Golf4Watch app for Apple watch?

[pietero]

Hi Golfer,

 

I made my first golf app in 2013 when the first Smartwatch (pebble) Came out. It started open source, but grew to a paid version for Fitbit devices. When I moved to an Apple watch I found the current apps are crazy expensive and lack some crucial functionalities for me. I decided to make my own app again, an even better one.

I'm a family man who spends me-time on the golf course as a mid handicapper. I also do programming since I was young. I primarily created the golf app how I want it to be. I like to have minimal distraction, keep it simple while providing essential information to improve the play.  The functionalities are a standalone watch app with a map together with offline use. I also prefer to have functionality over design. 

It is a standalone watch app proving distances to all courses worldwide. You also have a map with distances to every point. Swing detection, club tracking & recommendation and scoring. There are more features coming, but that will be based on your feedback. Curious what you think!

The app can be downloaded here 
https://apps.apple.com/nl/app/golf4watch-rangefinder/id1584652910?

[Steelhead]

Looks pretty good. I just downloaded it. I will give it a go this week. 

[NCDuffer]

Good work sir.  The issue for me untethered from the phone for GPS has always been my watch battery life.  I like what you have and the philosophy of minimal distraction.  I used Golf Pad to track clubs for quite some time, but felt it was too distracting.  But I do miss the weather compensation.  It would show values for wind, temp, pressure, elevation, etc.  Wind changes so I didn’t use it, but the others appeared accurate and helpful.

[sethdavidsdad]

I will download and give it a try.

[pietero]

18 hours ago, NCDuffer said:

Good work sir.  The issue for me untethered from the phone for GPS has always been my watch battery life.  I like what you have and the philosophy of minimal distraction.  I used Golf Pad to track clubs for quite some time, but felt it was too distracting.  But I do miss the weather compensation.  It would show values for wind, temp, pressure, elevation, etc.  Wind changes so I didn’t use it, but the others appeared accurate and helpful.

The battery life is indeed a huge dealbreaker. The feedback I got was that the battery life of my app is pretty good, perhaps because it is standalone. I use a watch 4SE on the course running watchOs 10 and I experience a battery use of 12% per hour. In my personal scenario, My watch still gets trough the whole day when playing a 9 or 18 hole round. My app is designed to only use the watch gps and doesnt use the phone gps at all. 

About the wheater info, it is highly requested but personally i find it a bit misleading. There are soo many factors influencing the shot length, while the app doesn't know all factors. The app must make a lot assumptions. So Golf pad has a "feels like" distance approach. So i do plan to implement as it is pretty doable, but let me share my thoughts about this.

So the distance of the ball depends on:

• Club

So a Driver tends to fly low. So wind has less effect percentage wise compared to a wedge. Also, a course with a hard surface there the driver has way more roll compared to wedges. Also, If the green is 200 yards, I do not know which club someone is going to use. perhaps you want to stay in front of the water or hit a dogleg first.

• Wind

The main problem of Wind is that I dont know how strong the wind is on the course itself. The weather forecast provides the average wind in an area and above the trees. If the course is in a valley or woods, the wind is totally different from the weather prediction.  But it is easy to calculate from the expected shot direction (to the hole) and the wind direction how big of a vector is in line with the shot and how much perpendicular. To be of a good advise, I should also give the user how much yards/meters he has to aim left or right of the target. 

• Humidity

Straightfoward.. Easy to implement. 

• Air pressure

Easy, comes with all wheater services.

• Temprature

Easy.. no problem. Pretty accurate as well

• Course hardness / conditions

There is more roll on a course which hard an dry compared to one where it rained recently. The app cannot know this.

• Elevation 

So first point is that depending on the club used, the effect of elevation is different. Also, the GPS is very good at estimating the horizontal position, but not the vertical. The GPS is too inaccurate for this purpose. The barometer of the watch is a better source of information but ist a bit challanging, but doable, to use. Now my real problem with elevation is, that the app doesnt know where the ball will land and how the elevation and slope is at that particular point. 
 

If I provide users a feels-like distance, I also want to also show the actual distance and the feels like. Then I want to show info how each factors influences the ball so a golfer can judge for its own how applicable each factor is.  In my personal experience I feel that golfers are pretty good at compensation for the local conditions. Therefore I also give users an option  to override the distances instead of calculating averages automatically. Because of a recorded shot, I cannot know how good it was and if the user hit it at 100% power and accuracy. If i provide information of which the golfer know how it is constructed, he or she can make adjust for the current day as well. 

