[Review] Arccos 360 on Android

[Kegger 449]

Arccos 360 on Android

Currently I am a 12 handicap, and I keep a lot of manual stats out on the golf course. I had always wanted to try club stat tracking, so when I saw an Arccos 360 as a raffle prize at a golf tournament, I bought some tickets. As luck will have it, I won the Arccos 360! I was really excited to get the sensors installed and try it out during my next round. This review isn't very in depth, but I wanted to put it out there for any potential users on the fence about purchasing this for use on Android.

 

The Hardware:

Samsung Galaxy S7 with Android 7.0

Setup

Easy setup. Every sensor, aside from the putter sensor, is identical and can be placed in any club. The pairing process is what tells the app which sensor goes with which club. The process includes using your phone camera in the app to “identify” each sensor. However, three of the 14 sensors were DOA (Dead On Arrival) and would not pair or be recognized by the Arccos “Sensor Diagnostics” feature on the app. I searched the Arccos FAQ and could not remedy the non-functioning sensors. I contacted Arccos using their Contact Us page on the site. Arccos responded to my email inside of 24 hours and simply asked for an address to ship out 3 new sensors, so overall, I would say their customer service is pretty good.

Update: Replacement sensors arrived a week and a half after contacting Customer Service.

The App

The app is an absolute power hog. Just pairing the sensors took a massive toll on my battery (upwards of 20%), and to add to it, the app will not allow you to do any type of club management without your GPS turned on, which I prefer to have off until I'm actually on a course for battery saving. Now, it is a nice looking app and appears easy to use, but the amount of battery it uses seems very odd. I feel a lot of this has to do with the fact that Arccos was designed on iOS and seems to be an afterthought for Android.

On The Course

My initial concerns with the battery consumption of the Arccos 360 was confirmed on the course. Also keep in mind, I knew going into the round that I was likely to experience battery drain issues (based on android reviews and Arccos FAQ saying 40-60% would be consumed), so I did not use my phone at all during the round, except for 2 instances where I checked battery %. Also keep in mind that my round was shorter than usual at 3.5 hours. I started the round at 98% battery and after 9 holes, I was at 42%. Fast forward 3 more holes and my phone had dropped further to 32%. It was at this time that I made the decision to forgo some comfort and attached my portable charger to my phone, which meant that my front pocket got a little heavy and bulky… If I had continued without charging my phone, I don't think that I would have completed the round.

Round Statistics

If the disappointment of the battery drain wasn't enough, I was even further upset when I looked at the round statistics afterwards. I played an executive 18-hole course with a par of 60 (mainly because I was able to drop my woods out of the bag since I still had 3 sensors that did not work). I won't go into the full shot analytics as this was only 1 round, but here is the base overview.

 

Hand Written Scorecard:

Score: 69 (+9)

Putts: 26

FIR: 5 / 6

GIR: 2 / 18

*2 penalty strokes

 

Arccos 360:

Score: 50 (-4)

Putts: 27

FIR: 2 / 6

    GIR: 7 / 16

*16 holes only. Arccos missed all shots on holes 16 and 17

 

So, not including the 2 penalty strokes which I would need to add to Arccos manually, there was a 17 stroke difference in the scores. On top of this, Arccos gave me an additional putt, which would have actually been higher if holes 16 and 17 had registered. As for the FIR and GIR stats, not much can be said about these due to the high number of missed shots. Now I will say that the shots that were correctly tracked, gave me numbers that were consistent with my game. Yardages were accurate and the shots were located correctly on their hole overview. It was just unfortunate that so many stats were incorrect due to shots been missed.

Conclusion

As far as Android goes, the Arccos app is garbage. It might look decent, but the battery drain is well beyond absurd and, by this alone, I would not recommend this product to any Android user. The sensors are also unreliable. On a brand new package, 3 sensors being dead is unacceptable, and due to the fact that Arccos is sending me 3 new sensors no questions asked, this makes me believe that this is a common occurrence. Adding to the sensor unreliability, 17 shots went undetected during my round, which for an “automatic” tracking system, this is also unacceptable.

