SkyTrak Launch Monitor

[Maverick]

http://www.skytrakgolf.com/

iPad app:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/com.sporttrak.skytrak/id876548058?mt=8

[sb81]

Seth said in an earlier post in this thread that the skytrak would eventually read putts with an update.

[Bubba22]

I have been testing the putting software upgrade. Reads putts well but no sim software to really test, just raw numbers. I would be interested to know the monthly cost of E6. I do not like the idea of a monthly bill for darn software.

[hks8888]

I have continued collecting numbers in outdoor ranges. Again, all I want is to get my Skytrak better and I also wanted to convince myself in using Skytrak for my indoor practice.
Here I will present more data, but if you are not concerned about them, please don't bother looking at them. Just you can skip to my lessons I learned at the end.

This Saturday, I went out to a range and hit some balls toward 57 yard target and 95 yard target. However, I found the range balls pretty worn out this time, unfortunately. So, my wedge with revived grooves couldn't generate the spins as I wished. Again, I confirmed that Skytrak's carry numbers were very off with the 'abnormally' low spinning balls. Shot 1 and 2 represent this incorrect prediction. So, I bit the bullet and I wasted two of my used, but very clean Pro V1x balls. (Shot 3 and 4). With those spins I created, Skytrak's carry numbers were right on the money.

Today (Sunday), I went out to another outdoor range which doesn't have caged hitting areas. I picked this place because there is no one around after 3pm so that I can hit my Pro V1x balls and fetch them later. This time, I myself set various targets within 10-70 yards. As you can see, Skytrak's carry numbers are so close to the actual carry distances. I didn't include the numbers here for some specialty shots (for example, really low trajectory chip shots with 7 iron), but I can assure you that Skytrak's numbers were really impressive. Overall, I was so happy to see these results, finally.


Lessons I learned:
[1] Skytrak is accurate. I can use SkyTrak indoors with confidence if hit the reasonable range of spin numbers on my shots. This means I need to hit premium or good balls with clubs having clean and sharp grooves.
[2] I sense that for 45-100 yard wedge shots, Skytrak's flight model (also Optimal Flight) might need a more enhanced algorithm for very low spinning shots with less than 3000 rpm. Flightscope Trajectory Optimizer seems more accurate for this 'abnormally' low spinning shots in this distance range. This wouldn't bother or trouble most of Skytrak owners because I accidentally found this flaw with my dirty and worn out wedges. I think you guys don't use this kind of wedge like me.
[3] I think that different flight models (or algorithms) have their own weaknesses and strengths. Consumers like me need to know what to expect from Skytrak by learning what it actually is capable of doing.

Thanks for reading this and good luck to you guys who practice in your own dungeons with Skytrak. I believe your games will be sharpened with the accurate feedback by Skytrak.

[Smacc]

I have been testing the putting software upgrade. Reads putts well but no sim software to really test, just raw numbers. I would be interested to know the monthly cost of E6. I do not like the idea of a monthly bill for darn software.

Good to hear about it reading putts.

[FaultyClubs]

...I do not like the idea of a monthly bill for darn software.

I agree 1000%. I won't buy Skytrak because of this as long as there is an option (and I'm willing to wait until things play out).

I'm old enough to remember the pre-personal computer days where all software was tied to mainframes (ie cloud computer in today's parlance) with annual license fees that eventually became so burdensome it spawned the personal computer revolution. Not to mention companies going bankrupt, stopping support, slow servers, restrictive access etc, etc. Nothing new under the sun.

[DougieMn]

What is the retail cost to purchase the E6 software with all bells and whistles and courses?

[Spudly]

I have continued collecting numbers in outdoor ranges. Again, all I want is to get my Skytrak better and I also wanted to convince myself in using Skytrak for my indoor practice.
Here I will present more data, but if you are not concerned about them, please don't bother looking at them. Just you can skip to my lessons I learned at the end.

This Saturday, I went out to a range and hit some balls toward 57 yard target and 95 yard target. However, I found the range balls pretty worn out this time, unfortunately. So, my wedge with revived grooves couldn't generate the spins as I wished. Again, I confirmed that Skytrak's carry numbers were very off with the 'abnormally' low spinning balls. Shot 1 and 2 represent this incorrect prediction. So, I bit the bullet and I wasted two of my used, but very clean Pro V1x balls. (Shot 3 and 4). With those spins I created, Skytrak's carry numbers were right on the money.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]n22528[/ATTACH]
Today (Sunday), I went out to another outdoor range which doesn't have caged hitting areas. I picked this place because there is no one around after 3pm so that I can hit my Pro V1x balls and fetch them later. This time, I myself set various targets within 10-70 yards. As you can see, Skytrak's carry numbers are so close to the actual carry distances. I didn't include the numbers here for some specialty shots (for example, really low trajectory chip shots with 7 iron), but I can assure you that Skytrak's numbers were really impressive. Overall, I was so happy to see these results, finally.
[ATTACH=CONFIG]n22529[/ATTACH]

Lessons I learned:
[1] Skytrak is accurate. I can use SkyTrak indoors with confidence if hit the reasonable range of spin numbers on my shots. This means I need to hit premium or good balls with clubs having clean and sharp grooves.
[2] I sense that for 45-100 yard wedge shots, Skytrak's flight model (also Optimal Flight) might need a more enhanced algorithm for very low spinning shots with less than 3000 rpm. Flightscope Trajectory Optimizer seems more accurate for this 'abnormally' low spinning shots in this distance range. This wouldn't bother or trouble most of Skytrak owners because I accidentally found this flaw with my dirty and worn out wedges. I think you guys don't use this kind of wedge like me.
[3] I think that different flight models (or algorithms) have their own weaknesses and strengths. Consumers like me need to know what to expect from Skytrak by learning what it actually is capable of doing.