So first my plan is to include wheather information which each shot recorded. So I will gather a a lot of data. With data the user and I can construct a feels-like distance. 

 

[NCDuffer]

You’ve put a lot of thought and effort into this.  The other firms should hire you as a consultant!

2 hours ago, pietero said:

provide information of which the golfer know how it is constructed, he or she can make adjust for the current day as well. 

This is perfect!

[AzRoger]

I plan on given it a try, my needs may be different then many, just want a basic GPS distance and a scorecard. As you outlined the implementation of the weather info to calculate effective distance would be very difficult, at least to get an accurate readout. Winds are rarely constant and can change direction often. Does it show the running score on the gps screen? I like to be able to see the current score in relation to par, like +5 over. Thanks, and good luck with the app!

[pietero]

On 10/6/2023 at 2:50 PM, AzRoger said:

I plan on given it a try, my needs may be different then many, just want a basic GPS distance and a scorecard. As you outlined the implementation of the weather info to calculate effective distance would be very difficult, at least to get an accurate readout. Winds are rarely constant and can change direction often. Does it show the running score on the gps screen? I like to be able to see the current score in relation to par, like +5 over. Thanks, and good luck with the app!

 

You can disable all features that you don't want.

About the running score, it is funny that it is never asked in all those years and suddenly twice. So currently it is not shown. Screen size on the watch is super limited. I think I can find some space on the Score-enter screen, not sure where though.

[Lobby]

I use a Garmin watch, but one thing I’d like is for the watch to figure out how far I’m driving the ball. 
 

Sounds complicated to me, though

[Song Dog]

Been using it since I saw this. I customized the settings for what I use and it works great. I no longer worry about the phone and that’s awesome. Seems to work flawlessly. 

[AzRoger]

Tried the app for the first time today and liked it, nice GPS readouts and seems to be accurate. Probably will disable the shot tracking next time, just not something I need. When I finished the round I was expecting the app to tell me the final score, saw the note to go to the web site to get that. When I went to the web site to check my score the scores for the last 5 holes weren't recorded even though I did record them after finishing each hole, not sure what happened. Will try it again for my next round. As I mentioned in an earlier post it would be nice to have a running score on the watch app, that would take it over the top for me. 

[pietero]

39 minutes ago, AzRoger said:

Tried the app for the first time today and liked it, nice GPS readouts and seems to be accurate. Probably will disable the shot tracking next time, just not something I need. When I finished the round I was expecting the app to tell me the final score, saw the note to go to the web site to get that. When I went to the web site to check my score the scores for the last 5 holes weren't recorded even though I did record them after finishing each hole, not sure what happened. Will try it again for my next round. As I mentioned in an earlier post it would be nice to have a running score on the watch app, that would take it over the top for me. 

The total running score will be available in the next release.

About the scores not saved. They are saved and send to the server (if there is an internet connection) On every score enty, on "End round" en when you go to "Scores & Shots" on the watch. Could you try open the app now and hit "Scores & Shots"?

I think i should add a indicator that shows if any scores are not uploaded yet.  It is a common issue that the phone with the internetion connection is out of bluetooth range when you enter the score on the green. Sometimes your buddy drives away in the cart as well. 

[AzRoger]

1 hour ago, pietero said:

About the scores not saved. They are saved and send to the server (if there is an internet connection) On every score enty, on "End round" en when you go to "Scores & Shots" on the watch. Could you try open the app now and hit "Scores & Shots"?
 

When I click on 'Scores & Shots' on the watch app there's a note "For now, scores can be seen on the website golf4watch.com, login in with ....". When I previously logged into the website I edited the scorecard to add in the scores for the few holes that were blank.

[AzRoger]

1 hour ago, pietero said:

I think i should add a indicator that shows if any scores are not uploaded yet.  It is a common issue that the phone with the internetion connection is out of bluetooth range when you enter the score on the green. Sometimes your buddy drives away in the cart as well. 

 Yep, I keep my phone in my golf bag (on a push cart) so I'm sure there are times when I enter the score that I am out of bluetooth range.

