Arccos Caddie Link

[Zippo]

Curious if any of you have purchased and received your Arccos Caddie Link yet. I placed my order on July 15th and recently inquired when it might ship. Received this reply:

"Thank you for reaching out to the Arccos Golf Team.

We have now completed shipping out all 2019 pre-orders, and have begun fulfilling purchases from July 15, 2020 onward - these are being shipped in date order.

We are still ramping up production to meet the overwhelmingly positive demand. Manufacturing during a global pandemic has been challenging but we are making progress and you will be receiving your shipment notification shortly.

Thank you for your patience and understanding, we are excited to get your Arccos Caddie Link to you soon."

I'm looking forward to getting it and trying it out though I have mostly gotten used to the phone in my front pocket.

[lmorales425]

I placed my order on 7/14 - and received the same message.  Support says they are shipping out starting late september.  If you ordered one now, the website says you should get it in November.  So I am guessing, I should receive mine in less than 3 weeks (otherwise, I would be really disappointed).  I don't like having the phone in my pocket and the app burns through my battery. 

That being said - I can't wait - I like the product.

Luis

[Zippo]

Update - I sent an email to Arccos support about my Caddie Link order, again, and received this prompt reply (in part):

"... We did begin fulfilling pre-orders at the end of September and then the first week of October our manufacturer informed us that due to COVID they are unable to acquire the needed materials to complete further devices for the next couple of weeks so shipments have halted for the time being. Shipments of the devices will commence the first week of November. We greatly apologize for this delay and issue and once they send yours out we will be sure to send you tracking and status updates."

 

[Zippo]

Good news. Received an email today stating that my Caddie Link has shipped. Yaaay! Of course, now the PNW monsoons have started...  🙂

[Zippo]

Got my new Caddie Link yesterday. Looks great. Smaller than a credit card, though thicker, but less than 1/2 the the thickness of a deck of cards. Going to be very unobtrusive on the belt. Will be so nice not to have the phone in the front pocket anymore. Didn't get a chance to really look at it yesterday but went to take it on the course with me today and realized it would need charging first so it'll be next week before I can give it a tryout.

[Missouri Swede]

10 hours ago, Zippo said:

Got my new Caddie Link yesterday. Looks great. Smaller than a credit card, though thicker, but less than 1/2 the the thickness of a deck of cards. Going to be very unobtrusive on the belt. Will be so nice not to have the phone in the front pocket anymore. Didn't get a chance to really look at it yesterday but went to take it on the course with me today and realized it would need charging first so it'll be next week before I can give it a tryout.

Might want to check out the Team Arccos group on Facebook. Some Link users have hooked it up to straps and things to prevent losing it. It sounds like it’s pretty easy to detach from the belt unnoticed. 

[Zippo]

14 hours ago, Missouri Swede said:

Might want to check out the Team Arccos group on Facebook. Some Link users have hooked it up to straps and things to prevent losing it. It sounds like it’s pretty easy to detach from the belt unnoticed. 

I don't do Facebook but thanks for the tip. The clip seems pretty strong to me but I think I'll go ahead and put a lanyard on it - just in case.

[Missouri Swede]

17 minutes ago, Zippo said:

I don't do Facebook but thanks for the tip. The clip seems pretty strong to me but I think I'll go ahead and put a lanyard on it - just in case.

(I don’t blame you for skipping Facebook.) Yeah, some folks report it can slip off the belt easily or something like that.  Here are a couple quick screenshots of what people have done.

 

[Zippo]

Got a chance to try out my new Caddie Link today. The instructions recommend not covering the microphone on the unit but it was cold and misty today. I was wearing a fleece vest under a light windbreaker and no way to wear it on my belt without covering the mike so I wore it attached upside down on the bottom hem of my windbreaker with the mike on the outside. I did put a lanyard on it as was suggested by @Missouri Swede(thank you) and was glad I did as it did come off a couple of times during the round. Overall, I'm really pleased with the unit and it functioned as well as - or better than - having the phone in my front pocket. As strong as the clip is I don't think it would have come off my belt but the lanyard is a good addition. A couple of times it missed the second putt of two but it was quick and easy to correct with the phone on my push cart. I also (and I swear it was due to the Caddie Link) did not lose a ball today - a very rare occurrence!  🙂 Really, for me it is well worth the cost of the thing and makes the Arccos app much easier to use.

