HackMotion Training System - 2023 Forum Review

[DriverBreaker]

1 hour ago, Getoffmylawn said:

First, i know I’m late to the party, but congrats testers!  This was a really cool testing opportunity to see pop up for the forum and I’m really looking forward to following.

What I’m really curious about is how the training device positively impacts the golf swing from a “match up” standpoint if that makes sense.  Does Hack Motion have a recommended or ideal range that measurements need to be in?  I guess I’m already struggling to wrap my head around how the inputs help individual golfers who need different degrees of flexion or ulnar deviation, etc., to comport with the rest of their swing.

Sorry for the ramble…

This is a big question I have as well.  I have a very “strong” grip, so my wrist movement to square the clubface is different from someone with a “weak” grip.  That’s a question I’ll be asking during the onboarding. 

[GolfSpy AFG]

27 minutes ago, DriverBreaker said:

This is a big question I have as well.  I have a very “strong” grip, so my wrist movement to square the clubface is different from someone with a “weak” grip.  That’s a question I’ll be asking during the onboarding. 

Great; please share what you hear on this point in particular!

[Fongle]

3 hours ago, DriverBreaker said:

This is a big question I have as well.  I have a very “strong” grip, so my wrist movement to square the clubface is different from someone with a “weak” grip.  That’s a question I’ll be asking during the onboarding. 

Yep, my grip is insanely strong, I probably should be snap hooking it left, but I hit a high fade anyway. My swing works well enough for me, but I'm really looking forward to being able to break it down with actual numbers and data, and try rebuild it to be more consistent. I'm currently scheduled for my onboarding Tues 8pm AEST, and I'm looking forward to being able to go over everything the HackMotion can do then 

[DriverBreaker]

11 hours ago, Fongle said:

Yep, my grip is insanely strong, I probably should be snap hooking it left, but I hit a high fade anyway. My swing works well enough for me, but I'm really looking forward to being able to break it down with actual numbers and data, and try rebuild it to be more consistent. I'm currently scheduled for my onboarding Tues 8pm AEST, and I'm looking forward to being able to go over everything the HackMotion can do then 

Yeah lots of strong grip players play fades.  See it on Tour.  For me, I just set it, then don’t consciously have any rotation of the clubface in the back and downswing.  Pure body rotation.  Works well enough.  Of course feel/real can be different, so I’m really interested to see how this goes.

[DriverBreaker]

So here is something I found on the Hack Motion website.  Seems like yes, they do give you ranges based on strong, neutral, and weak grips.  See images below.  It seems like they utilize Coach Scott Cowx's interpretations and patterns heavily.

[DriverBreaker]

More (note the highlighted text):

[DriverBreaker]

[Bad Golfer]

I happened to receive my HackMotion on Friday afternoon.

Unboxing

Here it is as I was unboxing.

I believe it is professionally packaged and looks great.

Inside the box you will find the main unit, hand strap, glove clip, charger, and warranty and quick start guide.

Getting Started 

In order to get started there is a Qr code that I scanned with my phone after I downloaded the HackMoition app. As soon as I the unit paired with my phone and app through Bluetooth it said Welcome to HackMoition Pro.

The HackMoition is basically like wearing a watch. I do wear a watch and really didn't even notice it was on. 

I decided to try it out. I opened up the app and then turned on the unit and it did a firmware update.

When you start it up you get these options:

I clicked on practice and you get these options:

I selected clubface control. There you can select if you have a strong, weak, or neutral grip. It then has preset parameters for each grip. You will also calibrate the unit by holding your hand flat and then turning up your arm to a 30 to 45 degree angle. Then it wants you to address a ball as you normally would. By staying still behind the ball it basically locks in for your starting position. 

First Impressions

At first it was a little overwhelming figuring out what to do. It is actually very simple. I just started to hit a few shots and it would tell me weather or not I was in the normal perimeters with flexion/extension on the top of my swing and also at impact. I'm pretty sure you can do custom settings on the perimeters but I didn't get that far yet.

It tells you when it has registered a shot by a sound it makes. It also will tell you if you are within the perimeters on the top of the backswing and at impact. It will count out a streak then for the correct position at the top of the backswing and also though impact. It also has a feature that you can turn on that makes a noise when you are within the proper perimeters. I found it very useful for feeling what you are supposed to be doing.

