Skytrack

[spider]

I agree with all that Dornstar has said. skytrak is awesome especially for the price point. Haven't had any trouble except when I started and it was me getting used to swinging indoors. Skytrak keeps getting better with each software update. I can't comment on TGC or others I just use it for the range and improving my swing.

[somaplr]

Once you get used to hitting balls inside, I've had zero issue with SkyTrak accuracy and also zero issues with delays. The delays have more to do with your technology operating system (in most cases - like an old ipad) than it does the ST these days.

 

Golfsimulatorforum has a multitude of different threads comparing ST to other systems head to head and ball data accuracy has less than a 1% dispersion error on ball speed data vs. Trackman for experienced users. If you have a correct setup, the system is spot on more or less.

 

Again, what ST users need to focus on is CARRY distance and not roll out. How far a ball rolls depends on a lot of different variables. If you're getting carry number errors either you typically have a problem with your mat sliding, you have "hitting inside a confined space issues", you are factoring in roll conditions, or you don't hit the ball as far as you think you do.

[Bigmean]

Thanks guys and dornstar I read your thread and you had me really into it. I just passed on a gc2 for $4700, at that price I think the fun is sucked out. I am a high single digit cap, and I want this to improve and hit balls at home and stay in goof shape every bit as much as enjoy a sim with the kids and friends and for fun for me. I am also a feel player and I know when I pull hook it, and I know where I am on the face always, but I cannot feel hybrid/woods as well at all in regards to "that was definitely a fade" etc like I can with irons and I would use my common sense with it. Small draws and fades pushes and pulls (like 5 yarders) are a lot harder to perceive into a net and hopefully the starting direction and spin and resulting flight on screen helps there. The delay dornstar shows is fine for $3000. I really think I am going to go this route, if I go new I should be covered. I am going to use my iPad Pro for time being and I really want to (wife more or less blessed it) make a simulator in my next houses garage( I am moving soon)

 

I don't mind the $99/year if they keep developing. It is cheesy and sucks, but if they make it worth it, such is life and it seems they have improved a lot.

 

I don't want this for bad shots, I just want it to practice and improve and I don't care about club speed and all that, I just need to know if I want to practice cutting my irons that the balk data it spits out is 95% reality and I can work with that. There is a lot of bad on the internet with this unit, but also a lot of good like dornstar has experienced so it seems harder than it should be to make a choice. I have badass mats from the golfsmith that went under so I am not worried about them slipping.

 

How is chipping with it? I need to practice 15-50 yard pitches, and tight lies are my nemesis in short pitches and lobs so mat paractice may help.

[Sweetmeat]

The golfsmith in Indianapolis called me and offered me the whole pkg from the net,mat, pc, 32" tv, projector, and monitor for $7k. Little more than I was wanting to spend so I'll probably be going with skytrak.

[Krt22]

Is it the GC2? No HMT?

[somaplr]

No way HMT with all that stuff

[Sweetmeat]

Yeah GC2. I just can't see myself spending that much on a used gc2. I was figuring on them selling it for around 4K

[Bigmean]

My golfsmith is same, I was down to around 4 as well, but they want to unload their projectors and screens and all that crap. They are pricing them with zero consideration to the fact they were on 24/7 for years. I have tried to make reasonable offers and here is the deal with GS, a liquidation company is running this like a sale that will go to Jan 1. Impulsive people will buy and jump at things and frankly I see very little value coming out of this. If you truly compare what is at GS to what is available on the internet, it is a typical mob mentality going in their all about the perception of the deals.

[wbond]

It is tough to make a decision on skytrak because there was a lot of bad and good reviews. I would say the vast majority of the bad reviews were from the beginning. If people are questioning distance, the first thing that needs to be asked is was it compared outside. If not, it's a moot point. People swing differently with an object flying over 100mph inside their own homes/garages vs outside with no thought about it at all. I've had mine from the very beginning and it has come a very long way. The customer service was a big issue at the beginning because skygolf was the rep and they had zero idea on what this was and what it did. Plus they said one thing and did another in terms of pricing structure, so that got many upset as well. I think a used GC2 from golfsmith would have to be sub 3k based on use/age and who knows what else. This is unit price only. If you got that, it would be a good deal. You can get skytrak now for about 1600 on certain sites. Plus I think you can get 100 off of TGC. So it's a very hard deal to beat now.

[Wardonation]

Can you play two player with ST?