The drawback, if it is one, is that I used to use the app to find out the yardage remaining. Now, since I don't need to open the phone very often when I do it takes a few minutes for the app to sync back up to where I am. I think the NX9 rangefinder is going on the Xmas list...

[iacas]

1 minute ago, Zippo said:

Got a chance to try out my new Caddie Link today. The instructions recommend not covering the microphone on the unit but it was cold and misty today. I was wearing a fleece vest under a light windbreaker and no way to wear it on my belt without covering the mike so I wore it attached upside down on the bottom hem of my windbreaker with the mike on the outside.

What does the mic do? I thought it was just a GPS unit so you didn't have to use your phone?

[criley4way]

The mic is used to register the shot. That causes the gps to record the location.

[Zippo]

56 minutes ago, iacas said:

What does the mic do? I thought it was just a GPS unit so you didn't have to use your phone?

As @criley4wayindicated, and as I understand it, the mike registers the shot using high-frequency sound from the sensors (which are each individually paired to the phone via bluetooth). Previously, you had to have your phone in your front pocket so that the mike on your phone would register the shot. The GPS on the phone is what locates the shot in the app.

[iacas]

So when the club is flipped up, grip up, it emits a pitch (very high pitch, I often can't hear it with my old ears), and that's what registers the shot?

Oy. I still think GG is the better way to go. Just tag it.

[Zippo]

10 hours ago, iacas said:

So when the club is flipped up, grip up, it emits a pitch (very high pitch, I often can't hear it with my old ears), and that's what registers the shot?

Oy. I still think GG is the better way to go. Just tag it.

I don't think flipping the club up does it. I think it's the impact with the ball. And I doubt your old, or new, ears would hear it. More like a dog whistle.

I can't argue the relative merits of one system over the other having only used Arccos. Just happy I no longer need the phone in my leading pocket for the Arccos system.

[iacas]

39 minutes ago, Zippo said:

I don't think flipping the club up does it.

I think the flipping of the club turns the noise on. That is what "turns" the end cap thing "on" I thought. When the clubs are in the bag, the cap is "down," and flipping them up (with the clubhead down) is what says "the guy is hitting his 8I here!"

So what I'm saying is that the sound is unique to each tag so it knows what club you're hitting, and maybe it TAGS it when you hit the ball (I thought the vibrations did that, though), not the sound of contact.

[mdl]

11 hours ago, iacas said:

So when the club is flipped up, grip up, it emits a pitch (very high pitch, I often can't hear it with my old ears), and that's what registers the shot?

Oy. I still think GG is the better way to go. Just tag it.

Regardless of whether  sound is emitted when the club is flipped or just at impact due to the vibrations detected by the sensor, it's high frequency and inaudible even to young people. Are you saying you can hear the Arccos sensors make a sound?!

Regardless, I nor my daughter nor any playing partner have ever heard the sound. I chose Arccos explicitly because you don't have to wear an extra device or remember to tag your shot. The system has never failed to detect a full shot for me, and only rarely fails to detect little green side pitches. Feels more seamless than the Game Golf experience to me.

[iacas]

24 minutes ago, mdl said:

Regardless of whether  sound is emitted when the club is flipped or just at impact due to the vibrations detected by the sensor, it's high frequency and inaudible even to young people. Are you saying you can hear the Arccos sensors make a sound?!

Some of my junior kids could, my daughter could, yeah. Definitely. They kept pulling clubs out and listening to them. They all made a high pitched noise… that I couldn't hear. But they could.

I think that's how the sensors work. When the club is flipped over, it activates the sensor and then the mic on the Caddie Link must say "I'm the 8I." But I thought the Caddie Link was just Bluetooth or something with GPS (i.e. what your phone provides, because your phone doesn't need to use the microphone to detect the shot, right?), so why would it need to make noise at all? Why do the tags make noise, if it's Bluetooth+GPS?

[mdl]

4 minutes ago, iacas said:

so why would it need to make noise at all? Why do the tags make noise, if it's Bluetooth+GPS?

I've wondered this too. Maybe lower power use than bluetooth? Bluetooth is a major battery suck...