Customer Reviews

Dancin Dogg OptiShot Infrared Golf Simulator

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

If you are really good already and live on a golf course and have membership and play several times a week you'll probably think this product is not very interesting.. But if you are like me and only get to play 3 - 4 times a month yet want to improve you'll love this product.

Fact is I plugged this up to my computer and was using it w/out any tweaking right away. It recognizes my shots spot on.. I was seriously amazed.

The great thing about it is that it tells you exactly what you are doing wrong, outside/in swing with open club face (so that's why it sliced).. but aside from its practice app if you get bored just swinging a club over and over like at a driving range you can play the 3dd golf that comes with it. You currently get 4 courses with various difficulty levels and basically you feel like you are playing a game of golf w/out having to leave your home. And you can take muligans or go into practice mode and just practice the same shot over and over..

It reads chips and pitches spot on as well with great flight and roll dynamics.. the physics in this game is as good as what is in tiger woods golf..

The putting is a little fast in my opinion but that is because I am use to playing on slow greens. It allows you to tweak stuff like that, I have not quite got around to doing that though.

You'll want to keep using your other training aids along with this, the best part is that it tells you why your swing was wrong so you can practice and correct errors knowing what you need to correct.. Unlike a driving range where you don't always know what you are doing wrong. All the while you are playing a game of golf and actually feel like you are in the golf game instead of just aiming at targets and swinging over and over again.

Some things to be aware of,

1) This only works indoors. You need good lighting and no shadows over the sensors. Since it only works indoors you also need a lot of room.

2) from the base to the bottom of the ball is 1 3/8" so you'll need some platform to stand on. I just got a 3/4" thick board and stapled artificial turf to it and I use my golf shoes when I play it seems to be pretty perfect.

3) You'll probably want to hit a foam ball but you'll need something that it can impact against.. YOur indoor walls will bounce the balls right off.. I got an old comforter and just tack it up when i use it and put a chair under it so that it's away from the wall.. The ball hits it and rolls back to me..

4) sometimes when you hit the ball the base will move.. if it is not perfectly squared up to where you are aming/swinging you'll get the wrong read for your club and get a bad shot. So you'll have to make sure you keep it in a straight line. Dancin dog sells a mat that it can connect to, but I just eye ball it after each shot and correct it.

in summary I love this product, but if you are already super awesome and play all the time you wont find it useful.. but if you are still awesome but can't play for whatever reason you'll enjoy the simulated golf aspect of this system on days you want to play but can't... and if you suck like me you'll figure out why and be able to work on fixing it

EDIT - July - 2010

Well.. almost a full year of using this thing and I would like to update my post and say that I'm still using it and loving it. I broke down and got a Golf coach. If anything this simulator showed me that I'll never fix my swing on my own. Welp.. 6 months after I started seeing the coach on a weekly basis and practicing on this simulator daily I finally broke 90. I went from shooting in the 105 range on my best days to shooting 92 on my worst days. This simulator has allowed me to practice with ease if nothing else. It's sometimes hard after work to make the trek to the range and even then you don't always know whats wrong with your shots. With this simulator you know exactly whats wrong and since I've been taking lessons for so long I've learned how to correct my errors.

a couple of things I want to say

1) if you don't swing with a ball placed on the simulator (foam ball is fine) you'll have sporadic shots. I honestly think its the brain. You need to see something there to hit or else the motions can't happen as they should. So if you plan to use this plan to use a ball or you will have a hard time hitting decent shots. Again foam ball is fine.

2) Stance is very important to any swing. If you've knocked this simulator off a bit or whatever your standing on is off a bit and you are not squared off properly you'll more than likely have a bad shot. It's worth it to invest in the dancin dog mats that will keep everything from moving around.

I honestly think that the people who say it's not reading their swings right are either not squared up properly, are not using a ball, or do actually in real life have very sporadic shots.

There are several simulators on the market but none at this price point. If you want a game to just play with this is probably not the product for you.. if you want to work on your golf game in the comfort of your own home believe me this tool is very nice

I'd been thinking of getting a sim for some time and finally took the plunge on this one, which is certainly the least expensive one available. There's plenty of info on this on the internet so I won't go much into it, but I've been quite satisfied so far. Occasionally it won't pick up your swing (maybe once every 20-25 swings) and you have to reswing. Of course that only happens when you've really hit one flush. Distances with clubs weren't particularly accurate for me and this seems to be something that is fairly common, but you can adjust the distances (e.g. increase distance 10%, decrease distance 5%, etc.) to make the sim distances align with your real ones. I was consistently hitting drives of 320+ which felt good but wasn't going to do my real game any good. Incidentally, my average driving distance is more like 265, so I had to decrease driving distance about 17%. Programming in my clubs and setting distances took maybe 30 minutes and was sort of fun anyway.

