Is Skytrac so bad ?

[cchitanu]

Hello,
I am planning to buy a Skytrac in order to build a personal home simulator and I am not sure if I make the right decision. After reading all the posts related to Skytrac/GC2 on this forum looks like there is a compromise that people are ready to make in order to pay less for a Skytrac(vs GC2). My question: is it so bad that you cannot use it to enjoy a game or practice or is just bad reviews from people that compare it with GC2/other simulators ?

Thanks

[GmanJeff]

Skytrak provides excellent value in a very functional and effective launch monitor. From my perspective, the unit's accuracy is precise enough for any reasonable purpose, especially considering that humans cannot consistently and exactly replicate any given shot anyway. The delay in rendering shots is totally inconsequential to me. It does occasionally fail to read a shot, but that's also the case with the GC2 I use when taking lessons - it sometimes fails to reset. I can afford a GC2 but would buy another Skytrack if anything happened to mine; there simply isn't enough extra performance in the GC2 to rationally justify the additional cost involved.

[wbond]

I loved it when i had it. I think the big problem is people have issues with their connections and once that's sorted out and they get over the fact that they don't hit it as far as they think they do, they are ultimately satisfied as well.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

Not a fair comparison, it's like leaving the BMW dealership and getting into a Toyota.
You'd buy the BMW if money wasn't an object, but it is, and most of the complaints I see are user error or setup improperly.
Love mine, no desire to upgrade, but you have to compare apples to apples, cause I'd like the 3x more no doubt.

As much as I love SkyTrak and have breathed every breath I have into it, this is a very good analogy. I'm the first to say that Foresight and Trackman both have very great products - there is no denying that. SkyTrak sits in a very niche market and I believe that we offer the best compromise in reliable data at an affordable price point. There is very little apples-to-apples comparison, yet I stand behind our product and I know that SkyTrak will deliver no matter which application you choose to use it in. If you have the money, get the BMW by all means, but I can speak from personal experience...sometimes the BMW isn't all it's cracked up to be. <insert my recent BMW woes>

[wbond]

My friend would attest to this with his recent BMW woes.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

Don't even get me started....

[cchitanu]

Any comments on the outdoor use ? I have a net in the backyard and I think I can figure out a setup that will work: level, avoid direct light, etc.

[doublepar22]

i have used my skytrak outside in my backyard without any problem. it was mostly later in the afternoon a few hours before sunset.

[Sledge0001]

I would recommend the SkyTrak based on my personal experience and years of practice and sim play. The SkyTrak software has improved greatly and their price point is hard to beat. I highly recommend getting their metal cover to protect your investment and if you really want to have even more fun with it pony up more cash and get a simulator package with a projector and impact screen!

[DannyMRICS]

I also highly recommend the SkyTrak. My father got one too after using mine.

Drawbacks/limitations: doesn’t like direct sunlight; needs to be level; needs to be at the same level; not being able to hit off grass; can’t connect to JNPG.

Positives: Very accurate ball speed, vertical launch angle and backspin measurements; quite accurate / accurate enough horizontal launch angle and side spin; excellent range software and ongoing development and support; integration with TGC; price.

Other: the flight algorithm could do with tweaking here and there, but I don’t think any of the flight algorithms are as good as they could/should be.

Nearly all of the ‘issues’ posted here are due to user error - nearly everyone thinks they hit it farther than they really do; most people aim right and pull the ball back on target, so when on a square mat and aligning, they think there’s something wrong with the unit; they simply don’t set it up correctly. Obviously there is the odd genuine issue, but certainly not enough to put anyone off buying one.

Highly recommended.

Dan.

[Trickle007]

I agree with this statement 100%. "most people aim right and pull the ball back on target, so when on a square mat and aligning, they think there’s something wrong with the unit; they simply don’t set it up correctly."

When I first received my Skytrak I was pulling every shot far left and never do this in real life. I immediately thought the device was faulty. But as I soon realized the device was fine and it was my alignment and the fact that I subconsciencly changed my swing cause I was indoors in a tight space. Once I started to swing the way I would outdoors and aligned the Skytrak correctly, I was getting the same shot shape and distance I normally get outdoors. Skytrak imo for the money is a great unit I have 0 regrets on my purchase!

