SkyTrak Launch Monitor

[Maverick]

Hello Everyone, 1st day on the forum, and I am completing a golf simulator for my 11 year old son who is a competitive golfer in Canada. We have the Net Return which is an "amazing product" and HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. We had 3 nets over the past 3 years for outdoors and they all failed ( plastic rod connector snapped). We were going to use the GC2 because I know the numbers are very good from using it with lessons at Golf Tec, but was holding off because of price. SKYTRAK just came and saved the day/wallet. Needed to know what else I need to order for him to play online. Thanks Joe

Welcome to the forum Joey. As wbond said, the SKyTrak does not have simulation at the moment. They are working on adding it. We won't know exactly which simulator software or their ETA until they make a formal announcement. If you need something now, you might have to look elsewhere.

[TorchRedRob]

I got a response and I'll have the unit on Friday dec 5th.

Glad to hear it. I just received my SkyTrak about an hour ago. Unfortunately I won't get to play with it for a couple of days, though.

[pctekbr]

Hey guys,

Received my skytrak yesterday and was as giddy as a school girl. Plugged it in to charge and it took approximately 5 hours. The unit says to charge with supplied charger but mine didn't come with one. No worries, I plugged it into a computer to charge.

I didn't have an ipad so I went to the box store and picked up an ipad mini 2 on sale for $299.

The steps were pretty simple. Download the skytrak app from the iTunes store. Turn on skytrak. Turn wireless to find the skytrak unit. Wait for it to pair. If you wanted to have the ipad on wireless it walks you through getting the skytrak on your network. Pretty straight forward.

I have a 5'x5' hitting mat and I hit into a DIY screen made from 2 layers of billboard vinyl material and carpet padding. Not pretty but it works. Put the skytrak down, let it fire its red dot and wait for the 3 green lights. It does take 3-5 seconds for the shots to register on the app and besides that the app works well. I have yet to use the long drive or closest to the pin yet.

First hit I used my pitching wedge and did my normal punch wedge that goes anywhere between 95 and 105 yards. Only went 61 yards according to skytrak.
Hmm. let's try another. The second one goes 68 yards. Not good in my mind so start hitting full wedges after and couldn't muster it past 119 yards (attached pic). I usually hit a wedge 125-130 yards with a baby cut.

Looking at the picture you can see that the numbers are a little screwy. I know I don't swing my pitching wedge over 90mph.

I just assume that the lighting or the matt in my house is bad. So, I take it out to the range.

The numbers for my wedge didn't get better. So, I started playing with the yellow range ball (the ones with 3 black stripes and manufacturer name) orientation towards the skytrak. Sometimes I thought it made a difference and other times I couldn't tell. Then I started putting it on a tee. After all of this I can tell you that I didn't get better numbers. I even verified my numbers with the range markers as the ball landed.

I started to hit my seven iron and started to see the results I was looking for. I hit my seven iron 160-165 yards. The skytrak did a pretty good job of reading my baby cut.

On to my driver. It did a pretty good job on my driver too. I usually hit my drive 250 carry and some roll. The skytrak did a good job with it.

After getting my hopes up I went back to my wedges to see that it didn't change.

I took out my 8 iron that I hit 145-150 yards and it did a decent job. Sometimes it would read well and other times it would read short or long.

This is what I learned so far. It seems to do a good job with shots over 150 yards but fails miserably under. I want to think that I must be doing something wrong but have tried everything that the manual says to do to prevent bad readings. Trust me guys, I want this to work more than anything. I have been bragging to my wife and friends that we were going to spend more time together at nights. This device in its present state doesn't cut it. 150 yards and in is where I want to practice my game. I need to know exactly how far I hit my wedges.

I’m starting to think that all of the videos that we are seeing of good shots are the ones over 150 yards or right at it.

If you guys have any idea how I can make it read better or have any other tips I am all ears. But if it doesn't get any better soon I will be returning the unit.

Just my 2 cents.

[Maverick]

Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting a review. Other reviews should start to rolling in for the next week or two. Let see if other see the same thing. On your 22 shot, your LA was 33.9. I assume that was a wedge. Backspin of 2552 seems kinda low. What were the conditions of those range balls?

[pctekbr]

you can disregard 20-22. i was hitting flop shots. well, i was attempting to hit flop shots.

the range balls were in good condition. also, the balls at my house were brand new pro v1.

