Tech Disc Accuracy

[BruisedOoze]

What does "accurate" or "extremely accurate" even mean here? Aside from the disc speed as per their website, is there even a tool spec for all the other parameters? There doesn't appear to be on their website, so maybe someone with the manual could shed light on this.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

I've talked to a few people now who notice the tech disc "can" be accurate, but you can cheat it. Forehands especially. To much odd movement before the throw messes it up.

So, that was where my question of calibration comes to. What/how are we calibrating it? Is it as simple as restarting the device? unacceptable then.

Granted, we can't easily calibrate a load, but we can calibrate 0 and a few other things. such as flipping the disc over. etc, sitting the disc still, so it knows what 0 is, and what level and 180 of that is.

So, since we know some odd movements before the throw could skew the data.
What does some of the random movements in the throw from pro players do to the data.

Like there are some players who throw with an open wrist position and dont actually curl the wrist in until the disc is in the pocket, then fling the wrist out.

So, some of what I'm gathering is the stuff reads pretty good, but the software interpretation is what gets messed up.

If I had one to mess with for a week, I'd have some tests I'd do to see so I could have a more accurate answer. But I get the feeling some of these weird things we see come from how the software is defining a baseline in the middle of the throw.

So, if the tech disc is seeing lets say -50 on the sensor in the middle of the throw, it perhaps might be resetting that -50 to 0 as the disc accelerates to 100 giving a reading of 150, vs actually 100.
Thats' what I"m thinking is happening on some of these really oddball readings people get. And that's all software.

Is there a video where someone shows how to somewhat consistently reproduce odd readings? I would definitely test it out.

I've tested trying to use a lot more wrist curl dynamically before and didn't get any unusual readings myself, I got an expected increase in spin, but nothing else wildly different over many throws.

What I did was, curl the wrist into a pocket position while coiling, and then during the reach back, uncurl the wrist into extension, and then during the pull through, curl the wrist into the pocket, and then trying to snap the wrist back out to neutral into the hit. That's a lot of wrist movement before the hit.

The simulation actually shows the disks movement before the hit as well, so it seems to be able to distinguish before, and after the hit pretty well because probably based on where the rapid increasing spin occurs.

However, I have seen it a few times display throw stats after a hard shadow swing, but in that case there's no risk of being confused by the incorrect reading because you know for sure that you didn't throw the disc. But this does suggest there's someway that it gets confused.

It would be cool to have a "move the disc to recalibrate it feature" I would definitely use it more regularly just to make sure.

However, I'm not sure what the point is about restarting it being unacceptable or if you only mean it's unacceptable that there's not a more direct way to fix issues. So I may not be relevant based on what you mean, but I would just point out that there are plenty of reliable high-tech tools that we use and still have to restart on occasion to fix some issues.
They are pretty open to answering questions via email so you could probably get some information if you wanted to.

 

[Sheep]

It would be cool to have a "move the disc to recalibrate it feature" I would definitely use it more regularly just to make sure.

However, I'm not sure what the point is about restarting it being unacceptable or if you only mean it's unacceptable that there's not a more direct way to fix issues. So I may not be relevant based on what you mean, but I would just point out that there are plenty of reliable high-tech tools that we use and still have to restart on occasion to fix some issues.

Sensors, also depending on which ones they are, don't magically "reset" themselves to 0 all the time.

I went around calibrating sensors on equipment for 5 years. Restarting it doesn't fix all of them, some of them it does. Some of them you have to calibrate.

I think that's one of the reasons they took the compass feature off phones a long time ago, cause it just never worked unless you spent 5 mins flipping it around to get it calibrated.

I'm sure the sensors in the tech disc are higher quality than that, but maybe its just my lack of trust from experience.

The other person who was saying there are issues with it was Mr "the method" Brian Weisman. From Reddit.

Personally I have two and a radar gun (pocket radar) that I've been using for about 6 months with 5K throws. All data matches the radar and align with fieldwork.

That said I have had some issues. I have a had a handful of random readings that I know are wrong (e.g. a 73mph forehand when I know I can't push past 65). I also had one break and start giving me low readings like you are saying. It started with a random reading of 196mph and then anything over 50 got wonky. Instead of mid 60s it was saying mid 40s, and the harder I threw the lower it dropped. It also seemed to be closer with standstills like you were saying. But I reached out and got a replacement in a week and have had no issues with either since.

