Arccos Golf has announced the introduction of Arccos Link, a small, ultra-lightweight accessory that allows users of the Arccos Caddie platform to automatically record their on-course performance data without the need for a phone in the pocket.
Compatible with any iPhone or Android device, the device can be clipped to a player’s belt, trousers, shorts or pocket. An internal GPS allows it to function independently of a user’s phone, while transferring data either during or after a round, based on player preference.
Weighing less than 25g and measuring smaller than a belt buckle, the weather-resistant Arccos Link boasts a battery life of up to 10 hours and quickly charges via a standard micro USB cable. Set to deliver in early Summer 2019, Arccos Link will retail for £79.99, with a special pre-sale price of £59.99.
Arccos Link is designed for use with second-generation Arccos sensors, including all Cobra Connect clubs, Arccos 360, Arccos Caddie Smart Sensors and Arccos Caddie Smart Grips.
“For the player who wants to keep their phone in their bag or back in the clubhouse while still automatically capturing all their on-course performance data, Arccos Link is the perfect solution,” said Jack Brown, Arccos Senior Vice President of Product and Software. “It’s incredibly simple to use and communicates seamlessly with a player’s phone during or after a round, allowing the golfer to access insights from the award-winning Arccos Caddie A.I. for every shot,” he added.
Further extending Arccos’ position as the pioneers of golf technology, Arccos Link follows the introduction of a suite of new features, including crowd-sourced hole locations, Siri shortcuts and an enhanced UX for putting.
Designed to provide accurate daily hole locations on a global scale, the crowd-sourcing function allows any Arccos user to set hole locations before, during or after their round. Those locations are then universally updated for every Arccos user who plays the same course anytime later in the day. That data also ties into Arccos’ rangefinder GPS and “Plays Like” distance functions.
Recently awarded of ‘Best Gadget of 2018’ by influential Square Mile magazine for its Caddie 2.0 sensors, Arccos boasts the golf industry’s richest data set. This includes nearly 200 million shots hit during more than 2 million rounds played by the Arccos community, and over 500 million GPS mapping data points on 40,000+ courses worldwide. Arccos has leveraged this data by partnering with Microsoft to create golf’s smartest caddie, an A.I. platform providing any golfer with their optimal strategy and outcome predictions for every shot on any hole in the world.
“The entire sports landscape is being revolutionised by advanced analytics and golf is the perfect sport for the application of these concepts,” said Sal Syed, Arccos CEO and co-founder. “Working with Microsoft, we’re plugging into a very traditional framework – the caddie/player relationship – and taking it to the next level through the power of A.I. Considering only 3% of golfers today have access to advice from a human caddie, we’re also helping democratise the caddie experience by making it available to anyone,” he added.
Free for all Arccos Caddie users, the AI platform considers a wide variety of inputs, including but not limited to a user’s shot history, the historical performance of other Arccos users, wind speed/direction, other weather conditions, elevation changes, hole geometry and hazard locations.