[IowaCat89]

I hate to be negative, but after 2 months of trying to get my SkyTrak to work reliably, I'm ready to throw in the towel. It might work fine for an hour or two, but you can never count on it. In my case, as soon as one of my buddies shows up, the thing starts missing shots like crazy. Murphy's Law I guess. When it wants to go on the fritz it will take about 3-4 shots for every one that it registers correctly. You can tell it's not going to work when you can't even trip the laser curtain with your club. Shot after shot it misses like crazy. Then, it starts working again and does fine for a while. I have to think that if everyone else's worked like mine there would not be threads like this. Maybe I got a lemon? It's brand new.

[IowaCat89]

I must admit that I have not tried the trail cam, but the background is certainly not the issue (in my opinion). I added a green blanket and then replaced it with a huge blue tarp. Neither of these makes much difference that I can tell. I have built a platform that keeps my feet level with the FiberBuilt turf. The SkyTrak is in a FMJ cage with extra long bolts that gets it perfectly level with the turf. It sets on concrete so no vibration or motion.

All of the adjustments and changes that I make might help to some extent, but my problem is that the unit works well intermittently. Nothing changes between when it works and when it doesn't. I suspect my wireless communications could be the root cause, but I've tried everything that I can think of and going to USB certainly does not help.

I would like to try another SkyTrak unit to see if I simply got a bad one. However, I'm kind of leaning towards trying a ProTee setup. I don't need a portable unit. I've got a dedicated space for the simulator.

[Aaron3405]

I have had similar issues to IowaCat and it can be extremely frustrating. The unit seems to "lock up" after working flawlessly for a hundred shots on the driving range. No laser dot, can't trip laser curtain. Exiting the session doesn't do the trick, but logging out and logging back in has worked. Any idea what can be causing this abrupt stall? Perhaps network related? I can live with a small percentage of misreads, but would like to avoid having the unit lock up completely, particularly if it happens mid round instead of just the driving range.

[IowaCat89]

I have never seen the lockup described by Aaron3405. In my case the red laser dot stays on and the three green lights are on. The unit appears to be ready for the next shot. However, when it fails to read the shot one of three things happen: 1) All three lights stay green. 2) The top light turns red for a moment and then back to green. 3) The top light turns red for an extended period of time, may 2 to 5 seconds, and then back to green. For number 1 it seems to me that the laser curtain did not get tripped. When you swing a club though the lasers often all three lights stay green. You might do this 5 or 10 times before you get a red light. For number 3, it seems likely that a communication error has occurred resulting in a time limit being exceeded, or a specified number of failed attempts are reached? I find number 2 to be particularly annoying because I don't have a working theory for it.

When working properly the SkyTrak is a ton of fun and I would recommend it to everyone. It works often enough that you start to expect it to work. Then, when it "takes a break" it is very frustrating for me. I really don't want to shut everything down every time it pitches a fit, but you can never tell how long it will take to "heal itself". Most of the time mine will go back to working if I just give it a few minutes and don't change anything. I usually spend that time dreaming about beating the crap out of that SkyTrak box with a sand wedge. Maybe I have anger issues?

[Wizard of Coz]

Highly recommend skytrak for sure. With that said some of us do know how far we hit the ball. I and others feel that driver distance isn't correct. I can get ball speed on gc2 over 160 without busting a nut. In order to hit it over 160 on my skytrak im nutless! Lol
Irons are on tgc lets me have 5% boost to driver so it gets real close to correct.

[Sledge0001]

I'm between 125-145 ball speed with my driver and I agree it's a bit stingy with the carry numbers on the driver side. However launch angle, spin and direction seem to be pretty spot on. I don't seem to have any concerns or issues with my irons / hybrids...

[sirish19]

I would also highly recommend the SkyTrak. I have been using it for about 6 months since I bought it. I also don’t have an indoor simulation room so I have to set up the Net Return on my balcony every time I want to practice. If the weather is nice, I usually put it up on The weekends and get in quite a bit of practice and rounds.

