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Protee VX Review
In seeing the dam break the last few weeks on data and reviews, I finally decided to pull the trigger on the Protee VX. This is an upgrade from the Skytrak for me and if you’ve seen any of my other posts, I was stuck deciding between the VX or Uneekor for a while. One of my sons is a lefty so an overhead monitor was definitely going to be the way to go. And I had taken some lessons in the winter on a QED and loved the additional features in some of the data and in particular, the clubhead video. Seeing that the VX essentially matched all of the data and video I was looking for along with an included software package, a lower price, and a free TGC2019 transfer, it was a simple decision once enough positive reviews came out. Martijn from Protee also did a remote demo with me and answered all of my questions and that gave me additional confidence in the product.
My VX finally arrived last week, and I set about installation. This is where I ran into a little bit of an ordeal. Installation itself was relatively simple. You attach a plate to the ceiling and then the VX slides and clicks into place. I was a little surprised that there was no requirement to mount into a stud, but the installation package did come with some solid drywall installation sleeves. As I was lining everything up though I realized needing a stud would’ve been a problem. The unit is in line with my projector which is mounted into a stud. That meant the next studs were outside of the width of the VX anyway. Either way, the included installation hardware seemed solid enough and for good measure I did put an additional screw into the center stud through the arrow hole in the mounting plate. I’d rather over-engineer a little bit than worry about something falling out of the drywall.
The first hiccup came when installing the VX Labs software. I needed an activation code that hadn’t been included. I purchased the VX from Rain or Shine and they were good throughout including quickly solving some customs snafu that arose with UPS. There was some confusion on whether the activation code would come from Rain or Shine or Protee, but Rain or Shine quickly took care of it, and I was back in business.
The next hiccup was a much bigger deal and caused a major scare for me. I had the software ready to go, the VX mounted, and I went about running the power and ethernet cables. I turned the power switch on, got an orange light on the switch, but nothing else happened. There were no red lights coming on in the lenses and not a sound from the VX itself. That seemed weird to me, but I knew it still needed to connect to the software, so maybe that would take care of everything.
It did not. The software was unable to connect and nothing I did changed that even after power cycles, testing different ethernet ports, cables, etc. It seemed fairly apparent to me I was looking at hardware problem, but I was really hoping I was missing something or maybe just skipped a step. A quick call to Rain or Shine wasn’t much help as they said they had never really heard of this happening. They promised a call back from their technical guy which never came. I was pretty bummed at this point with a $7,000 paperweight bolted to my ceiling. To be fair to Rain or Shine this was at the end of the day so I didn’t really expect a call back that day, but I was just dreading the hassle it was going to be to pack the thing back up, get it back to UPS, wait for it to presumably go back and forth to the Netherlands again, wait who knows how long, and then deal with having to be home for a UPS shipment again. I did a little more research, found the Protee Support page, saw they weren’t going to be online until later that night, and stewed for the rest of the evening.
The story finally takes a turn once I was able to connect with Protee Support. They were very responsive. Since it was still the middle of the night in Europe I’m presuming this was a 3rd party support team Protee uses, but they did their best. We tried all sorts of different things to get the VX to connect but by this point I was completely convinced this was a hardware issue and somehow there was no power getting to the rest of the VX despite the power switch lighting up. The tech agreed, took copies of all the logs and said to contact support again in the morning when the Netherlands staff would be online. I felt like there was at least some promise of a resolution after a miserable night. I popped online in the morning and connected to support once again. It was the 3rd party service again but I appreciate that they escalated me to the Netherlands team right away without having to go through the script and the power on/off, jiggle the wires routine again.
Things got interesting right away when the tech asked me if I was comfortable opening the VX up or if I’d rather initiate an exchange. I’m reasonably confident in my mechanical abilities and was still dreading the whole return and exchange process that I said as long as I wasn’t going to be blamed for anything that might go wrong in the process of me opening the unit up, I was game to try. After popping a few screws out and removing the cover it was readily apparent what the issue was. There’s a black box that’s presumably the brains of the VX that had 2 cables running into it, a power cable and an ethernet connection. There was tape around the cables and on other connections inside the unit, but in this particular connection the tape was loose and both the power and ethernet connection were no longer securely in place. The power connection I can kind of see since it’s not a positive connection and who knows what happens with international shipment, UPS trucks, etc. The ethernet connection is baffling to me though. That clicks into place and is not always the easiest connection to remove even with fingers. My only assumption is that maybe the tape held down that clip part of the ethernet cable when it was installed so it made it possible that it could slip out as well. After plugging in both connections and flipping the switch we were back in business. Lens lights came on, fans fired up, it was go time!
From here it was straightforward. The software connected easily, and the calibration process was super simple as well. The Protee tech stayed on the chat throughout and even answered me a few times as I popped back on several minutes later with additional questions and concerns. The last hurdle was getting the activation code to transfer my TGC2019 copy from Skytrak to VX which they took care of quickly as well.
As far as performance of the VX, there’s not much more I can add that hasn’t been hit on in the videos and reviews that are coming out. So far it seems to be doing everything as promised. The software is fast, the data seems reasonably accurate to me without doing side by side comparisons and it picks up everything. I haven’t had a misread yet and that includes some rollers and otherwise pretty egregious mishits from my kids. I love the data screen and in particular the impact video is one that I loved when I first saw it on a QED and is great to now have at home. Connecting to TGC is simple and I went ahead and got a Black Friday TV that I mounted to the side wall so that I can have VX Labs on one screen with TGC on the projector.
