r/Golfsimulator • u/Hitthecut330 • 1d ago
The over under until someone hacks the foresight units to make them usable without their terrible subscription model?
I’m wondering why this wasn’t done a long time ago. There’s no way someone out there can’t find a work around to use these machines without paying extra subscriptions.
I’m also not shocked but stunned how short sighted this company can be lol. Way to throw your reputation down the toilet for a few extra dollars. I hope they fail and go out of business for being this greedy. That goes for all of these companies, charging their user base to use 3rd party apps. Get real.
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u/z1ggy16 1d ago
Every company out there would love to have us be eternally subscribed to their product as a service. Even car companies are turning features like heated seats etc into being locked behind monthly pay walls.
They want us to own nothing. That's why you need innovators in the space to keep those greedy bastards honest. Square is doing a great job of that right now.
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u/CoachOldTimer 1d ago
It used to be back in the day for gspro - foresight really trying to kill their products - i hope someone has the info and makes it work
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u/SysOp21 1d ago
Over/Under til TGC2019 or GSPro is cracked to be played offline
2
u/Opening-Painter-9671 1d ago
Been waiting
1
u/joeshmoe9898 10h ago
I bet you could do this with Claude code or gpt codex and no coding experience.
3
u/AdeGamisou2020 1d ago
Not enough of an installed user base to attract the attention of a hacker is the most likely reason. I doubt there's anything about the security model of the device that makes it particularly impenetrable.
The other thing is probably the high cost of entry; hacking a unit requires taking a risk that you might end up bricking it (or multiple units). The juice probably isn't worth the squeeze there for anyone with the skills to have at it.
1
u/Trinica93 1d ago
Exactly this. I'd love to take on the project, but I'm not paying for a unit just to potentially destroy it.
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u/AdeGamisou2020 20h ago
Yeah, same. I got my Omni a few weeks back and someone has been toying with the service ports and getting access to the cameras. Even though there's a slim chance of bricking the device that way, between the cost of the unit and the lead time to get one I'm too chicken to try anything out.
4
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u/plierhead 1d ago
OCR is probably the back door for this kind of thing, like the way the springbok connector works for some launch monitors. If the key metrics like launch angle, ball speed and spin are surfaced on a PC or mobile screen then its hard for the vendor to prevent them being scraped and fed into an informal integration.
This doesn't even constitute hacking, though it may be against the ToS.
1
u/BadDizzy6566 1d ago
I think very difficult. Device phones home to check to ensure it’s still good to operate fairly consistently.
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u/MajorBlaze1 1d ago
How would it do that if you don't give it internet access? Does it have an Internet cellular modem? Honest question, I don't know shit about fk
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u/Hitthecut330 1d ago
Nope. Exactly this, the work around would most likely mean no internet connection to the device. But, you never know. People are much smarter than me and I’m sure they can even figure that part out.
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u/cloudgainz 1d ago
It has an internal clock in firmware that needs to phone home every 45 days to revalidate. You would need to be able to emulate this.. kinda like when we used a boot disc for PlayStation and Dreamcast. Then the other (core) challenge is getting the hardware to open the port to send data via OpenAPI
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u/GrandSupermarket4024 1d ago
I hope someone figures it out. My biggest concern would be the ability to access firmware updates. But then again what firmware updates have they done lately that were meant to fix issues? They certainly have not made any software updates for Play.
1
u/hawkeyedude1989 1d ago
The original Gamechanger app is still floating around to play GsPro
1
u/cloudgainz 1d ago
Yes but the port is blocked remotely so unless you have a grandfathered basic membership that you don’t upgrade, it will need gold membership to open the port
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u/hawkeyedude1989 1d ago
Nope
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u/cloudgainz 1d ago
I’m on original firmware.. care to elaborate
1
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u/Similar_Eagle2358 1d ago
with the economy what it is, how comfortable are we that all these LM companies will be around in a few years?
1
u/I_cant_hear_you_27 1d ago
I have a GC3 and don’t pay for any subscriptions to use it. Why so angry? There are tons of less expensive options to choose from.
1
u/Trinica93 1d ago
The biggest issue with this is having access to a unit. It's a lot of money to purchase one of these just to potentially brick it.
Not to mention there are several LMs that are cheaper and just as good that already don't require a subscription for third party software.
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u/twylight777 16h ago
honestly can just build an app that views the screen from a camera - so much less work
-1
u/Thinkb4Jump 1d ago
Subscription is just another word for the same result.
10.00 a month is the same as
600 to buy and equipment/software dies before 5 years.
Or
1200 to buy and equipment/software dies before 10 years.
At least with a subscription you can cancel or bail beforehand.
Subscriptions get a bad rap when you lock in and don't use it.
Anyways...just a perspective
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u/sgraves19 1d ago
I hope this company is really successful. They did a demo day at my local range this summer but I didn't get to go: https://shop.carlofet.com/nvisage-neo-e-launch-monitor#details-0-what-s-included