There are several courses that come with the sim, as well as a driving range that you have to download as an update once everything's installed. There were several updates to download and while they're not necessary to start playing, if you want the newest courses and the range they are, and they take a couple of hours to download. You can play it right out of the box but download the updates overnight.

I was somewhat dismissive of the computing power recommended for this program. My computer is not quite 2 years old and certainly fits the minimum requirements for running the software, but running the program is not smooth. I've turned off everything in the program that takes processing power but it's still not great, though acceptable, and this isn't really DD's fault anyway, but just the way it is with software and computers. But the newer and more powerful your computer the better this will look, and it does make a difference.

Some people have complained that swings with their driver don't register well with the system. Can't say I've had that problem. So far all of my clubs have been picked up by the sensors just fine. One thing that DD has apparently changed though is the measurement of swing path. For example, after a swing you'll get a reading that says something like, "Clubface open 2 degrees, swing path inside out." Sometimes the swing path will be "very" inside out or outside in. Based on screen shots on the DD website, the reading used to give degrees of inside out or outside in. I've sent some emails to DD trying to find out how inside out "inside out" is, i.e. at what degree of inside out does a reading become "very inside out," but I've gotten no response. I suspect it's pretty significant however, based on some testing on my own, so this wasn't that big a deal. If you get "very outside in" it's either a dead pull or a banana into the next fairway. Any swing path less severe than that is likely to turn out okay based on my experience with "carryover" onto the real range after hitting on the sim.

I've also seen some complaints about lighting having to be perfect to get accurate readings. I haven't had that problem either. I have it in a large front room with just a lamp on and it works fine. No problems with shadows, needing overhead fluorescent light, etc. The foam balls they give you do bounce off stuff. I bought a $30 net from Izzo to catch them and it works great. Finally, the device itself sits 1.5 inches off the ground. They sell a mat on the DD site but it's as expensive as the device itself. I had some spare carpet that was 1/2 inch and just folded it over three times and it works fine. But be aware that you'll need something to stand on when you hit.

I really think this is an excellent product. I didn't give it five stars because it wasn't perfect, but for much of an improvement over it you have to spend $700 more, and for the best sims around you will drop tens of thousands of dollars. If money's no object get a custom job and drop the $50K. If you just want to be able to hit balls when it rains and have some idea what your swing is doing, this is your huckleberry.

UPDATE: I mentioned above that computing power was playing a big role in the choppiness of the sim. That's true, but not as much as I thought. Once I removed Vista from my machine and put XP on instead, the smoothness of the sim increased dramatically. Faster computers will still work better, I'm sure, but in this case the problem seemed to be that Vista sucks, not that a brand new computer is required to run DD.

Length:: 9:59 Mins

I have been using the Optishot Golf Simulator Dancin Dogg OptiShot Infrared Golf Simulatorfor two weeks and wanted to share a video evaluation of the system. If you enjoy golf, I think you will love the Optishot.

I purchased this simulator over a year ago and returned it within the first two weeks of owning it. I have played on the large simulators at golf shops and the P3ProSwing simulator. This is by far cheaper than the other two ($30+k for professional and $800-900 for P3Pro) but I felt this device was not nearly accurate enough. I would purposely close by club face, or open, and swing inside out and outside in but the simulator would not consistently sense this. I even did it to the extreme and was not able to bend my shots on the simulator. I have seen similar results on the high end simulators, measuring 2-4' of the ball's flight is not enough to get an accurate measure of a ball's spin, but a device that measures club face angle and the swing path at contact should do a better job than what the Optishot does.
I liked the idea of not having to place a reflective strip on every club, P3Pro requires this and the strips get rubbed off after several swings of the club if you hit the sensor pad when swinging. One feature the Optishot lacks is attack angle which is important because you could be topping the ball or hitting it fat (although you can typically feel this when you hit the ball and correct on your own, but it would be nice if the game would pick up on it and simulate that shot).
The sensitivity to ambient light is way too high. It is not easy to find a room that has plenty of height and walls or objects you don't mind swinging a golf club around. So I used this in a garage at night. After trying to get the lighting just right (almost in total darkness) the sensors were still not consistent. I guess for $150-200 I would have kept the device but I was expecting more for $400. I would have been happy if it performed as well as the P3ProSwing device but it did not.
For me it did not make sense to keep the device. I liked the fact that I was swinging my own clubs but the reliability of the pad was too poor. I think I would get just as much information by hitting a ball into a net. Then there is the game factor, which is neat, but I found myself changing my swing to so the simulator would respond better, and that is not good for the golf swing. And I felt I might as well as be playing a Wii at that point.
I think DancinDogg needs to re-do their simulation pad to be more like P3ProSwing with more sensors which will make it more reliable. I would not recommend purchasing this product unless maybe you got it for $150-200.