So to wrap it all up, in my opinion, the Arccos 360 isn't worth the $20 I spent on raffle tickets, let alone the $250 they are currently asking. On Android, you will be lucky to get through an entire round without needing to charge your phone, and when you are done with the round, you will be spending a considerable amount of time editing shots (unless of course you do this after each hole, but that will also insure your battery doesn't last the entire round!). After one round with Arccos 360, the sensors have already been removed from my clubs, and will be going to my brother-in-law to try (he's on iOS) as soon as the 3 replacement sensors arrive. I really wanted to like this one due to its automatic shot tracking, but at this point, I'd rather use a tagging system where I would only have myself to blame for missed shots.

[ArccosGolf 0]

Hi - Have you received your 3 replacement sensors yet? If not could you please email me at cooper@arccosgolf.com and I will look into it right away.

 

Also, I am sorry to hear about your experience with battery usage on your Android phone. We are constantly working on the Android app to improve its battery drain. The primary variables affecting battery life are: length of round played, age and quality of phone, number of other apps running in the background, amount of screen time used during the round, etc. If your phone's battery isn't making it through an entire round even when starting with a fully charged battery, here are 5 things you can try:

 

Close other apps you aren't using. To do this, tap the overview button "square button" and then slide unwanted apps to the side to close.

 

Reduce screen brightness. The brighter your screen is, the more quickly it will drain your battery. To change these settings, go to Settings > Display > Brightness (Note: the settings navigation may be slightly different depending on the Android phone you are using)

 

Turn on screen timeout. If you leave the screen on in your pocket, it will drain the battery very fast. It is important to turn the screen timeout onto the shortest setting (typically 15 seconds). To change these settings, go to Settings > Display > Screen Timeout. (Note: the settings navigation may be slightly different depending on the Android phone you are using)

 

Avoid using other apps during your round. Texting or emailing while Arccos is running will amplify battery consumption.

 

Turn cellular data off during your round. As long as your course is downloaded beforehand, and Bluetooth is still on, you are able to play the round with cellular data off. No network requests will be made during your round, which will save battery life on your phone. All data stored on the phone during your round will be sent to our servers when you re-access a network connection.

[Kegger 449]

First off, I appreciate that you took the time to create a forum account and reach out. This further solidifies my comment about Arccos having good customer service. The replacement sensors were waiting for me in the mailroom today, so they arrived either this morning or yesterday afternoon.

 

As for the battery usage on Android, here is a little background on my phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy S7, currently on Android 7.0. I bought the phone new, directly from Samsung, one year ago in October 2016 and am still using the original battery. I have not had any issues with the battery and don't suspect there are any issues with it. Now to my round, and what brought you here. I will go ahead and walk you through my round as it pertains to my actions with the phone:

 

Before I tee'd off, I insured that the only app running was Arccos Golf. After finding and downloading the course information on the app, I noted that the battery was at 98%, turned off the screen (manually, not waiting for a screen timeout), and hit my first shot on #1. After finishing the first hole, I checked my phone to verify that the App was recording strokes. It was, so the screen was again turned off (again manually) and the phone returned to my pocket. The phone remained in my pocket, untouched, until I reached hole #10. At this point, about 1 hour 45 min had elapsed since the start of my round and my battery had dropped to 42%. The phone was returned to my pocket, after manually turning the screen off, and stayed there untouched for another few holes. After I hit my tee shot on hole #13, I again checked the battery % and saw that it had dropped to 32%. It was at this point that I connected my phone to a portable charger, because it was obvious that I wouldn't be able to finish on a single charge, and played the remainder of the round with a phone and charger in my pocket. I failed to note the timing when I connected the charger, but the stats on my round put the pace of play at 3:32:50, so this was by no means a long round.