First Session Data 

There is a huge amount of data that you can get. It measures flexion/extention, alner deviation and rotation. You can also compare your swing against a pros swing. I realized very quickly that I'm a flipper of the club.

I then practiced for a while with the volume turned up with the noise that tells you when you are within the proper perimeters to get a feel of what I should be doing. My results definitely improved by doing so as you can see here.

Overall first Impressions are very good. I have my onboarding call tomorrow morning so I will see how that goes. I'm just scratching the surface so far but if I can continue to improve like I did in the first couple practice sessions I think the HackMoition will improve my game for sure.

Please let me know if you have any specific things you would like to see!

[GolfSpy AFG]

38 minutes ago, Bad Golfer said:

I happened to receive my HackMotion on Friday afternoon.

Unboxing

Here it is as I was unboxing.

I believe it is professionally packaged and looks great.

Inside the box you will find the main unit, hand strap, glove clip, charger, and warranty and quick start guide.

Getting Started 

In order to get started there is a Qr code that I scanned with my phone after I downloaded the HackMoition app. As soon as I the unit paired with my phone and app through Bluetooth it said Welcome to HackMoition Pro.

The HackMoition is basically like wearing a watch. I do wear a watch and really didn't even notice it was on. 

I decided to try it out. I opened up the app and then turned on the unit and it did a firmware update.

When you start it up you get these options:

I clicked on practice and you get these options:

I selected clubface control. There you can select if you have a strong, weak, or neutral grip. It then has preset parameters for each grip. You will also calibrate the unit by holding your hand flat and then turning up your arm to a 30 to 45 degree angle. Then it wants you to address a ball as you normally would. By staying still behind the ball it basically locks in for your starting position. 

First Impressions

At first it was a little overwhelming figuring out what to do. It is actually very simple. I just started to hit a few shots and it would tell me weather or not I was in the normal perimeters with flexion/extension on the top of my swing and also at impact. I'm pretty sure you can do custom settings on the perimeters but I didn't get that far yet.

It tells you when it has registered a shot by a sound it makes. It also will tell you if you are within the perimeters on the top of the backswing and at impact. It will count out a streak then for the correct position at the top of the backswing and also though impact. It also has a feature that you can turn on that makes a noise when you are within the proper perimeters. I found it very useful for feeling what you are supposed to be doing.

First Session Data 

There is a huge amount of data that you can get. It measures flexion/extention, alner deviation and rotation. You can also compare your swing against a pros swing. I realized very quickly that I'm a flipper of the club.

I then practiced for a while with the volume turned up with the noise that tells you when you are within the proper perimeters to get a feel of what I should be doing. My results definitely improved by doing so as you can see here.

Overall first Impressions are very good. I have my onboarding call tomorrow morning so I will see how that goes. I'm just scratching the surface so far but if I can continue to improve like I did in the first couple practice sessions I think the HackMoition will improve my game for sure.

Please let me know if you have any specific things you would like to see!

Looking forward to following along with your progress.  For me, I have little doubt this will aid your practice. My concern/question with this product, and really most any training aid, is how to know if you’re practicing the right things for your swing and game.

[DriverBreaker]

51 minutes ago, Getoffmylawn said:

Looking forward to following along with your progress.  For me, I have little doubt this will aid your practice. My concern/question with this product, and really most any training aid, is how to know if you’re practicing the right things for your swing and game.

Very valid point!  This is what people tell me all they time once they come take lesson(s) from me.  They waste much time practicing things that don’t actually translate to what they need.  YouTube self-diagnosing.

The main benefit of this, at least from a self-help standpoint, much like TrackMan etc., would be giving yourself baseline parameters to start with, then experiment with something to see cause/effect and then know if you are on the right track (ball flight can be king there).  However, seeing someone like a coach and coming with that data would likely be a better long-term approach.  Or potentially more efficient anyways. 

[Bad Golfer]

45 minutes ago, Getoffmylawn said:

Looking forward to following along with your progress.  For me, I have little doubt this will aid your practice. My concern/question with this product, and really most any training aid, is how to know if you’re practicing the right things for your swing and game.

