SkyTrak v4.0 Beta

[kgcrob]

I have played two rounds with irons only (up to 5i) now with TGC 2019. I was hoping to see less "no reads" with the V 4.0.

My ST is not sitting on the hitting mat, is leveled and at same level with hitting mat and with zero tilt/roll. The ball has been placed on the red dot. In the two rounds, I experienced about 6 no reads with irons, even so I hit the screen perfectly centered. Some "no reads" with the putter, too. These no reads occur absolutely randomly.

I have previously played with different lighting, from pitch dark to really bright light, have used AC LED, DC LED, Halogen and Fluorescent, but have not found a difference in readings.

When "no reads" occured, I have observed that ST has actually detected the shots (Ready LED turned red, as with dected shots), but it looks like the cameras haven't been triggered or wouldn't fire. I'm wondering now, if this is a software issue that can be sesolved?

[alexsmith11]

This happens to me as well, but I doubt it is software related. I think what happens is that the club head is actually triggering the shot capture just before impact, causing no ball in first image and ball in second imagine. This results in a “does not compute” as the Skytrak needs 2 ball images to calculate. My second theory, the ball either flies over or under the trigger window, but the club head triggers the shot capture.

I have to say this is the worst especially when you feel you made the purest contact and your follow-up shot is crap...

[kgcrob]

@alexsmith11
"I think what happens is that the club head is actually triggering the shot capture just before impact, causing no ball in first image and ball in second imagine. This results in a “does not compute” as the Skytrak needs 2 ball images to calculate."
This very interesting! I have played around with my putter, waving a bit around in front of ST and found, that it triggers ST up to two feet away. I did the same just around the ball, but have not been able to trigger ST. However, I will do some more tests towards that idea.

"My second theory, the ball either flies over or under the trigger window, but the club head triggers the shot capture."
I had toped shots, that did not even leave the mat, but have been perfectly detected, with 0 launch angle. I personally don't think they can fly "under the radar". Otherwise, putting would not work either.

[3on3putt]

I have played two rounds with irons only (up to 5i) now with TGC 2019. I was hoping to see less "no reads" with the V 4.0.

My ST is not sitting on the hitting mat, is leveled and at same level with hitting mat and with zero tilt/roll. The ball has been placed on the red dot. In the two rounds, I experienced about 6 no reads with irons, even so I hit the screen perfectly centered. Some "no reads" with the putter, too. These no reads occur absolutely randomly.

I have previously played with different lighting, from pitch dark to really bright light, have used AC LED, DC LED, Halogen and Fluorescent, but have not found a difference in readings.

When "no reads" occured, I have observed that ST has actually detected the shots (Ready LED turned red, as with dected shots), but it looks like the cameras haven't been triggered or wouldn't fire. I'm wondering now, if this is a software issue that can be sesolved?

When you say 6 no reads in the two rounds, do you mean 6 total for 36 holes or 6 for each round? 1-2 no reads per 18 holes should be expected, so if it was 6 total you aren't far off from what you should expect.

-- You said you have the ball on the red dot. Are you facing the logo of the ball at the Skytrak?

-- Where are you placing the ball when you're putting?

-- What's behind you? Anything reflective that the camera can pick up?

-- Did you remove the film on the camera lens? (Sounds like a stupid question but it's not uncommon for people to not realize it's there or not know they are supposed to remove it)

[kgcrob]

6 no reads iron, plus a few putters, in 36 holes, so about 4 no reads per round. It's very frustrating when the very first shot of a round is a no read.

- Yes, the logo was always facing ST: However, I made several test series with each 25 shots with Almostgolf, SRIXON's, Balls with almost no visible logo and even Pink balls with dominant logos. In some of the series, I was always pointing the logo towards ST, in others, I was facing it away. However, I was not able to find any differences regarding reads/ no reads (not talking about spin).

- Putting: I have placed the ball on the red dot.

- Behind me is a gray painted garage door, around 20ft away, no windows, no sunlight or other lighting.

What concerns me is, that the no reads are random, and seem not to be related to either ligthing or ball placement. Otherwise someone must have found lightsources and or positions that always/newer work. After reading many posts, my impression is, that all the recommendations are mostly based on the impression that "might help, if you ... one inch in front, or behind...... Maybe, I'm wrong, to me that sounds very inconsistent.

- Yes, film has been removed (not a stupid question :-) )

I will definitely dig deeper, but also hope to get some feedback from Skytrak, too. Sorry for possible misspelling, I'm Swiss ...........

[3on3putt]

For putting, place the ball about 6 inches behind the red dot (in line with the dot but in the direction opposite the target). Then roll the ball over the red dot. That should cut down on the number of no-reads for putting.

For wedges, place the ball slightly in front of the dot. I usually do about a half-inch for a regular wedge shot and maybe a full inch or more for a flop shot.