I've had the product for a couple months now and I feel that it is a very good value. I've used the P3Pro and it is a better product, but it is also in another price tier.

I have the system set up in my basement driving range (thankfully I have high ceilings). I have only one window in the basement and the natural light does not interfere with the system. I use the recommended lighting and I use both real golf balls and the 'almost golf' foam ball. I've had five other golfers use the system in an effort to test it's accuracy. Here are our findings:

1. IRONS - Swing Path: The Optishot seems to be quite accurate with tracking the swing path, face (open/close) and impact (toe/center/heel) with irons. I even used impact tape on the club face to see if the toe/heel readings were correct and they were. One of the golfers who normally struggles with a hook was definitely still struggling with his hook and our test slicer was still slicing... pretty good. We used Callaway, Nickent, Ping and Cleveland irons on the system and they all worked well. Rating: 9/10

2. IRONS - Swing Speed: I believe this is pretty accurate. Based on what I've seen my swing speed at on the P3Pro, I think the Optishot is close. I would rate the Optishot an 8/10.

3. IRONS - Ball Distance: Not sure how accurate the distance estimation is. Some of the golfers felt that the distances estimated by the Optishot were well short of what they normally hit. I found it to be about 5-10 yards shorter that what I really hit, but I figure not all irons have the same lofts, so the Optishot just estimates based on the type of irons you tell it you're using (NOTE: b/c this thing does not have a ball sensor it cannot accurately track the ball if you hit thin or fat... however, you club head speed slows down when you hit fat, thus, limiting the distance). Rating: 7/10.

4. DRIVERS - Swing Path: The Optishot seems to be quite accurate with tracking the swing path, face angle and impact (toe/center/heel) with the driver as well. Again, we did the impact tape test and the Optishot was accurately reading toe/heel shots. I do feel that is slightly less accurate than the iron readings though. However, slicers were slicing and hookers were hooking. Rating: 8/10

5. DRIVER - Swing Speed/Ball Distance: Overall a mixed bag. It really depends on the driver you're using. I do think the Optishot does a good job with reading the swing path, but the swing speed and ball distance can very greatly depending on how reflective the club is (I guess). We've tried a Ping G10, Callaway FT-i, Nike Str8 Fit, Cleveland Launcher and Callaway Big Bertha 460. It seems like the Callaway clubs are read more accurately. I know they sell a driver that will work with the system, but who needs another driver just to use the Optishot? Rating: 6/10.

CONCLUSION: The Optishot works well with irons and not so great with the driver. We are using the Optishot mainly to give us feedback on the swing path and face at impact. It's a good tool for higher handicappers or if you're working through swing changes and want to see how the changes are affecting your swing path and impact. For me, the Optishot is almost always in practice mode using the 3DD mode (simulated courses). I've really enjoyed using it and would definitely recommend it if you can't afford the P3Pro... just make sure you have the right lighting conditions. Overall rating: 8/10

Btw, outside of all the serious stuff, it's just fun to get on this thing and whack away in winter time here in Chicago! At $26/hr at my indoor range, the Optishot will end up saving me some $$. Plus, it's nice to go and hit balls any time I want in my basement and get some feedback outside of just the feel at impact.

I live in montana and the winters are painfully long.
We are lucky if the course is open in mid-november and luckier still if it opens in mid-April.
As a 13hdcp who is aspiring to be single digit this season, I needed to keep my swing in shape during the winters.
Hitting balls into a net is ok but it doesn't give any feedback.
That is where the dancindogg or optishot comes in.

I got it from amazon because I find it easy to deal with them in case I didn't like the product and had to return it.

The product arrived nicely packed and was simple to open. The software installed easily and the unit was ready to go very quickly.

Finding the right lighting condition is critical if the unit is to operate effectively.
My tip is to keep a lamp lit in the room at a distance from the unit. The lamp must have a compact fluorescent bulb and not halogen. I cannot over emphasize the right lighting.