I agree with you on that. I did notice that I started to hit ball better and more consistent. I did hook up my Garmin r10 at the same time and for some reason it was showing that overall distance was actually more than my usual but it was as if I was topping everything. I'm not sure if both of them hooked up to my phone at the same time caused interference or if I had the R10 setup to high and it thought I was topping everything. I will try again hopefully today after work as long as it isn't thunderstorming.

[cnosil]

5 hours ago, Getoffmylawn said:

Looking forward to following along with your progress.  For me, I have little doubt this will aid your practice. My concern/question with this product, and really most any training aid, is how to know if you’re practicing the right things for your swing and game.

Same.  Wondering if the testers will start experiencing data overload.   People get to this point with launch monitors and end up chasing numbers that may or may not be beneficial.    I have reached that point with the ShotScope so I took out the sensors.  Been a few rounds and I feel like it has freed me up a little bit. 

[DriverBreaker]

2 hours ago, cnosil said:

Same.  Wondering if the testers will start experiencing data overload.   People get to this point with launch monitors and end up chasing numbers that may or may not be beneficial.    I have reached that point with the ShotScope so I took out the sensors.  Been a few rounds and I feel like it has freed me up a little bit. 

Data overload is definitely a real phenomenon.  Best practice would be to focus on one parameter per practice session.  The brain can only feasibly focus with maximum effort on one thing at a time.  Just ask my wife when she’s talking to me and I’m trying to multi-task. 

[Fongle]

5 hours ago, cnosil said:

People get to this point with launch monitors and end up chasing numbers that may or may not be beneficial. 

Look, within the first week of purchasing my launch monitor, I may or may not have been guilty of engaging in a little 'numbers go brrr' with my swing speed and ball speed before dialling it back and getting actually useful information.

[gingerbeast87]

4 hours ago, DriverBreaker said:

Data overload is definitely a real phenomenon.  Best practice would be to focus on one parameter per practice session.  The brain can only feasibly focus with maximum effort on one thing at a time.  Just ask my wife when she’s talking to me and I’m trying to multi-task. 

I agree with what you say on this regarding one parameter, I think the Hackmotion system kind of makes you focus on your wrist flex. I think you can largely ignore the parameters that you want to and focus solely on the data you want to work on, just trying to incorporate all of it and trying to increase distance/speed would be too much at once

[Woody83]

Congratulations to the testers selected.  I look forward to reading your reviews and seeing how well this product works.

[DriverBreaker]

I had a good onboarding call with Hack Motion this morning.  Will write up a debrief of the call when I have some time later tonight perhaps. 

[Fongle]

Just got an update saying my parcel has arrived at home, and I have my onboarding tonight, will post a bigger update later with an unboxing and impressions, and info from the onboarding 

[DriverBreaker]

Onboarding call was solid overall.  Martins was very cordial, professional, and helpful.  He confirmed what I found online and said that the ranges are highly dependent on starting position and grip at address.  Namely, the point is to return the wrist back to impact close to where you started and most need to lean toward more flexion (bowing) than they had at address to have a square face and a straight lead arm/shaft relationship at impact.  

I would agree, in general, as these are sound mechanics based on ball flight laws, principals of impact, leverage, efficiency, etc. 

He gave me a demo walkthrough of the setup, calibration, and navigation of the app.  He answered some questions I had about best practices for use, who can get an on boarding call, and other minor things.  I actually had to cut the call short to go give a lesson, but I was impressed with their desire to make sure users understand the process and app.

I waited until I got home tonight to actually take my first swings with the Hack Motion.  More to come on that over the next few days.  But overall, it was extremely easy to set up, the app is very clean, and the unit connects to your phone/tablet extremely quickly. 

[Bad Golfer]

I had my onboarding call with Martins yesterday morning. We discussed going through the app the data and any questions or issues I might have.

The call was great as Martins is very informative and was willing to explain and demonstrate the couple of questions that I had. 

He was not persuasive as far as making sure that we gave the product a positive review. He just wanted to make sure I knew how to properly use the HackMoition. 

He said that anyone that would purchase a HackMoition would be able to contact them and they will answer and help them out on any questions or issues they might have.

One thing I noticed when using the HackMoition while practicing and walked away from my phone and when I came back to it my practice session ended. Martins said that is because the sensor lost connection with my phone. I asked him if there was any way to resume the practice session and there is not. He was going to contact his IT team to see if they can put something in the app to be able to resume the session if your sensor lost connection with your phone.