[bradski]

Thanks guys and dornstar I read your thread and you had me really into it. I just passed on a gc2 for $4700, at that price I think the fun is sucked out. I am a high single digit cap, and I want this to improve and hit balls at home and stay in goof shape every bit as much as enjoy a sim with the kids and friends and for fun for me. I am also a feel player and I know when I pull hook it, and I know where I am on the face always, but I cannot feel hybrid/woods as well at all in regards to "that was definitely a fade" etc like I can with irons and I would use my common sense with it. Small draws and fades pushes and pulls (like 5 yarders) are a lot harder to perceive into a net and hopefully the starting direction and spin and resulting flight on screen helps there. The delay dornstar shows is fine for $3000. I really think I am going to go this route, if I go new I should be covered. I am going to use my iPad Pro for time being and I really want to (wife more or less blessed it) make a simulator in my next houses garage( I am moving soon)

 

I don't mind the $99/year if they keep developing. It is cheesy and sucks, but if they make it worth it, such is life and it seems they have improved a lot.

 

I don't want this for bad shots, I just want it to practice and improve and I don't care about club speed and all that, I just need to know if I want to practice cutting my irons that the balk data it spits out is 95% reality and I can work with that. There is a lot of bad on the internet with this unit, but also a lot of good like dornstar has experienced so it seems harder than it should be to make a choice. I have badass mats from the golfsmith that went under so I am not worried about them slipping.

 

How is chipping with it? I need to practice 15-50 yard pitches, and tight lies are my nemesis in short pitches and lobs so mat paractice may help.

 

skytrak is very good with short shots. I find it reads anything over 10 yards very well. I don't think anyone will be disappointed with skytrak. GC2 is the best if money doesn't matter. Skytrak is changing the industry at it's price.

[somaplr]

Can you play two player with ST?

 

Play what?

 

SkyTrak doesn't come with simulation software. It's all which Simulation software you choose. The skills competition you can compete with another player yes.

[dornstar]

Can you play two player with ST?

 

Play what?

 

SkyTrak doesn't come with simulation software. It's all which Simulation software you choose. The skills competition you can compete with another player yes.

This.

 

SkyTrak is just the launch monitor. It's software comes with a range and several other options such as a Skill Assessment which is similar to the Trackman Combine, Closest to the Pin competition and longest drive. To play golf on it, you need simulator software (WGT, E6, etc). That applies to all launch monitors.

[wmblake2000]

Does Sky Track work outside? I have concluded since we park both cars inside garage it's not realistic to set up in it.

[sethdavidsdad]

Does Sky Track work outside? I have concluded since we park both cars inside garage it's not realistic to set up in it.

Yes, but has problems with direct sun. Haven't tried it personally but was told you can shade it with umbrella.

[PaulGT3]

I hope you guys continue to post results with pics of your setup no matter how mundane it might be. We golfers can look pass the mess and see your

engineering genius. Thanks for helping the rest of us thinking about the same thing!!

 

I still think $10000( the trakman and the GC2) is just INSANE. There is no reason we shouldnt be able to buy a decent simulator in the less than $1000. The software is done, look at optishot.

The software doesnt need to be re-developed. Its simple technology and I am surprised that imaging companies like GoPro and others havent entered the market

and given us one below $1000. If they dont I will do it myself.

[Golfrnut]

I hope you guys continue to post results with pics of your setup no matter how mundane it might be. We golfers can look pass the mess and see your engineering genius. Thanks for helping the rest of us thinking about the same thing!! I still think $10000( the trakman and the GC2) is just INSANE. There is no reason we shouldnt be able to buy a decent simulator in the less than $1000. The software is done, look at optishot. The software doesnt need to be re-developed. Its simple technology and I am surprised that imaging companies like GoPro and others havent entered the market and given us one below $1000. If they dont I will do it myself.

 

If you are even trying to bring Optishot into the discussion, you are not really even close to being in the same zip code as far as accuracy of data.

[Scottie68]

I hope you guys continue to post results with pics of your setup no matter how mundane it might be. We golfers can look pass the mess and see your

engineering genius. Thanks for helping the rest of us thinking about the same thing!!

 

I still think $10000( the trakman and the GC2) is just INSANE. There is no reason we shouldnt be able to buy a decent simulator in the less than $1000. The software is done, look at optishot.

The software doesnt need to be re-developed. Its simple technology and I am surprised that imaging companies like GoPro and others havent entered the market

and given us one below $1000. If they dont I will do it myself.