Next, make sure your feet are level with the unit because the unit's hitting pad sits an inch and a quarter above the floor. Build your stance and make sure you are square. If you compensate for a less-than-perfect stance, you will want to discredit the results and think that the unit is faulty. But the unit is a machine and it doesn't lie. Several people are disappointed because the unit tells them their swings are not as good as they believed. But I believe the unit and its feedback. It will take a little adjustment (swing speed and distance settings) to get the distance you get on the course. Once done, you can enjoy the unit and do some serious practice.

There are two modes for practice...practice zone and 3DD practice. Both have their value. The latter has on-course graphics and is a simulation. The former is geared only toward technical numbers like path angle, face angle, swing speed and tempo.

The sensors are indestructible unless you just pick up the club and bring it straight down like an axe to hit the sensors. The sensors are set deep enough in the turf to not get hit by a club moving along the turf.

Depending on the design of the sole of your driver, you may not have luck in registering driver swings. A common trick is to cover the sole with masking tape and then using a strip of reflective tape on the leading edge of the sole right along the club face. The tape will help the unit pick up the swing.
Irons are naturally reflective and should work without any tape at all even if they aren't very shiny.

Overall, I'm very pleased with my purchase. It is the best value simulator out there...do your search and you won't find anything in this price range that offers so much.

Pros: good graphics, lots of personalization possible, easy setup, unit is well constructed, practice mode allows a good review of your swing

Cons: Printed matter doesn't give you tips and tricks to make the unit work...online forums have very little discussion except for ottawa golf. personalization (listed as pro above) is also a downside. Some people may not like tinkering so much to get good results. You'll need the lengths, lofts, and offsets of your irons because the unit has room for such details. Not everyone knows the exact specs of their clubs.

Recommendation: strongly recommended. can't go wrong if you take the time to set up.

Having researched many competing golf simulators, I chose to take a chance on the Optishot. I am very satisified with my purchase as the accuracy, reliability, and ease of use of this product far exceeded my expectations. I use it in my garage and have a low-cost projector attached to my laptop that displays the images on the wall (no screen is needed since you can play without a ball!). The Optishot does NOT need any special tapes (like some of its competitors) and I can use my own clubs. The accuracy is dead on as I usually pull hook bad shots and within a few days of using this I have now been able to see EXACTLY why and when I make these bad shots and correct them. The 3DD software that is included has some really good graphics and is quite realistic (especially displayed using a projector). I also purchased the Tiger Woods 08 game and that has allowed my children to want to play with Dad now too! I think there was an earlier version last year that some folks may have had some trouble with lighting conditions, but the new version works with no problems at all even with some outside light coming in through the windows. I highly recommend this product as anything less than $400 is well worth it if it can help you to enjoy playing golf that much more!

Early August 2011: A friend and I both bought Optishot (OS) about a week ago. So this review is the combined result of both of our experiences. It only gets 3 stars at this time due to some major software problems and for being inconsistent in terms of accuracy (read on for my fixes to these problems)

Software: First problem was that 4 out of the 6 DVD drives we placed the included CD in wouldn't even recognize that there was a disc in the drive. That made installing from the CD impossible. Two different CD's and same problem with both of them. Thankfully, DD does give you a download link on their support page that will allow a download / install without using the disc. After installing, all 6 courses must be updated which is a HUGE download (~800 mB) and will take some time. If you somehow successfully install using the CD be sure to allow the software to update (it will auto update) After installing, we couldn't get OS to run on 4 out of 6 computers tried, all of which met the tech requirements listed by DD (but one was running Parallels 6.0 with Win 7x64 on a MacBook Pro which is not supported by DD). We both attempted to install on very new PC's running Windows 7. Neither of those machines would run OS: all we could get was a black screen with no mouse cursor. The only PC's we could get to work were Dell's: an M90 and M70 both ran the sim just fine. Both of these machines ran Windows XP-P. Unfortunately we had zero success running OS on Windows 7x64. Only could run the game under Win XP-P.

But I should also point out some of the strengths: Once running, OS had GREAT graphics!! Beautiful courses, wind in the trees, realistic sky and water and decent sound. There are quite a few nice ways to customize the game play also... I won't go into all the details but I will say its pretty impressive for the price. One other little detail is that DD allows you to install OS on up to 4 different computers - NICE!

Hardware / Accuracy problems: We tried hitting in several different settings. Honestly, unless you've placed the IR sensor mat in direct sunlight, or with some other kind of weird incandescent lighting, we couldn't really see any difference in how the lighting affected OS. I'm running it in my den with one large draped window and a couple 100W CFL's. No problems there, even when I turn on a few incandescent bulbs. Seems to have no effect on OS.

Initially, we had great success hitting either foam balls or real balls and even used impact tape on a driver to verify accuracy of the system. In 6/6 driver strikes, OS was totally accurate at least as far as impact location (heel/toe) on the club face. Also, it seems to be accurate with swing speeds and club head path.