I will continue to update as I use the HackMoition more and dig through more data.

 

[GolfSpy AFG]

Just got off a red-eye from San Diego to Philly.  Kids are beat.  Going to be an interesting 4th…

 

Edit:  this was supposed to be in the Good Morning Thread.  Sorry about that…

[EZlife007]

Excited to see the feedback on these. Am I reading the website correctly that the $1k version is required to get radial/ulnar numbers?

[Fongle]

Had the HackMotion delivered today while I was at work, and had my onboarding session with Mārtiņš from HackMotion tonight.

Unboxing

It arrived in a UPS bag, and then was packed inside a tough bag with bubblewrap, and was more than packaged well enough. 

 

Packaging was clean, professional, and no-frills, and I appreciated it not being filled with needlessly plastic wrapped contents.

Total contents was the main unit, USB C cable, glove clip, warranty card, and quick start card.

 

Getting Started

I set the unit up before my onboarding with Mārtiņš, and it was a very simple process. The quick start card does have a QR code to scan to open the App Store/Google Play Store, but I'd downloaded the app earlier in the day already. After making an account, which was extremely quick and easy with options to sign up using Google, Facebook, or email, it asked to connect the unit via bluetooth, which took pressing the on button, and waiting all of 3 seconds. After it was paired, it prompted to update the firmware which I did, and was a very quick process.

 

Video of the UI showing options and features. Note that the Putting Stability mode is only available with the Plus and Pro models, and the Analysis modes are only on the Pro. Ulnar/Radial Deviation and Rotation data is also only available with the Pro model as far as I can see.

 

I won't have a chance to try full shots until tomorrow when I can go to the range, but I did quickly try some putts using the Putting Analysis mode on my practice mat and even after just a few it was highlighting some things in my stroke I didn't notice previously.

Getting into each of the modes is pretty quick, once you've got the HackMotion unit on and selected the option, it has you calibrate it, as per below;

 

 

For every shot you hit it records a lot of data, giving Flexion/Extension (cupping and bowing), Ulnar/Radial deviation (cocking the wrist), and rotation, and seemed to be very accurate, when I was just moving my wrist and arm around to test it picked up the motions exactly. Once you've hit a shot, and at the end of the session, you can go back and review all of the data on graphs, and can show all the information together, per swing, and just highlight specific information. You can also compare your recorded data vs. Pro data captured, and see the difference.

The ability to actually watch the 3D captured swing recording and replay it is great as well, and I think it's going to be incredibly useful once I begin testing with full swings.

 

I didn't have time to do any more testing in the app, as I then had my onboarding call with Mārtiņš from HackMotion. It was a really good call, he was professional, knowledgable, and didn't mention my giving a review at all, he was only interested in explaining the features of the HackMotion and the app, and how it can help.

He was able to clarify some questions I had about the training modes, and confirmed that it will change the recommended ranges depending on your starting position, and that you can also set completely manual ranges if you're aiming to make a particular swing or motion. The biggest takeaway that I had from the call was that while the onboarding session was something just for this group, they're happy to take queries and questions from any user, and that through the app you can schedule a time slot for a short video call to talk to their team, which is honestly not something I've ever seen a company offer before in a product like this.

 

 

Overall I'm very excited to be able really dig into the different modes now, and I can't wait to get to the range and course to record some more data and start actively working on my swing. If anyone has any questions so far or wants to see anything further, let me know!

[DriverBreaker]

Alright, my first short session with the Hack Motion sensor went off last night.  Set up is insanely fast and literally takes less than 1 minute from the time you get the sensor on your wrist to hitting balls.   You literally turn it on, open the app, calibrate and you’re off and running.

I hit a few shots but felt the data wasn’t quite right.  As I mentioned earlier, I have a very strong grip and the website gave a range of 30 - 40* extended at address.  I was noticing that mine was only reading at 17-19* extended.  This was causing the top of the swing and impact to be above the recommended range, even though I was consciously adding flexion at the top and on the way down. 
 

You can see from the video above how the first 6 shots showed ranges almost half of what I was expecting at address.  So I just recalibrated it in all of 15 seconds, double checked that a flat lead wrist was showing as zero degrees in the app (live real-time is so cool and useful) and then I got exactly what I expected.