Tl;dr Your experience is anomalous and I would bet you were throwing a broken one since your experience sounds similar to how mine acted when it broke (after 2K throws)

I'd argue that they are out of calibration. Brian was borrowing one though also.

I can't seem to find the video of scott supposedly throwing 80+mph with a forehand. But he does a casual 360 and just pops it into the net.
Chris can say all day that it was reading whatever. That was a really really really casual throw. Scott has a LOT of forehand power, I wont argue that at all, but I wasn't seeing no 80+mph body mechanics.



The really unfortunate part of DGCR is were a small group here so the actual amount of people we can poll on the data for tech disc is .. well, practically 0.

If anyone was to lets say... ask on reddit, where we have a huge number of people to ask, the thread would get shit down on and people downvoted. Reddit discgolf community has turned into a sess pool of people who are to afraid to speak because the downvote army comes after them for anything.

I got downvoted for a statement that was factual about a disc design where a guy asked about some new "innovative" thin on this disc rim. I said I didn't understand what was special, and got a ton of upvotes. Then he said "oh the inner rim is tilted in." and I responded, that other discs are like that already, like the berg. Downvoted a bazillion times.

I miss pre-coof /r/discgolf.

Could ask in disc golf discussion I spose, but those people in there are a bit snobbish as well.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Sensors, also depending on which ones they are, don't magically "reset" themselves to 0 all the time.

I went around calibrating sensors on equipment for 5 years. Restarting it doesn't fix all of them, some of them it does. Some of them you have to calibrate.

I think that's one of the reasons they took the compass feature off phones a long time ago, cause it just never worked unless you spent 5 mins flipping it around to get it calibrated.

I'm sure the sensors in the tech disc are higher quality than that, but maybe its just my lack of trust from experience.

The other person who was saying there are issues with it was Mr "the method" Brian Weisman. From Reddit.



I'd argue that they are out of calibration. Brian was borrowing one though also.

I can't seem to find the video of scott supposedly throwing 80+mph with a forehand. But he does a casual 360 and just pops it into the net.
Chris can say all day that it was reading whatever. That was a really really really casual throw. Scott has a LOT of forehand power, I wont argue that at all, but I wasn't seeing no 80+mph body mechanics.



The really unfortunate part of DGCR is were a small group here so the actual amount of people we can poll on the data for tech disc is .. well, practically 0.

If anyone was to lets say... ask on reddit, where we have a huge number of people to ask, the thread would get shit down on and people downvoted. Reddit discgolf community has turned into a sess pool of people who are to afraid to speak because the downvote army comes after them for anything.

I got downvoted for a statement that was factual about a disc design where a guy asked about some new "innovative" thin on this disc rim. I said I didn't understand what was special, and got a ton of upvotes. Then he said "oh the inner rim is tilted in." and I responded, that other discs are like that already, like the berg. Downvoted a bazillion times.

I miss pre-coof /r/discgolf.

Could ask in disc golf discussion I spose, but those people in there are a bit snobbish as well.

Yeah, in time there will be more tech disc users. But so far, my pulse is from my own where many people have thrown it, multiple pros, newbs who can round up to 60 mph, MPO players who have a hard time to break 60, and then also seeing lots of youtubers who have it and seem to be getting sensible readings. And then occasionally you hear about a broken one that's giving lots of bad readings, or the occasionally weird reading that doesn't happen often on non-broken ones.

Compare this to the gameproofer where it is being eviscerated for how unsatisfactory it is. If the TechDisc had anything approaching a significant amount of defective discs or non-defective discs giving a significant amount of bad readings, I think there's a high chance we would've seen what we see with the gameproofer where most people are ripping into it.

 

[Sheep]

Yeah, in time there will be more tech disc users. But so far, my pulse is from my own where many people have thrown it, multiple pros, newbs who can round up to 60 mph, MPO players who have a hard time to break 60, and then also seeing lots of youtubers who have it and seem to be getting sensible readings. And then occasionally you hear about a broken one that's giving lots of bad readings, or the occasionally weird reading that doesn't happen often on non-broken ones.

Compare this to the gameproofer where it is being eviscerated for how unsatisfactory it is. If the TechDisc had anything approaching a significant amount of defective discs or non-defective discs giving a significant amount of bad readings, I think there's a high chance we would've seen what we see with the gameproofer where most people are ripping into it.

I've honestly seen nothing on the gameproofer except for the guy using one the other day.

Meh. *shrugs*

 

[disc-golf-neil]

I've honestly seen nothing on the gameproofer except for the guy using one the other day.