The garage door may be an issue. If you have a black curtain or sheet or something, try hanging that on the door in the area that the Skytrak camera is facing. The Skytrack likes to have some good contrast between the ball and the background, so if it's seeing a white ball against a gray background (especially if it's a glossy paint), it may be causing more no-reads than usual.

4 no-reads per round is slightly above normal, but not far off. I generally get 1 or 2. Very rarely do I get anymore than that. At the very least, try the different ball positions with the putter and wedges to see if that helps. If you eliminate 2 no-reads per round then you will be within the expected range of no-reads for Skytrak.

I would obviously love it if there weren't any no-reads. But a couple times per round isn't a big deal to me. Each one probably adds 20 seconds to the round to just grab another ball and swing again.

[Panther]

Panther you need to sign up for the beta test on the Skytrak app screen in the Google play store, once you do that after a little time, it will offer an app update to v4

Thanks... got it now...

[mrm3]

Increased battery drain on iPad Pro and even on charge it draws more charge than it can sustain. Using maximum graphics settings. Recommend someone looks at cpu and memory management in Xcode Instruments Time Profiler.
Seems to need a little bit of help to sign in though could be SkyTrak servers rather than the application. SkyTrak website is always so slow generally and really needs to be looked at and move to cloud (AWS/Azure/GCP) rather than a garage server it feels like from the 2000s.

Those reporting no reads I do not think this application software can affect no reads? It is not the SkyTrak unit updated (firmware) unless network connectivity is affected and communication is interrupted.

Good to see updates and this is beta so well done team (skytrak_seth).

[OttawaP]

Not much point in this upgrade for me. Using an outdated ipad , a few cosmetic upgrades really has no bearing on the enjoyment of using this. When the spin decay is dealt with or they come out with a (fingers crossed) club data addition of some sort., I'll be the first in line at the apple store.

Does this release seem more like a 3.6 than a 4.0 release??

[thepcmd]

SkyTrak_Seth You mentioned that spin decay did not make it into this version. Can you share the roadmap of when it will be implemented.

Thanks in Advance

[embz23]

Tried with:
iPhone 11 Software Version 14.2 (model MWKT2LL/A)
iPad (6th generation) Software Version 14.3 (model MR7J2LL/A)

I was able to install on both. iPhone had no issues. Graphics looked great, I do Screen Mirroring with an AppleTV and colors were much richer than previous version.

iPad, the application crashed upon starting several times. I had to reboot the iPad and then it worked fine. Seems to be a recurring issue with my iPad and certain apps. Again Screen Mirroring with AppleTV had great colors.

I did had 2 no reads in about 100 shots. Which I would say is in line with the previous version and my setup which is not optimized. I just balance the case every so often and use an alignment stick for direction.

[powermg]

Successful PC x64 install.
Used outdoor in garden (UK -1c weather)
no misreads

I like th enew look of the range

[OtisDaKilla]

The new ‘Follow the Ball’ view is awful. I hope it gets fixed before the official release.

[peesh23]

I agree with everyone else who said the camera view for Follow Ball is a step backwards. I think if there could be a combination of the Dynamic view and Follow Ball that would be awesome. I really like the Dynamic view at the beginning but would love if it just continued following.

[mpatrickriley]

I've also played around a bit with the new 4.0 beta release. I'm using it by USB on my WIndows laptop. Obviously, the graphics are a nice step up, but for those of us who've been using underpowered machines (I'm not using a gaming laptop), it's a mixed move. The range now runs much worse on my laptop than it did previously, and I saw the same problem on my Galaxy Tab A when I installed the beta on there. I've never installed any of the sim software (more pricey than I can justify), and the SkyTrak software has always been what I used for practice and improvement. I might end up buying a gaming machine to run it properly, but in the meantime, having the option when 4.0 goes official to use the prior graphics engine would be nice, though likely not realistic. Perhaps the low end graphics settings could be tweaked even further; I'd take an even more degraded image quality with the new system for smoother rendering.

[Renreb]

I used the 4.0 beta software over the weekend and liked the new graphics. I have an Alienware Aurora 11 running the software and there were no issues.

[Lucas MacEwan]

I did the install it was quick, but now my skytrak wont connect via usb. I followed the steps and restarted computer.

[hype03]

SkyTrak_Seth I experienced an odd issue today while using the 4.0 beta version. I was using it via my iPad and in the middle of me using the range, I lost connection even though all lights were green. I was direct connected btw. I then closes the app and relaunched it and it would get to 99% and freeze there and never get me to the point where I could select my profile. I then rebooted my iPad and the same thing happened. It then gave me an error stating the app crashed. I ended up having to redownload v3.4.2 in order to use the ST. Just wanted to pass this info along and hope it helps before the final version is released.

[SkyTrak_Seth]

Interesting. Which version iPad are you on?

[hype03]

iPad Pro I believe. I will put the v4.0 back on and test again.

[mpaul73]

The new ‘Follow the Ball’ view is awful. I hope it gets fixed before the official release.

Got to agree. The graphics are nicer but that camera view is not better.