It does go to show, much like any piece of technology, that if you don’t get it setup and calibrated properly, your data will be off, and you could waste your time chasing numbers that are not accurate to begin with.  If I hadn’t checked the calibration, I would’ve practiced way too much flexion in the downswing (for my strong grip).  Then I would be pull hooking balls next time I played. 

The individual shot replay/analysis mode is insanely cool!  This will likely be very valuable in my coaching, and you can email saved data from sessions to yourself or players and make notes on it.  See video below:

 

There is so much more to explore with this device and I look forward to inspecting it all!  

[gingerbeast87]

2 hours ago, EZlife007 said:

Excited to see the feedback on these. Am I reading the website correctly that the $1k version is required to get radial/ulnar numbers?

Indeed, the differences in price boil down to what level of analysis you have access to. Club face control is the basic, next tier is club face and putting, pro version is all data, and full analysis.

[cksurfdude]

3 hours ago, DriverBreaker said:

It does go to show, much like any piece of technology, that if you don’t get it setup and calibrated properly, your data will be off, and you could waste your time chasing numbers that are not accurate to begin with.  If I hadn’t checked the calibration, I would’ve practiced way too much flexion in the downswing (for my strong grip).  Then I would be pull hooking balls next time I played. 

That is one excellent piece of analysis!!

Speaks to a lot of questions that have been raised in here, and that have popped up in my mind, as I'm reading through this thread.

Which leads me to wonder -- and this is more of an OEM product development team question, vs to this group of reviewers, but -- wouldn't it make sense for the unit .. on startup each time .. have an AUTO-CALIBRATE function that measures how the user sets up at address and then *it* sets all the proper parameters and ranges, etc..??

[Bad Golfer]

1 hour ago, cksurfdude said:

That is one excellent piece of analysis!!

Speaks to a lot of questions that have been raised in here, and that have popped up in my mind, as I'm reading through this thread.

Which leads me to wonder -- and this is more of an OEM product development team question, vs to this group of reviewers, but -- wouldn't it make sense for the unit .. on startup each time .. have an AUTO-CALIBRATE function that measures how the user sets up at address and then *it* sets all the proper parameters and ranges, etc..??

It only takes a few seconds to calibrate. Then it takes a reading as you address the ball as you normally would and you can see on your phone screen it will slowly turn green. Once it completely turns green it will then ask you if you are happy with the way you addressed the ball or if you would like to redo the reading. If you are happy with it then it already has preset parameters to keep you in that range.

It has different parameters based on whether you have a strong, weak, or neutral grip.

[DriverBreaker]

3 hours ago, cksurfdude said:

That is one excellent piece of analysis!!

Speaks to a lot of questions that have been raised in here, and that have popped up in my mind, as I'm reading through this thread.

Which leads me to wonder -- and this is more of an OEM product development team question, vs to this group of reviewers, but -- wouldn't it make sense for the unit .. on startup each time .. have an AUTO-CALIBRATE function that measures how the user sets up at address and then *it* sets all the proper parameters and ranges, etc..??

I get why they want to have you calibrate to zero (flat lead wrist straight to the elbow).  That’s the reference point everything is built upon.  Without the zero reference point, I’m not sure how it could feasibly calibrate.  If it counts user’s address position as zero, then that could work. Is that what you’re saying? 

[DriverBreaker]

2 hours ago, Bad Golfer said:

It only takes a few seconds to calibrate. Then it takes a reading as you address the ball as you normally would and you can see on your phone screen it will slowly turn green. Once it completely turns green it will then ask you if you are happy with the way you addressed the ball or if you would like to redo the reading. If you are happy with it then it already has preset parameters to keep you in that range.

It has different parameters based on whether you have a strong, weak, or neutral grip.

I didn’t see that where it asks if you are happy with your address position.  Was that in full swing analysis mode?

[Bad Golfer]

 

12 hours ago, DriverBreaker said:

I didn’t see that where it asks if you are happy with your address position.  Was that in full swing analysis mode?

Yes Sir. 

So far the full swing analysis mode is very interesting. Especially when you go into the swing graph and compare your swing to a pros swing. I can get close on the top and impact positions but I'm miles away from the rotation. I'm not even sure how to get my rotation even similar to what a pro does.