 

I knew going into this that the battery consumption would be an issue because it is the most widely used complaint for Arccos on Android, but I was amazed at the extent of it. Based on your list of things to try, the only thing that could have helped was turning off my cell data. But no, I refuse to turn off my cell data to account for your app having a huge design flaw. I routinely use another golf GPS/Scoring app and it consumes less than 20% of my battery. 20%! And I am manually adding scores every hole AND using it for yardages to pins/layups. Using that app, I have never come close to draining even half of my battery regardless of what else I'm using my phone for (pictures, texts, emails/forums if it's backed up, etc). The Arccos app on the other hand, can't make it through an entire round by itself even when the phone isn't being used.

 

Again, I do appreciate that you reached out, but I stand by everything I wrote and the sensors are already back in the box awaiting my brother-in-law. Maybe as an iOS user he will find more pleasure with Arccos, but as for me, if I revisit shot tracking it will be with Game Golf as it works independent of your cell phone and will only miss shots if you forget to tag them.

[MDGolfHacker 7,496]

First off, I appreciate that you took the time to create a forum account and reach out. This further solidifies my comment about Arccos having good customer service. The replacement sensors were waiting for me in the mailroom today, so they arrived either this morning or yesterday afternoon.

 

As for the battery usage on Android, here is a little background on my phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy S7, currently on Android 7.0. I bought the phone new, directly from Samsung, one year ago in October 2016 and am still using the original battery. I have not had any issues with the battery and don't suspect there are any issues with it. Now to my round, and what brought you here. I will go ahead and walk you through my round as it pertains to my actions with the phone:

 

Before I tee'd off, I insured that the only app running was Arccos Golf. After finding and downloading the course information on the app, I noted that the battery was at 98%, turned off the screen (manually, not waiting for a screen timeout), and hit my first shot on #1. After finishing the first hole, I checked my phone to verify that the App was recording strokes. It was, so the screen was again turned off (again manually) and the phone returned to my pocket. The phone remained in my pocket, untouched, until I reached hole #10. At this point, about 1 hour 45 min had elapsed since the start of my round and my battery had dropped to 42%. The phone was returned to my pocket, after manually turning the screen off, and stayed there untouched for another few holes. After I hit my tee shot on hole #13, I again checked the battery % and saw that it had dropped to 32%. It was at this point that I connected my phone to a portable charger, because it was obvious that I wouldn't be able to finish on a single charge, and played the remainder of the round with a phone and charger in my pocket. I failed to note the timing when I connected the charger, but the stats on my round put the pace of play at 3:32:50, so this was by no means a long round.

 

I knew going into this that the battery consumption would be an issue because it is the most widely used complaint for Arccos on Android, but I was amazed at the extent of it. Based on your list of things to try, the only thing that could have helped was turning off my cell data. But no, I refuse to turn off my cell data to account for your app having a huge design flaw. I routinely use another golf GPS/Scoring app and it consumes less than 20% of my battery. 20%! And I am manually adding scores every hole AND using it for yardages to pins/layups. Using that app, I have never come close to draining even half of my battery regardless of what else I'm using my phone for (pictures, texts, emails/forums if it's backed up, etc). The Arccos app on the other hand, can't make it through an entire round by itself even when the phone isn't being used.

 

Again, I do appreciate that you reached out, but I stand by everything I wrote and the sensors are already back in the box awaiting my brother-in-law. Maybe as an iOS user he will find more pleasure with Arccos, but as for me, if I revisit shot tracking it will be with Game Golf as it works independent of your cell phone and will only miss shots if you forget to tag them.

 

Kegger:

  Do you have an update on your use of the Arccos 360 ?  A few if the testers in the Cobra Connect Challenge II have read your reviews and wanted to know if Arccos has addressed these issues ?  We will be receiving the Arccos system to baseline our current clubs which we'll compare to the cobra clubs we will be playing all season long. Interested in your opinions as you already have it.