So far, I don’t really have any cons. I’ve got a few wish list items I see and some of which sound like there are already solutions in the works by Protee that will come out at a later date.
Had to put in part 2 due to character length
My VX finally arrived last week, and I set about installation. This is where I ran into a little bit of an ordeal. Installation itself was relatively simple. You attach a plate to the ceiling and then the VX slides and clicks into place. I was a little surprised that there was no requirement to mount into a stud, but the installation package did come with some solid drywall installation sleeves. As I was lining everything up though I realized needing a stud would’ve been a problem. The unit is in line with my projector which is mounted into a stud. That meant the next studs were outside of the width of the VX anyway. Either way, the included installation hardware seemed solid enough and for good measure I did put an additional screw into the center stud through the arrow hole in the mounting plate. I’d rather over-engineer a little bit than worry about something falling out of the drywall.
The first hiccup came when installing the VX Labs software. I needed an activation code that hadn’t been included. I purchased the VX from Rain or Shine and they were good throughout including quickly solving some customs snafu that arose with UPS. There was some confusion on whether the activation code would come from Rain or Shine or Protee, but Rain or Shine quickly took care of it, and I was back in business.
The next hiccup was a much bigger deal and caused a major scare for me. I had the software ready to go, the VX mounted, and I went about running the power and ethernet cables. I turned the power switch on, got an orange light on the switch, but nothing else happened. There were no red lights coming on in the lenses and not a sound from the VX itself. That seemed weird to me, but I knew it still needed to connect to the software, so maybe that would take care of everything.
It did not. The software was unable to connect and nothing I did changed that even after power cycles, testing different ethernet ports, cables, etc. It seemed fairly apparent to me I was looking at hardware problem, but I was really hoping I was missing something or maybe just skipped a step. A quick call to Rain or Shine wasn’t much help as they said they had never really heard of this happening. They promised a call back from their technical guy which never came. I was pretty bummed at this point with a $7,000 paperweight bolted to my ceiling. To be fair to Rain or Shine this was at the end of the day so I didn’t really expect a call back that day, but I was just dreading the hassle it was going to be to pack the thing back up, get it back to UPS, wait for it to presumably go back and forth to the Netherlands again, wait who knows how long, and then deal with having to be home for a UPS shipment again. I did a little more research, found the Protee Support page, saw they weren’t going to be online until later that night, and stewed for the rest of the evening.
The story finally takes a turn once I was able to connect with Protee Support. They were very responsive. Since it was still the middle of the night in Europe I’m presuming this was a 3rd party support team Protee uses, but they did their best. We tried all sorts of different things to get the VX to connect but by this point I was completely convinced this was a hardware issue and somehow there was no power getting to the rest of the VX despite the power switch lighting up. The tech agreed, took copies of all the logs and said to contact support again in the morning when the Netherlands staff would be online. I felt like there was at least some promise of a resolution after a miserable night. I popped online in the morning and connected to support once again. It was the 3rd party service again but I appreciate that they escalated me to the Netherlands team right away without having to go through the script and the power on/off, jiggle the wires routine again.
Things got interesting right away when the tech asked me if I was comfortable opening the VX up or if I’d rather initiate an exchange. I’m reasonably confident in my mechanical abilities and was still dreading the whole return and exchange process that I said as long as I wasn’t going to be blamed for anything that might go wrong in the process of me opening the unit up, I was game to try. After popping a few screws out and removing the cover it was readily apparent what the issue was. There’s a black box that’s presumably the brains of the VX that had 2 cables running into it, a power cable and an ethernet connection. There was tape around the cables and on other connections inside the unit, but in this particular connection the tape was loose and both the power and ethernet connection were no longer securely in place. The power connection I can kind of see since it’s not a positive connection and who knows what happens with international shipment, UPS trucks, etc. The ethernet connection is baffling to me though. That clicks into place and is not always the easiest connection to remove even with fingers. My only assumption is that maybe the tape held down that clip part of the ethernet cable when it was installed so it made it possible that it could slip out as well. After plugging in both connections and flipping the switch we were back in business. Lens lights came on, fans fired up, it was go time!
From here it was straightforward. The software connected easily, and the calibration process was super simple as well. The Protee tech stayed on the chat throughout and even answered me a few times as I popped back on several minutes later with additional questions and concerns. The last hurdle was getting the activation code to transfer my TGC2019 copy from Skytrak to VX which they took care of quickly as well.
As far as performance of the VX, there’s not much more I can add that hasn’t been hit on in the videos and reviews that are coming out. So far it seems to be doing everything as promised. The software is fast, the data seems reasonably accurate to me without doing side by side comparisons and it picks up everything. I haven’t had a misread yet and that includes some rollers and otherwise pretty egregious mishits from my kids. I love the data screen and in particular the impact video is one that I loved when I first saw it on a QED and is great to now have at home. Connecting to TGC is simple and I went ahead and got a Black Friday TV that I mounted to the side wall so that I can have VX Labs on one screen with TGC on the projector.
So far, I don’t really have any cons. I’ve got a few wish list items I see and some of which sound like there are already solutions in the works by Protee that will come out at a later date.
Had to put in part 2 due to character length
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