The next experiment I did was to hit with NO ball at all. And that's where the big problems came from: hitting with no ball produced wild results, mostly with the unit reporting very open face angles. I hit for at least an hour with no ball and used every club in the bag. With every club and NO ball the unit would consistently report very open face angles. I tried taping up (black electric tape) the shaft and club sole in various ways, but never got the open face problem fixed. I was able to dial in a bunch of offset into a custom club set which helped but the offset numbers required to straighten out the shots were very unrealistic: like 1/2" or more.

Placing the foam ball back in play solved all of those problems. With either a foam ball or a real ball, OS produces decent accuracy and realistic shots. My hypothesis is the OS software does actually sense both the club head AND the ball moving past the forward sensors. Given the flight of the ball from the tee across the forward sensors, the software is able to deduce direction and speed of the ball, and hence better able to deduce club face angle at impact. Thats my theory anyway...

Finally, my Taylormade R7-425 driver was giving very inconsistent results (worse than I'd expect given I know my basic ball flight) I did find that using black electrical tape on the bottom of the driver helped a great deal in achieving more consistent and realistic results with this driver. Place the first piece of tape back about 1/2" from the leading edge of the club so that only a strip of the shiny metal is exposed. The second piece of tape should butt up against the first one so it makes a "double wide" black strip across the entire bottom of the club. If you're using one of the all-black drivers, you might try using a 1/2" wide strip of shiny aluminum or stainless steel tape and see if it reflects enough to allow the IR sensors to work. (just a guess here)

One little nagging problem I had related to the tees included with OS. Those little white tees have a pretty big barb on their end that makes it too hard to pull the tees out of the rubber holder. So, I just ground most of the barb off each tee and that fixed that problem.

In summary: for $399 its a great deal. It CAN be made to work and the folks at DD were very quick to respond to my email requests (for the software install problems). The hitting mat is fairly durable but a very fat shot could damage the rear row of sensors. I therefore tee up every ball just for an extra margin of safety. And I'd recommend using some kind of foam surround around the sensor mat just to protect it from abuse. All in all, its really fun and you can actually get some good feedback once the tech issues are taken care of.

I'm kinda shocked that this product has so many good reviews. I found it to be completely useless except as a cute golf game. I had hoped it would help me work on my swing during winter months. But, this is no practice tool.

I hit a 7-iron from 135-150 yards. The best I could do with the OptiShot was about 80 yards. It would show that my club head was open about 18 degrees with an inside to outside swing path. Yet, the ball would land on the right edge of the fairway 10 or 20 yards off-line. I tried a couple different clubs to see if anything changed, but it didn't. Hit a ball like that in real life and it is gone to another fairway.

The graphics did not indicate hooks or slices. Open club face just shows a straight push. Closed club face shows a straight pull. I hooded the club face about 45 degrees and managed to get the ball to go a little left, with an indication that my club face was closed two to ten degrees.

It comes with no manual. There is an on-line manual, but I was unable to find a download version. The link supplied took me to a broken page. I could not find a link on the Dancing Dog website for a manual download.

Hit a fat shot and bang it a little bit and the sensors go out. I had to unplug the USB cord and replug it to make it come back on. They say you can't break the LEDs but I don't see how they could be that tough being right where the club strikes if you strike a couple inches fat.

The height of the striking surface is problematic. It is about a half-inch higher than any practice mat I ever saw and well over an inch higher than the floor surface it sits (or you stand) on. If it had worked, I would have set up spacers to level out the floor. As it was, I boxed it back up and returned it the day after it arrived.

I have had the optishot system now for 1 week and I am very pleased with this product. I currently play to a 3 handicap and wanted to have a way to keep the game sharp over the cool months. I have 8 and 1/2 foot ceiling with flourescent lighting in the room where I have the system set up. I am using all of my regular clubs Callaway X forged irons, 2 and 3 hybrid, 3 wood TM superfast, and Driver TM superfast. The system has no problem reading any of my clubs. I have recently hit balls into a simulator at my local golf store and my swing speed with the optishot is dead on. I was hitting my driver with a swing speed of 115 MPH there and I am doing the same with this system. Also, surprisingly to me, my club distances on normal/muscle back set up is dead on to what I hit on the course (I was amazed by this). I even have a secondary club that I retired when I had it re-shafted because I lost 10 yds on it, and on this system it even picks that distance variance up! My overall rating for this system would be 8/10. I now have a range I can go to and groove my swing without having to leave the comfort of my home!