Quickly. What do you carry in your right front pocket when you play golf? Or, if you’re left-handed, your left front pocket.
Tees, of course. A sharing tool? Likely.
If you’re a smoker, maybe Zippo?
Now, instead of using your Zippo to fire an arrow into your lungs, what if it could track your shots?
And collect your data?
And give you analytics of the game?
While you tell what to practice?
That would be enough to make any golfer quit, right?
This, friends, is new Arcos Air. It’s a small, AI-powered shot tracker that gets rid of two of the three most annoying things about using Arccos: the sensors and your phone.
Arccos Air: Breaking Sensor Habit
You know those little AI-powered devices that you can buy those note-free meeting recordings and transcriptions that are the size of a credit card?
The new Arccos Air is pretty much the same thing…just different.
It’s about the size of a cigarette lighter or maybe an AirPods case and weighs about the same as your house key. You slip the Arccos Air into your pocket (or you can clip it to your belt) and go golfing. HE does the rest. Arcos Air uses gyroscope and accelerometer technology to analyze swing motion and detect impact. AI, trained on more than four trillion data points taken from 1.5 billion golf swings collected by Arccos, then separates your practice swing from real shots.
A built-in GPS pinpoints your exact location on the course. The unit collects and stores all your data until after the round when you can sync it with the Arccos app on your phone via Bluetooth.
No need for manual input and – we can’t stress this enough – no need for additional sensors.
There are no sensors but…
Arcos is the official game tracking partner of the PGA Tour, and it partners with nearly every major OEM. Along with Shot Scope, it’s the OG for shot tracking and offers the most powerful data analytics in golf.
However, there is a problem.
Sensors are a pain in the ass.
And these sensors, in terms of initial cost and eventual replacement, are one of the biggest obstacles to using Arccos, at least according to Arccos themselves.
“Now you don’t need to manage sensors to think about technology. You just play,” says Arcco CEO Sal Syed. “When the round is over, you know exactly where you won strokes, where you lost strokes and what you need to work on next.”
The new Arccos Air connects directly to your Arccos app, which will provide you with all your game analytics. The one thing the Arccos Air can’t do (and this is where sensors would have been useful): it can’t tell you what club you hit on every shot. If you want that data, you’ll need to add it during post-round editing. If you already have Arccos Smart Sensors, the unit will still work fine and the sensors will collect club specific information.
When it comes to data, Arccos has perhaps the most powerful analytics package in the game. The company says its members (it calls all its subscribers “members”) reduce their blemishes by an average of 25 percent during the first year of use. Additionally, by analyzing their data and following practice recommendations, they hit their approach shots an average of 14.9 feet closer to the pin and greatly improve their chances of getting a hole-in-one.
Although it is little, it is tough
For such a small thing, Arccos Air is something big. Shooting tracking has always been about how much energy you have to expend during a round to collect the data. If you remember the early days of Arcosyou have to keep your freaking phone in your pocket for it to work. The Shot Scope changed all that with its simple sensors and collection technology on the GPS watch band.
Now, there’s no shortage of watches or apps that will collect your data for you. It just depends on how much you have to do during your round to complete it all. This is where the Shot Scope and Arccos are separated. By utilizing artificial intelligence, Arccos Air takes the user’s course data completely out of the equation.
Remember earlier when we said that Arccos Air gets rid of sensors and your phone, two of the three most annoying things about using Arccos? The third thing is still there. It is still subscription based.
Arccos Air requires you to subscribe to their tracking system. The first year is free when you buy an Arccos Air unit. After that, it’s an annual fee of $199.99. For some, this is problematic, especially when you consider that Shot Scope doesn’t charge anything to use its product after you buy it.
On the other hand, for a serious golfer, the Arccos subscription is $16.67 per month. Depending on why you play golf and what you’re trying to achieve, this could be considered a bargain.
Arcoss Air: Price and Availability
The new Arccos Air is available starting today at retailers and online. It costs $349.99 and, as mentioned, includes a one-year subscription to the Arccos game tracking system.
For more information, visit www.arccosgolf.com.