I have not really had many issues or misreads although the occasional misread does creep up. I have had more issues when playing WGT, but still only occasionally. When I ran into issues, I normally shut it down, put ST into direct mode and then reboot the network mode and it usually gets back. I am also not sure if it is not an issue with my wifi that does sometimes have issues upstairs.

Also, I would say that I haven’t really had any issues with direct sunlight (and I am quite curious as to what issues people have with this). On my rooftop, my ST will be in direct sunlight from around 10 am until 3:30 pm but I usually find myself playing quite a bit during this time but don’t seem to have issues. The bigger issue is simply being able to see the iPad from the glare.

Overall, my experience has been extremely positive and I am thankful for ST to really opening this door.

[Nasdaqsam]

I love my ST and feel it was a great investment for getting my butt off the couch during these long winters. I nice upgrade to one of these would be the addition of a club head monitor to get the same data the GC2 and others give this would add a lot to the ST in being able to use it for fixing a swing issue. With the given data it's a guessing game figuring out what someone may be doing wrong with out club head data.

And I like what I am seeing with the possible distance fix as detailed above.

SkyTrak_Seth will there be any fix for the lack of spin decay issue or is this part of the distance fix?

[SkyTrak_Seth]

We are taking a look at spin decay as part of a larger project with the flight model. Not associated with the high ball speed measurement work being done.

[Nasdaqsam]

This is Great news, thank you for the reply.

[Alphaseekr]

We are taking a look at spin decay as part of a larger project with the flight model. Not associated with the high ball speed measurement work being done.

I think this is awesome. Way to go Seth!! It’s a real observation.
SkyTrak_Seth and ProTee United does a lack of spin decay carry over to TGC or does the Skytrak one day fixing this carry over to TGC? I tend to see the same flight on both so assume no one at ProTee to date has addressed this?

Keep up the great work!

[wbond]

I think they mentioned before that they have different algorithms. TGC gets the raw ball data from ST and uses their own software to launch it. I'm going from memory though, so not 100% positive.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

This is correct - same raw launch data, different flight models.

[Morini]

For me, it was important that it would be accurate enough to provide me with "actionable" feedback. As such, I watched every comparison to GC2, Trackman etc. Pricewise, it sits in its own range, between Optishot (not actionable) and GC2. I bit the bullet, and have absolutely no regrets. In fact, it is one of very few expensive "toys" I have bought that I actually appreciate and enjoy more and more as time goes by. And I haven't even built my sim setup yet.

1. Shot delay: No issue at all for me. A good excuse to hold your finish rather than immediately pivoting to check numbers.
2. Read error: It does happen, but if take certain precautions in set up, it is rare. And GC2 is not immune to no read, I have had quite a few when using it.
3. Ball data: Very accurate overall. The achilles heel is horizontal launch angle, which is true for GC2 as well. More on that at the end of post.The other known issues are high balls peed, and not accounting for spin decay in flight model. Looks like fixes are on the way.

Back to HLA. For future versions of ST, how hard/expensive would it be to add a wireless top camera?. As well all know, the image sensors the ST uses are VERY cheap. All the unit really needs is one sensor, some networking electronics, and some optics to zoom a bit. It would simply capture the ball from the same IR strobes that the ST uses, so timing is taken care of. All it would need is some method to align to the ST (possible two reflectors on top of ST). Or perhaps even better, this top camera could laser align to target line, and then could be used to virtually align the ST to the target line. This should make HLA VERY accurate, and would make aligning the ST accurately effortless. The hardware should be around $100.

[Morini]

I think this is awesome. Way to go Seth!! It’s a real observation.
SkyTrak_Seth and ProTee United does a lack of spin decay carry over to TGC or does the Skytrak one day fixing this carry over to TGC? I tend to see the same flight on both so assume no one at ProTee to date has addressed this?

Keep up the great work!

I believe the TGC has its own model, so it would not carry over. The current TGC model may or may not take spin decay into account. My guess is that it would.