Meh. *shrugs*

I don't think many people have it, I haven't seen a lot either, but like 3-4 people who reviewed it on reddit and every one was really bad.

 

[RowingBoats]

Does the tech disc even need to be truly 'accurate' to be useful? I'd say no. I finally got to use one. I don't have secondary means of verifying that the data is numerically perfect, but you'd have a very, very hard time convincing me that the numbers don't at least correlate to reality.

As long as you are using it to hone aspects of your swing and then verifying success with real throwing, its a fantastic tool.

 

[disc-golf-neil]

Does the tech disc even need to be truly 'accurate' to be useful? I'd say no. I finally got to use one. I don't have secondary means of verifying that the data is numerically perfect, but you'd have a very, very hard time convincing me that the numbers don't at least correlate to reality.

As long as you are using it to hone aspects of your swing and then verifying success with real throwing, it's a fantastic tool.

There's also a significant margin of error where within that it would still be more accurate than the human eye for angle feedback.

As I've discussed elsewhere, even the pro commentators who watch the most footage frequently don't notice the initial amount of hyzer and mistake the flip they see 1-2 seconds later as having released on less or no hyzer.

Or, if you threw it slightly nose down, but too high of a launch angle, it could still stall and many people would incorrectly say you gotta get the nose down, we're in reality you might have been able to learn the difference.

 

[RowingBoats]

I've talked to a few people now who notice the tech disc "can" be accurate, but you can cheat it. Forehands especially. To much odd movement before the throw messes it up.

So, that was where my question of calibration comes to. What/how are we calibrating it? Is it as simple as restarting the device? unacceptable then.

Granted, we can't easily calibrate a load, but we can calibrate 0 and a few other things. such as flipping the disc over. etc, sitting the disc still, so it knows what 0 is, and what level and 180 of that is.

So, since we know some odd movements before the throw could skew the data.
What does some of the random movements in the throw from pro players do to the data.

Like there are some players who throw with an open wrist position and dont actually curl the wrist in until the disc is in the pocket, then fling the wrist out.

So, some of what I'm gathering is the stuff reads pretty good, but the software interpretation is what gets messed up.

If I had one to mess with for a week, I'd have some tests I'd do to see so I could have a more accurate answer. But I get the feeling some of these weird things we see come from how the software is defining a baseline in the middle of the throw.

So, if the tech disc is seeing lets say -50 on the sensor in the middle of the throw, it perhaps might be resetting that -50 to 0 as the disc accelerates to 100 giving a reading of 150, vs actually 100.
Thats' what I"m thinking is happening on some of these really oddball readings people get. And that's all software.

I guess I just don't even care what the numbers are lol.

It could have a totally proprietary numerical speed indication for all I care. I don't think about throwing certain mph, ever, and I never will.

Pretty much the only thing I truly care about with the techdisc is that it can give me feedback about nose angle. Just like the mph/kph, I don't really care about specific degrees here. I care about it representing whether a feeling/movement gets the nose slightly down, that's it...and it does a damn good job at that.

 

[StupendousMan]

I have one on the way in June. Tbh I'm only hoping it's accurate relative to itself. Ie I don't really care if the metrics are perfectly accurate by any stretch, just as long as they adjust properly relative to each other. Could also give a crap about the actual speed it's the nose/launch/hyzer angles I'm most interested in monitoring. Speed/spin is nice to know relative to different throws but I don't care if it's actually the true number or not.

 

[Sheep]

I have one on the way in June. Tbh I'm only hoping it's accurate relative to itself. Ie I don't really care if the metrics are perfectly accurate by any stretch, just as long as they adjust properly relative to each other. Could also give a crap about the actual speed it's the nose/launch/hyzer angles I'm most interested in monitoring. Speed/spin is nice to know relative to different throws but I don't care if it's actually the true number or not.

Yeah, that's why I keep using the Dynograph as an example.

You make changes and run on the same dyno to see if it was positive or negative.

People mistake all my comments as tech disc hate.
And, I'm looking at it from my career perspective as an engineer. How people are using it and looking at the flaws I see.

The biggest issue is just how people are using it overall, and the inability to calibrate it.
As long as whatever data its giving out always stays in calibration, but.. I just don't think that's going to happen based on my experience with these tools.

It would be nice to actually thrash one for a week and give proper feed back.
But I'm not paying for it. It's not financially feasible to me.
I buy tools to make money. its not going to make me money, and me giving them positive traction from a device only makes THEM money. So.. yeah.