Thanks for reading this and good luck to you guys who practice in your own dungeons with Skytrak. I believe your games will be sharpened with the accurate feedback by Skytrak.

I should have said this earlier about my early testing and results. I wanted them to be true to my real game, so I was always hitting PRO V1 X's new ones. FYI, I won a sleeve of Bandit golf balls a couple of years ago in a company tourney, those are the ones that are non-conforming USGA distance balls. I hit a couple last week, and wow, what a difference, I picked up 10-12 yards average with my driver, so the ball and its spin characteristics really do matter.

[Maverick]

What is the retail cost to purchase the E6 software with all bells and whistles and courses?

Full e6 with 65 courses is about $3K last time I check. e6 Lite is a lot cheaper. Not sure if SkyTrak will have it for that same price. Perhaps it will just be cloud based?

[SkyTrak_Seth]

Wow, that was a lot of reading to catch up on! Great feedback so far guys. I'll jump in here to address some of the concerns so you can have better peace of mind over the holidays.

1) Looks like most of you have had a chance to download v1.7. It took much longer for Apple to approve this, I can only assume due to the holiday crunch.

2) In even better news, v1.8 is already with Apple for review. They are off for 2 weeks, but it's in the queue for when they return. This has ball flight algorithm adjustments for high spin shots, as well as the rest of the weather conditions put back in, including altitude and ground conditions. If you notice, we removed weather for v1.7 while we were working on the menu.

3) If you are logged into the app, your data IS being synced to SkyGolf360. We are still working on the UI for that, so it's there...you just can't see it.

4) Someone mentioned that their data seemed to get worse after a thousand shots with the same ball. Because we can use dimple recognition, it's important to keep good clean white golf balls. As an extra precaution for increased accuracy of spin numbers, face a logo/mark/line toward the system.

5) Our club head speed is extremely accurate on a well-struck shot. Because it is calculated though, shots that are not hit in the center of the club face are not going to be as accurate. The only exception here is CHS with wedges which we are looking into.

6) Whoever made the base and shield combo - I almost spit out my coffee because it looks so similar to ours. However, you can't have anything in front of the laser or window...just be patient, our prototype has been approved for manufacturing.

7) To the guy who posted about his high carry with wedges, those back spin numbers looked crazy low. Maybe it was someone else who tried with sharpened grooves, but it seemed to fix the issue.

8) Putting is not active yet, so don't bother trying

Happy holidays to everyone!
Seth

[TorchRedRob]

Wow, that was a lot of reading to catch up on! Great feedback so far guys. I'll jump in here to address some of the concerns so you can have better peace of mind over the holidays.

1) Looks like most of you have had a chance to download v1.7. It took much longer for Apple to approve this, I can only assume due to the holiday crunch.

2) In even better news, v1.8 is already with Apple for review. They are off for 2 weeks, but it's in the queue for when they return. This has ball flight algorithm adjustments for high spin shots, as well as the rest of the weather conditions put back in, including altitude and ground conditions. If you notice, we removed weather for v1.7 while we were working on the menu.

3) If you are logged into the app, your data IS being synced to SkyGolf360. We are still working on the UI for that, so it's there...you just can't see it.

4) Someone mentioned that their data seemed to get worse after a thousand shots with the same ball. Because we can use dimple recognition, it's important to keep good clean white golf balls. As an extra precaution for increased accuracy of spin numbers, face a logo/mark/line toward the system.

5) Our club head speed is extremely accurate on a well-struck shot. Because it is calculated though, shots that are not hit in the center of the club face are not going to be as accurate. The only exception here is CHS with wedges which we are looking into.

6) Whoever made the base and shield combo - I almost spit out my coffee because it looks so similar to ours. However, you can't have anything in front of the laser or window...just be patient, our prototype has been approved for manufacturing.

7) To the guy who posted about his high carry with wedges, those back spin numbers looked crazy low. Maybe it was someone else who tried with sharpened grooves, but it seemed to fix the issue.

8) Putting is not active yet, so don't bother trying

Happy holidays to everyone!
Seth

Thanks for the update Seth. I just posted over in FAQ/Issues about #2 and #3, about the same time that you were posting this, so that answers those questions. Thanks again for keeping us in the loop! We appreciate it. So far, I'm really enjoying mine.

[Jel]

Yes, thanks for the update Seth/Skytrak. Looking forward to version 1.8 and any sim announcement in the near future !

[jacksonlui]

Thanks for the response Seth. I personally didn't buy this for the sims, I had just wanted an updated LM with all the features present in the vector as a club/ball fitting machine. Looking forward to trying v1.8

[bkcorwin]

I ended up milling out a lens and laser pocket and the guard works. Still a bummer about not being able to protect that window area as its golf ball height.

I'll be curious to know how they price their shield.

[sb81]

Thank you for your in depth numbers HKS, do you ever worry about leveling your ST when you use it at home or at the different ranges?

Also, as someone earlier said (Jel maybe?) one positive if E6 is going to be monthly fee based, hopefully there will be other sim softwares in the future and paying ~$10-15 a month for a 3-6 months would obviously be better than spending $2-3k only to have TGC or Perfect Golf support come out after purchasing E6.

[DougieMn]

I agree its much more palatable to pay a subscription fee than fokr over a couple K for the full fledged software program.

Question for you online players looking ahead to the Sim side of SkyTrak- What kind of internet speed is necessary to be able to play online or better yet use the "Cloud" for Simulation?

My golf area is in a building 100 feet from our house, our Wifi is kind of hit and miss but was planning on installing exterior antennas for send and receive of Wifi. I'm hoping this will work? Getting wires into this building for internet would be quite difficult and not an option I'd like to explore. TIA

BTW, insulation gets blown in this morning, drywallers come next week so walls will be closed soon!