevo+.
At the time, I had the Tittle X sensitivity set to very high, and very high for difficulty as well.
I assume setting it to easy makes it more enjoyable to play.

I also tried their beta Golf Simulator software on Android that has a range and 1 hold. It's really cool.
Pity it's only 1 hole though.

At the end, although it's quite inaccurate, it is quite fun in being able to play late at night without waking up the family.
The usability I thought was excellent with being able to change the clubs with the watch etc.

I'm gonna try out few more settings and compare with my Mevo+ to see if I do find ways to get a more consistently similar result.
Will report back if I do.

[Chuck]

Funny that you brought up this subject; For nearly a year I had this app on my watch and used it on a weekend or two. Then a month or so back, I turned on my Galaxy Watch Active 2, and couldn't find the app. It was gone. No more Tittle X in the watch. I thought it was an update or something so I started looking for it to reload. I don't know what happened but I can not find the Tittle X watch app at all. I really don't know what the reasoning is or the explanation for its disappearance is. One time I had it, played with it, and even posted on here about it. The next thing I know without my knowledge, the watch driver was gone.

Regardless, it's just really big-brotherish to have someone else in control of what's on your watch. And to make it all a big gumball, I ordered the license for E6 on the watch with great expectations, then had to ask for a refund because I couldn't find the app. I checked just today to make sure and no-go. So if you have an Active 2 just 'beware' is all I can add.

[Chuck]

If you have the app and it's working cool. if you have the Tittle X-Play License for E6, the Watch app should work as well without the need for an extra license. It did for me at least. If you have the watch app going, I would love to hear from you.

I found that it wants a swing like from a swing stick, So if you have a single-plane swing like the 'Bryson' it should be a thing of beauty with a real club. Real ball strikes may need some practice to get right.

[aussiebenny]

Oh. I just go to the Galaxy Store app and search for tittle, and I see the app there still. Have a look there if you haven't yet.

Yeah, for $39 that it cost me, i cannot complain. I can play "virtual" golf just by swinging my arm and even if it's not that accurate, it's still much more engaging than just pressing the touch screen or mouse to swing a club haha.

The fact that it includes an E6 PC or IOS license is huge. Meanwhile, Mevo+ which is $2000 doesn't even give you an option to get the free PC license! Such a rip.

[vagolfer]

The app has been replaced be a swingcaddy app to integrate with their swingcaddy sensors. They'll be working back towards watch support in the future, but are using their glove attached sensors for now (optionally In conjunction with the clubshaft sensors and their radar units). Look up the SLX connectors and app

[Chuck]

Thanks for the update. I look forward to trying the glove attached sensor in the near future. Shod be a lot fun.