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Poll: Any Issues with Autoshot off the Tee?

Hi All,

I've used Garmin watches for golf going back to the S1 and I am currently using the golf app on the Garmin Fenix 5 Plus for most of my rounds.  One feature that's become standard on Garmin golf watches is 'AutoShot', and I'm interested to know if golfers on other devices have experienced it or have suggestions on how to resolve it.  

My problem is that the watch rarely picks up tee shots that I hit from my driver and there's no way to manually trigger shot measurement.  I'm doing everything suggested by the support articles, including wearing it on my lead wrist and on the Tracman I'm getting 100-105mph of clubhead speed, so poor contact is not the issue.  I've also tried exchanging the device but the new one has the same issue.

Thanks,

Adam

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  • Hi,

    my S60 records only hard shots, no soft shots like chips and pitches. Sometimes also the shots of holes mixed, e.g. hole 4 nothing and hole 5 a lot of funny records. I use a different system with sensors on my tees (not CT10!) and that works mostly reliable, but also here sometimes the shots are mixed. It depends on the quality and the cleanness of the GPS signal.

    The S60 I use for manual entering the scores and to get the distance to the flag. For the rest it is a fine smartwatch.

    Regards

    Gerd

  • Mine works fine, cant recall missing any T shots. I have an S60 and a full set of CT10. I don't think the CT10 actually do the autoshot, they are for club identification (I think?).

    I have often checked my distances as I walk after the T shot, using the function on the watch. This will usually say Driver and count upwards as I walk to my ball.

  • I am having the exact same issue with my Fenix 6 Pro recording only about 30-50% of the Driver shots (on average I drive 240-280 when I make solid contact).  The 30-50% is on solid contacted shots.  The main reason this is very frustrating is because I use the distance shown to find my golf balls when I hit it into the woods or rough.  As I am aware of approximate distance I hit, it's useful when there is no exact point of reference on the course.

    On my previous watch, the Vivoactive 3, the autoshot sensor is on the other end of the spectrum where it is more sensitive and sometimes pick up a "shot" when my hand accidentally hits the bag or when I am hitting practice shot.

    I called the support for Fenix, but I am getting transferred to the Golf department.  Hopefully they will have an answer.

  • Ugh.  Super frustrated with Garmin at the moment.  I was transferred by the Fenix team to "Golf Team" which has a hold time of 20-29 mins.  I was on hold for over 1 hour and on a perma-hold/transfer.  I was able to reach the chat group, which was about as helpful as talking to a bot.  This is quite disappointing that Garmin's ability to fix bugs is about as competent as them being able to solve world hunger.

  • Same here with my previous Fenix 5+ and now my 6 Pro. Tee shots are detected about 10% of the time. Fairway around 80%. 

    One thing that is interesting is that I had a Forerunner 945 for around 4 weeks. Tee shot detection was up at 80 or 90%. I can only assume the firmware is different. I have informed Garmin of this. 

    Please Garmin have a look at this and check the algorithm used in the FR945 and Fenix. 

  • I'm out right now testing V9 on my 5+ and the only driver shot it's registered is the very first one and I've been hitting bombs all day.

  • I was thinking through the rationale for why is Fenix users are all having more issues with auto detect when teeing off with a driver. 

    The accelerometer must be detecting either the shock/vibration of hitting the ball and/or sensing the hand slowing down slightly when the club contacts the ball.

    I also thought about why my Vivoactive 3 or FR935/945 do not have these issues, and it dawned on me that the VA3/FR935/45 are all plastic watches and much lighter than Fenix watches.  Therefore, the momentum of the hand must not be as much as a Fenix 6 Pro (weighs 33-40grams more than VA3/FR945).  Because the driver is the fastest clubhead speed in everyone’s bag (therefore the relative speed decrease may not be as much from contacting the ball, especially when you hit it properly with an upward swing path and not contacting the ground), the Fenix’s heavier weight must have higher momentum and make it harder to detect, especially if it uses the same firmware as FR935/945. 

    Long story short, I think Garmin should make the firmware more sensitive on the Fenix’s, but like many have said, if they add a “manual shot measurement” function, it would solve this problem completely.

  • It never picks up my first tee shot and it randomly misses other tee shots as well. Some days watch performs as expected and other days it does not.

  • Yep, it's been poor for months across multiple devices. No sight of a fix even with the very latest beta firmware on my F6.

  • Auto shot is broken with the latest updates. I've been using the auto shot feature for 7 months without any issues then in the last couple of months (Jan and Feb 2020) it became useless. The auto shot data stopped uploading after a round. Garmin asked me to do an update on the watch and after I did this, the watch stopped asking me which club was hit to tag the shot during a round. I reset the watch for another round and the same thing happens. The reason I upgraded to this watch was for the auto shot feature. Now I have a watch that only gives me distance to the pin which I already two other watches that do the same.