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Any good tips for scanning Golf Tags on the course?

I absolutely love the golf tags with Golf Pad, but hate how I look on the Tee box, sticking my club out perpindicular from my body, rubbing the butt of my club on my pocket, trying to find the NFC sweet spot.


I understand the difficulties with NFC as a technology in general, but I was wondering if anyone found a good way to get the tags to scan without looking so silly, or them being so fussy?


The worst is on the tee box when everyone is standing around watching.  I've considered taking my driver golf tag off, and keeping it in the pocket opposite my phone so I can pull it out and tap it, instead of doing the club rub, golf tag dance.

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When at tee I scan the club when I'm waiting for the other players to tee off. I don't have to do that on the tee? The same for the next shots. If I'm first I hit the ball and while waiting for the others to hit their balls I scan my club holding the phone to the club.

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Same here, I felt like I was constantly doing a golf club thigh bump multiple times to get the app to register the club. I took off the cover ad well. Bigger issue was with my galaxy s6 edge is that the screen never unlocked easily.. When I finished a hole I tried to look at the screen easily to write down my score and it took numerous button smashing to unlock it. My phones completely stock BTW for Verizon. I sponsored the Kickstarter cause of how much I used the app. The golf pads was more for my knowledge. Also we need a better way to tag a drop. I hit a hazard and had to double register a club, maybe offer a better way to flag a drop. Idea is to not take the phone out of the pocket. As it takes forever to unlock the screen.
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I am experiencing the same issue. It usually takes 2 or 3 attempts to get it to recognize the club. It's a bit of a distraction when I am trying to set up for my shot. I'd appreciate any tips as well.

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I agree with Peter.  Make it part of your pre-shot routine and have a clear gap between messing with your toys and striking the ball.  Mine:

  1. Stand over the ball, take out my phone and check distance.
  2. Get my club stand back over the ball tag the club, put the phone away
  3. Take 2 steps back, get my grip, aim point etc
  4. Step up to the ball and swing away...
You could also tag after your shot but I found I forgot and there is nothing more time wasting than going back to where you just played from and playing with your phone.


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First off, I can't believe how many of you care what you look like when your scanning your club. Are you playing in front of a large gallery? My friends have a lot more things to make fun of me with then scanning my club. You really think other golfers are playing any attention to you? Get over it. I've only used my tags 3 rounds and I think they're great. Phone in my pocket, I found the sweet spot on my phone and 1 scan, done. If you have to enter a code to unlock your phone, turn that feature off. These things are so easy to use I can't believe there are so many winers.
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I use a phone holster and what I noticed is that the metal and little magnets in the holster interfere with the NFC signal. Another thing was my putter grip. Because of the 'metal' bolt on top it had big troubles getting read by my phone.


My solution was to put a ferrite sticker on the entire back of the tag. It worked wonders so I ended up putting ferrite stickers on all my tags at the back.


Maybe it might be an idea for golfpad to look at NFC tags made for on metal surfaces. It realy boosts the performance on reading the tags.

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Same issue for me.  Very distracting and finally gave up tracking the round after 4-5 holes b/c of it.  I agree on the tee box it could be ok, but out on the fairway tapping my club over and over again to my pocket.  I was slowing down the round and looking ridiculous.

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When I've played with the app, my group usually likes to see yardage from the tee box. So I walk up to about where I'm going to tee up and look at the yardage on my phone, this is when I would mark the GPS location. I wasn't using tags at the time but I can imagine just holding my driver in the other hand when I walk up to get the distance and tap the back. I found it didn't cause any slow down of the round or anything.

 

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Edwin, I may give this a try.  Thanks for the idea.  I’ve been wondering why a couple tags are hit and miss when scanning.

Some people must be golfing with a tough crowd. I've even golfed as a single with a group, and others weren't even aware of what I was doing with the app and phone most of the time.


On the tee, I usually tag while everyone is still clamoring up to the tee box (and I or another player is not yet ready to tee off), and in the fairway, I'm tagging while others are making a practice swing, etc., so that's not an issue. For most first putts, I tag just as I reach my ball before I even mark it, so again it's no issue/no delay with playing partners. The only part I don't like is when I'm about to make my second putt that's less than a foot to the hole, and I have to tag before putting it away. Until that point, most people aren't aware of what I'm doing with my phone and clubs. I may try to get in the habit of marking from my watch (Mark Shot/As putt) instead, but still that's not perfect.

I agree with Cody.  Taking out your phone, and tapping it on your club is the quickest and least stupid looking way to get it done quickly.

A simple solution is for GolfpadGPS, or perhaps one of their competitors in case anyone else is listening, to make tags that are slanted. Instead of making the TAGS slanted, GolfpadGPS makes the additional reader slanted to entice users to buy the reader.  A benefit of GolfpadGPS is that it's able to use a phone's built in NFC.  Making it awkward to the point of annoyance to scan a club with a phone removes that benefit.


With the recent redesign of the TAGS not including a slant option for those who don't want to buy or carry extra equipment on their person during a round is a disappointment.  Given that the TAGS sell for a hundred dollars with manufacturing costs probably less than 10% of that, and the fact that the app itself is not free, there is no excuse to not make the TAGS user friendly for us Android users.

I don't care what I look like (to an extent) touching my club to my pocket, but after the first couple rounds playing with the Golf Tags and only having an occasional problem of finding the sweet spot, now, on my last round (on a new course)  I had A LOT of problems getting the tag to register, even with the phone out of my pocket.  I'd kept getting these high pitched beeps before finally getting the confirmation sound.  Anyone know what's up with that? Are there settings or environmental factors in play?  I'll definitely stop using the tracking feature if I have to try moving the club over the phone again and again to get it to register... THAT looks ridiculous.  

The most important capability of the LINK reader is to bring TAG functionality to the iPhone. There missing that huge market segment without it. I think the secondary consideration is for ease of scanning for all users. I think if Apple allowed NFC reading in their phone, you wouldn't see the LINK being introduced at all.


I'm in the other camp. I going to enjoy leaving the phone in/on the cart and will get yardages from my cheapo smart watch. I'll grab the phone in the rare instance when I'm playing a new course and don't know yardages to hazards. I hate carrying my phone is the bottom line. I'd prefer the reader and a smart watch. I know you prefer your phone.


I think the goal of the design of the TAGS was to make them as low profile as possible. So less chance of breaking or dislodging them if struck against something. So I don't think they'd be as durable in a slanted format as you suggest.


As for the cost of the tags themselves, yes, it's way too much but you have to understand the app-for-phone market.


A normal marketplace should work like this.

  1. - ALL users pay a fee for the software (say $35); it ain't free;
  2. - some extra features and upgrades are a yearly fee (say $20); i.e. premium subscription
  3. - other goodies like TAGS are $15-20


But the app-for-phone market works like this:

  1. - YOU MUST GIVE THE APP AWAY FOR FREE; the cheap freeloaders out there won't download anything that hits you up for a fee right off the bat; you'll never get any traction with an app otherwise; the cheapskates out there won't even pay for premium features, and will kick and scream if they have to (and then they'll go download something else);
  2. - because of point #1, you have to recoup ALL of your costs (and your profit margin because nobody works for free) from the extras (like the overpriced TAGS), and to pay for future enhancements, and development every time there's a new iOS or Android flavour. So you have to realize the $99 covers the app (which you should have paid for), the freeloaders, and part of future development.

Now the interesting part is that smart watches are being developed WITH NFC readers. That would eliminate the need for LINK (and for having your phone in your pocket). That would be the ultimate solution in my books.

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