 

If you provide a launch monitor with the same capabilites as trackman, or even cg2, for under $1k, you'll have tons of customers, including me!

 

I'm thinking there may be patent issues, so suggest looking into it before starting your business.

[iteachgolf]

I hope you guys continue to post results with pics of your setup no matter how mundane it might be. We golfers can look pass the mess and see your

engineering genius. Thanks for helping the rest of us thinking about the same thing!!

 

I still think $10000( the trakman and the GC2) is just INSANE. There is no reason we shouldnt be able to buy a decent simulator in the less than $1000. The software is done, look at optishot.

The software doesnt need to be re-developed. Its simple technology and I am surprised that imaging companies like GoPro and others havent entered the market

and given us one below $1000. If they dont I will do it myself.

 

Gc2 is considerably less than $10,000 and Trackman is closer to $30,000. I think you need to do a lot of research. Optishot is a toy that isn't a launch monitor. Their software is completely irrelevant to the software launch monitors need. Trackman and gc2 also couldn't be more different in how they measure their data and therefore their software is absolutely not applicable to one another. It's not simple technology. It's why skytrak took years to develop and fix bugs and they bought someone else's patents to get a head start.

[somaplr]

I hope you guys continue to post results with pics of your setup no matter how mundane it might be. We golfers can look pass the mess and see your engineering genius. Thanks for helping the rest of us thinking about the same thing!! I still think $10000( the trakman and the GC2) is just INSANE. There is no reason we shouldnt be able to buy a decent simulator in the less than $1000. The software is done, look at optishot. The software doesnt need to be re-developed. Its simple technology and I am surprised that imaging companies like GoPro and others havent entered the market and given us one below $1000. If they dont I will do it myself.

 

I don't think you have any idea what technologies are used in these machines and how they work - it's certainly not "software".

[goatbarn]

Yes, measuring something that sometimes travelling close to 200mph, spinning over 10,000rpm at some tilt axis, automatically captured whenever the ball is hit...

 

It's not rocket science, but it's pretty complex.

 

If it wasn't, the market would be flooded with $500 Trackman units.

 

It's complex + the demand is not there = expensive to buy.

[dap]

I think it's more a case of the demand not being there. I don't think the actual hardware justifies the high price. You pay for the R&D but Trackman has been around for a long time so they should have recouped the development cost by now so they really shouldn't cost 30k. That's just ridiculous. The Flightscope x2 elite only cost 11k and that's already pricey.

[somaplr]

I think it's more a case of the demand not being there. I don't think the actual hardware justifies the high price. You pay for the R&D but Trackman has been around for a long time so they should have recouped the development cost by now so they really shouldn't cost 30k. That's just ridiculous. The Flightscope x2 elite only cost 11k and that's already pricey.

 

So Ferrari should just start selling cars for $30k because they've recouped "development cost" so it shouldn't cost what they do?

 

Just because you make 1000 of something, doesn't make the 1001 product coming off the line any cheaper. That's not how business, manufacturing and making things works.

 

Demand and Supply don't work like you described. If demand isn't there, that doesn't make the price go higher or stagnant. If there is an overabundance of demand, the price actually goes up, not down. If the product is minus demand, the price comes down. They keep the price where it is because demand is THERE, not because it isn't. ECON 101

 

If nobody is utilizing a golf instructors lessons services, he doesn't make the price higher - he lowers it.

 

Trackman is a very very niche product. It was never meant for typical retail consumption.

[Bigmean]

All this is sorta true, but the reality is as expensive as a $40k car is, you could never make anything close without a serious world wide demand and production for that scale.

 

If 1 out of every 6 golfers owned a GC2, they would be like $2000 or less, guaranteed. However, their market is small and has been, Skytrack is an attempt to make it more reachable, but their Chinese hardware box I bet costs them $300, the rest is marketing and development and profit. Technology is there, but without mass consumption the prices are correct.

 

HOWEVER, what is happening is that there is going to be an effort to bring this stuff home, and skytrack is playing a major part in it, and that will be great for us in the next 5 years. It wouldn't shock me at all if 5 years from now, a camera based system like GC2 was available for $1500. Basically, a very well polished skytrack and things like a skytrack being under $1000 for sure. I think that alot of the price structure with these is based off of what commercial clients are used to paying, not entirely off of looking at a business as a whole and determining say a 35% profit margin. Eventually someone is going to try to build something really damn good with a PM % determining the final cost and it is not going to be more than $5grand. Just my thoughts on it. Look at flat screen tvs for God sake, that is the ultimate in demand (everyone has one) and what kind of tech you can get with that kind of volume.