[Bubba22]

Welcome pc. Thanks for the review. How are your lob, sand and 9 irons? Other than distance, all ok?

[pctekbr]

the graph that displays the shots are pretty good except the distance. i really can't say if the numbers are correct for spin and anything else as i don't have anything else to compare it to besides the range markers and a range finder. i am new to the numbers of spin, ss, launch, etc. i just know that right now that my distance is wrong for clubs less than a 7 iron for me.

[Bubba22]

Hit 5 sand, pitch wedges an 9 irons. Post your average numbers.

[hks8888]

pctekbr, thanks for your review. Sorry to hear a different experience you had. My primary goal of using Skytrak is to sharpen wedge games in my basement practice. I will get mine tomorrow and will then focus on verifying short distance shots on Thursday.

[keithpbz]

Took mine to range tonight. Was cold, around 35* and after about 15 shots it wouldn't register any more shots. Had to turn it off and then it started working again. Flight was good but distances weren't accurate. But that was probably because of cold range balls, and really low spin rates with high lofted clubs around 2,100-2,400 and Made yardages more than they should of been probably because skytrak thought they were fliers. And also it won't let me register the device. I created my account before it showed up and I can't figure out now how to register serial number.

[hks8888]

Thanks for the review. Did you mean Skytrak recorded your wedge shots longer than actual flights??

[Robbies190]

Anyone having trouble signing on with skytrak software? Says I should have different screens for connecting and I am not getting anything but the connecting screen.
Just shows 2 red lights on box for me...

[pctekbr]

i had issues bringing it from home to the course. rebooting the ipad fixed it for me. had to reboot the ipad once more when i got home to reconnect it.

you have to use the same username and password you created on the skytrak page that you ordered on. i thought it was my email address but it isn't. easiest way to find out your username is by resetting your password on the skytrak/skycaddie website. it will email you your username.

[Robbies190]

Ok I got it working tonight.
Same issues as others with my wedge distance .....a bit screwy
The delay is not bad. Basically I put a ball down ready for next shot and then look at the IPad to see my result. Kind of works out perfect timing wise. Taking it to range tomorrow and hope to have 5-6 guys use it to gauge reaction to distance.

[Mike Z]

Got the chance to hit several shots. 8 iron and longer clubs were pretty darn close to what I would expect distance wise. Used a variety of balls from beat up to new. There is definitely a difference especially with beat up balls. Those get penalized for distance probably by over reading spin. Wedges through 9 iron were penalized in distance as well. 95 yard shot showing up as 80. Did a slower speed swing to cut spin and that didn't seem to make much difference. Maybe it's inflating the launch angle the higher the angle actualliy is. The good news is that the distance penalty seems pretty uniform so if you're willing to do some quick math you can still work with your distance control.

Shot shape seems to be pretty true.

Now for the screwy part. I planned to go back after the session to analyze the results and benchmark some things like spin and launch angle. Trying to bring both down with the irons. Yet when I went back into the session everything is listed as driver even though I set the club before switching clubs. The app is also saying that my practice session was a day and a half long and that I had another one the same day for 11 hours. My guess is that the Internet connection where I was hitting is flaky so maybe that trips up the app.

Summary:
Distance in higher launch clubs probably needs some tweaking in the flight model. Makes sense when you consider the flight model being used was derived for driver optimization I believe

Other distances and shot shapes seems accurate (will test against flights cope when I get the opportunity

Flaky Internet connection seems to mess with session information. Makes me wonder why that information is not being stored on the iPad itself. If it is then I need help figuring out how the session got messed up.

Happy with the purchase. It will allow me to work on my game over the winter with very useful feedback. Certainly room for improvement and I would expect to see tweaks sooner than later.

Using balls in fairly good condition and of the same kind will help your results make more sense

Getting a 4-5 second delay and it doesn't bother me. Hit shot, place new ball, look at monitor, watch shot. Unless I want to hit like a machine gun I can't see it being a problem.

Would like to hear tips and tricks for lining the machine up. That was a challenge for me when I needed to move the machine to use a tee.

Sorry for the book. Just wanted to throw out as many thoughts as I could while they were still first impressions.

[Mike Z]

One more thing. I can't seem to edit the set of clubs. Need to add a wedge, get rid of the hybrid and 5 wood and add an iron. Can't seem to get that done