Expensive Golf Cart GPS

[Eeryck]

Just doing a bit of quick internet research, it seems that most of these systems have a monthly service fee for the company and that makes sense. The number is fairly reasonable, considering the cost of things at about $4000 per month for a ProStar system. It does not talk about initial costs but mentions their touch screen upgrade is $1000 per unit.

Now some speculation, if you were to ask about buying a system outright to avoid a monthly service fee, I could see a much higher cost per unit. The company sells the item based on initial cost + monthly service fee. Typically they will offer an outright purchase but at a substantially greater cost and would include the cost of the service fee for a set number of years, typically equal to the anticipated life of the product.

72*$1000= $72,000 (GPS cost)

$4000 * 12months * 10years = $480,000 (recouped service fee)

Total = $552,000 to buy outright

Throw in some install per cart, probably 1.5 times the cost of the module, is starting to get you close to the $850k.

This is just speculation though. I could have made several wrong assumptions, but working for some companies that made electronic devices, this was a typical mode of operation.

Regards,
-E

[Mr3Putt]

Remember, I don't really care about the GPS functions as far as pace of play goes. I was asking mostly for the communication with the pro shop type issues, or the basic pace-of-play measuring (i.e. "You're 15 minutes behind pace. Please play more quickly.").

At Quicksilver, they have these cart mounted GPS'ssss, (ProLink brand, I believe) the one feature I really like is that they give you the distance to any nearby carts. This course includes a few blind shots where that information has saved a few noggins, I'm sure. The "Pace of Play" feature on the other hand is sketchy at best. On minute it will say you're 12 minutes ahead, then 5 minutes later say you're 8 minutes behind. It's confused enough to be widely ignored. It also has the communication feature which will allow you to call for help AND order your waffle fries for the turn. It "asks" you when you're at the 8th teebox if you want to place an order. Very cool! Like most satellite derived measuring systems, the accuracy is always suspect. Carts parked side by side can vary the distances by a few yards. Quicksilver also has the transponder pins that signals the GPS, even with that feature, the lasered pin number rarely matches the GPS provided number. And these are from Top-of-the-Line systems! For approach shots, it'll never replace my hand held laser. I always thought that these systems were leased. I know the cart fleet is changed every year or two. $850,000 is a lot of loot. That number would buy you a ranger on every hole for quite some time!