 

I am avid, and want to practice worthwhile and have means, but at that same time, as COOL as this will be at my house, it is totally soured once I pass $4,000, like to the point of just cause you can doesn't mean you should and the ROI on it is destroyed. I think many struggle with that like I am and in the end if I cannot finagle a GS GC2, then I am going to get a skytrak, and worst case is I will get $1700 out of it, and sell it for whatever when the tech/pricing catches up. That is the smart way of looking at it money wise. I just need to know If I am pull hooking, push fading, hooking, etc., it is all anyone needs to know in their garage, and in that, people need to realize they don't need perfection, just consistent and reliable 5% error and I truly think that skytrak is going to provoke some good systems for home use under $5k. How long until that happens is anyones guess.

 

I also think that it is not as easy to make these things reliable as is implied here, but at the same time, if there is a large enough market, and a profit margin, capitalism will do its thing.

[somaplr]

No luxury item costs less the more people buy it...prices don't go down when demand increases - it never has in a niche product market.

 

The SkyTrack costs WAY WAY more than $300 to build.

 

Playstation 4 costs $381 to build and sells only 18$ over that in retail. A SkyTrak has way more technology and hardware costs to make than aPlaystation 4. You underestimating the costs of photometric technology by a pretty wide margin.

[dap]

I think it's more a case of the demand not being there. I don't think the actual hardware justifies the high price. You pay for the R&D but Trackman has been around for a long time so they should have recouped the development cost by now so they really shouldn't cost 30k. That's just ridiculous. The Flightscope x2 elite only cost 11k and that's already pricey.

 

So Ferrari should just start selling cars for $30k because they've recouped "development cost" so it shouldn't cost what they do?

 

Just because you make 1000 of something, doesn't make the 1001 product coming off the line any cheaper. That's not how business, manufacturing and making things works.

 

Demand and Supply don't work like you described. If demand isn't there, that doesn't make the price go higher or stagnant. If there is an overabundance of demand, the price actually goes up, not down. If the product is minus demand, the price comes down. They keep the price where it is because demand is THERE, not because it isn't. ECON 101

 

If nobody is utilizing a golf instructors lessons services, he doesn't make the price higher - he lowers it.

 

Trackman is a very very niche product. It was never meant for typical retail consumption.

A Ferrari is actually good value compared to a Trackman. You get 2500 lbs of material and it's handmade. What do you get in a Trackman? A metal box,some electronics and a Doppler radar. Virtually the entire cost of the unit is R&D in my opinion. The parts alone wouldn't cost more than 1k.

 

[somaplr]

Ferraris value isn't in parts it's in the engineering, precision and tuning. Ferrari value is horrible parted out.

 

The intrinsic value of a product is not demonstrated by its salvage scrap value. That's just a ridiculous notion.

 

Portable Doppler radar systems costs thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Again, like said above - people need to know and do some research on what's going on with these systems and what's involved

[Timanator]

This is like saying an iphone is worth $100 because of the sum of it's parts. You cant discount all R&D to value something. With that said, there is no cheap and good launch monitors coming out any time soon, there isnt a market for it.

[spider]

I think $1700 for a SkyTrak is pretty reasonable. I think the GC2 price point is reasonable as well as Flightscope and Trackman. I believe Trackman has significantly decreased prices over the years.

 

I could not have imagined a few years ago having a system in a spare room that measured ball flight as accurately as skytrak does for the price. Technology is only going to get better and cheaper despite the tiny niche market it serves. I think it will always be a niche market though. Not all golfers are nuts like WRX members. ha

[dap]

Ferraris value isn't in parts it's in the engineering, precision and tuning. Ferrari value is horrible parted out.

 

The intrinsic value of a product is not demonstrated by its salvage scrap value. That's just a ridiculous notion.

 

Portable Doppler radar systems costs thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars. Again, like said above - people need to know and do some research on what's going on with these systems and what's involved

A Ferarri's value is in the workmanship. A Toyota takes 18 hours to build and most of that by robot. I don't know the exact figure for a Ferrari but a Rolls Royce takes 6 months and most of that by hand. Pretty sure it wouldn't take that long to assemble a Trackman.

 

Yes, I understand these systems should cost thousands and thousands such as a Flightscope at 11k but 30k ?