 

Thanks - MDGolfHacker

[Kegger 449]

Kegger:

Do you have an update on your use of the Arccos 360 ? A few if the testers in the Cobra Connect Challenge II have read your reviews and wanted to know if Arccos has addressed these issues ? We will be receiving the Arccos system to baseline our current clubs which we'll compare to the cobra clubs we will be playing all season long. Interested in your opinions as you already have it.

 

Thanks - MDGolfHacker

I no longer have the Arccos 360 sensors. I gave them to my brother-in-law who uses an iPhone (which from the sounds of it work better with Arccos). The data was interesting to look at when it picked up the shots, but the battery drain on my phone was just too severe for the sensors to make sense for me. I hope that you all have better luck with them than I did! Have fun with the testing!

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

[Bucky CC 3,049]

Tried an Arccos system last year with my Galaxy S7 phone and had similar issues.  Even if you take out the pain of having a phone in your front pocket it still missed multiple shots and was not worth the price of purchase.  I love the idea of the Arccos system; it just seems like the technology is not quite there yet.

[Gravitykillr 58]

This review is really too bad, I found it hard to justify the price but reading this review means I'm even less inclined to buy this now. Great idea and I have a friend with an iphone who loves it but too bad the Android doesn't work as well

[frackh 2]

Aside from the MGS PGA Show article earlier this year, has anyone heard an update on when Arccos might be implementing the change regarding the phone being in the front pocket? Not sure if it'll be new hardware or just software updates.

[Travis382 18]

I was a Game Golf user for three seasons and overall I did enjoy it but I got to the point where the tagging was annoying and the belt clip device was a real annoyance.  I switched to Arccos this year and so far I am impressed although I am an I Phone user so that really may be the difference.  I was shocked at just how little battery power it took and it never missed a shot over three rounds played so far.  I am undecided on whether I like the dashboard on GG better but I am not disappointed by the info presented by Arccos.  GG really does have a better social interaction feature but other than spying on other hacker rounds I never used it so I don't miss it.  I plan on tracking Arccos use closely this season with a real emphasis on my performance using the caddie feature compared to when I don't use it. 

[Putt4eagle 42]

I had this gizmo for about 2 months. Played about 8 rounds and gave up on it. One of the sensors what bad out of the box but they replaced it, quick enough. The problem was it was just to distracting on the course. Futzing with it between holes to make sure it picked up all the shots was distracting. And the stats were off on the most important clubs, the short irons. Not that the tech didn't work but because I was hitting different shots. 1/2 wedges, bump and runs, etc screwed up the average club distance numbers. So that was pretty much useless other than to have a record of the round, shot by shot. . I never made a full round without it missing something. And then the sensors started falling off the clubs and I didn't really care. Just stopped using. it.

 

[MDGolfHacker 7,496]

Aside from the MGS PGA Show article earlier this year, has anyone heard an update on when Arccos might be implementing the change regarding the phone being in the front pocket? Not sure if it'll be new hardware or just software updates.

I don't think it will be changing. The sensors are the new v2 sensors that are thinner. The software uses impact sound as well as sensor info so that's why it needs to be in the front pocket.

 

MDGolfHacker

[MDGolfHacker 7,496]

I no longer have the Arccos 360 sensors. I gave them to my brother-in-law who uses an iPhone (which from the sounds of it work better with Arccos). The data was interesting to look at when it picked up the shots, but the battery drain on my phone was just too severe for the sensors to make sense for me. I hope that you all have better luck with them than I did! Have fun with the testing!

 

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G930A using Tapatalk

Thanks for the update!

 

MDGolfHacker

[WalterVAllen 1]

You are absolutely right. I used to run into this problem as well because I am an android user, samsung galaxy z flip model. I really hated that I couldn’t use the Arccos app and I couldn’t realize why. Well after I asked my nephew and he explained pretty much the same as you did. I tried to avoid using other apps during my round and texting or emailing while Arccos is running but still had the problem with the battery consumption. And since then I don't use it anymore because I don't want to kill my phone.