[pietero]

11 hours ago, AzRoger said:

When I click on 'Scores & Shots' on the watch app there's a note "For now, scores can be seen on the website golf4watch.com, login in with ....". When I previously logged into the website I edited the scorecard to add in the scores for the few holes that were blank.

I just added a feature that tries to upload the score again when a phone connection is re-established. Scores and Shots will indicate an upload status if there is any error.
Running total is also added.

If you want me to have a closer look of what potentially went wrong, please contact me https://golf4watch.com/contact

Also, If you want to become a beta tester, with the latest features and bugs :), let me know. 

[Techbuddy]

I’m trying to help a friend with the app. It works for the phone but can’t get it to download the saved courses. There is no activity when you click on the “download “ arrow. Have deleted the app and re installed with no luck. He said it worked 1 time 

[pietero]

On 10/19/2023 at 8:35 PM, Techbuddy said:

I’m trying to help a friend with the app. It works for the phone but can’t get it to download the saved courses. There is no activity when you click on the “download “ arrow. Have deleted the app and re installed with no luck. He said it worked 1 time 

Not sure if I understand the issue.

If you click download now, you should see a spinner indicator when it is downloading the course. It tries for 30 seconds and then gives you an error if it does not succeed. If succeeded, click on the specific course, and than it is downloaded and saved in storage. AFter that, you can load it from the stored course. Here is a an (outdated) video tutorial. 

 

[JLP_GOLF]

Trying this out the weekend very encouraged by posts.  Happy to be involved in testing

[dai3015]

I've downloaded it. Happy to give it a go - my daughter uses a Skycaddie SX400 and I've been using Golfshot so it will be good to do a comparison.

Thanks

[dekez]

I tried this and really like it. It's nice, intuitive and simple. It doesn't try to be everything like competing apps. I am sticking with it.  I only get about 4 hours with my Apple Watch 8 in GPS mode though.  An Ultra would likely work better.

[pietero]

On 12/24/2023 at 5:12 PM, dekez said:

I tried this and really like it. It's nice, intuitive and simple. It doesn't try to be everything like competing apps. I am sticking with it.  I only get about 4 hours with my Apple Watch 8 in GPS mode though.  An Ultra would likely work better.

Thank you for the feedback. I got some more reports last weeks about an increased battery drain. I should investigate if it is due to new features or code changes or Apple changed something. A battery consumption of 15% per hour is normal. You see a battery drain of 25%, which is definitely on the high side!.

Anyway, I now uploaded a new release which enables you to switch between the phone and watch gps. 

This release must first be tested before I make it public. 

[NCDuffer]

Can confirm the battery usage increase as I played 9 today.  Started with a fully charged watch, hit range balls for about 20 minutes, putted for 10, started up the app and went to the tee box.  When I walked off 9 green, battery was at 40%.

[pietero]

On 1/1/2024 at 12:05 AM, NCDuffer said:

Can confirm the battery usage increase as I played 9 today.  Started with a fully charged watch, hit range balls for about 20 minutes, putted for 10, started up the app and went to the tee box.  When I walked off 9 green, battery was at 40%.

 

wow, 2 reports in a week on this issue. Time for me to sort this out. The cause it is either the code (new updates) or by the updates of the Watch OS by apple.

 

Do you have any clue when it started? This would help me to do the research.

 

Sinds 4 days, there is now an option to use the phone GPS instead of the watch GPS. This will help the battery life.

[NCDuffer]

WatchOS 10.2 on Apple Watch Series 5.

[golfjam]

Will give it a shot. Been using Loop since it's free and no upgrade fee.

[Philpug]

I just downloaded it, I will try it this week. 

[Philpug]

I tried this yesterday, I didn't score in it, I used a card. Distances were dead on but the battery usage was high, with a 12:00 t-time, and a full charge, I ended up with 10% left at the end of the round. Phone- iPhone 14, Watch Series 8 

[AlanSheridan]

I downloaded the app approx a week ago and I have played 2 rounds so far. It’s easy to read and you can turn off options to enter clubs used and shots etc. I just want to know distance to green. It’s spot on. I updated the iOS on my Apple Watch in the last 3 days and since then I have noticed the power usage has gone up significantly so I’ll use the gps on the phone from now on I think, to save some battery on my Apple Watch SE. It’s a great app and happy to be using it.