The Random Comic Strip

The Random Comic Strip

Words to live by...

"How beautiful it is to do nothing, and to rest afterward."

[Spanish Proverb]

Ius luxuriae publice datum est

(The right to looseness has been officially given)

"Everyone carries a part of society on his shoulders," wrote Ludwig von Mises, "no one is relieved of his share of responsibility by others. And no one can find a safe way for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interest, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle."

Apparently, the crossword puzzle that disappeared from the blog, came back.


Wednesday, August 19, 2015

Experiences In Golf


I have a lot of experience in golf but that doesn't seem to help. I don't have the natural talent nor the great hand/eye coordination that the pros have. That's obvious even to me. Plus, because of my deteriorating depthe perception, I cannot judge distance as I once used to. Therefore I must rely on golf GPS units.

I purchased one by Golf Buddy not long ago. It worked fine for a few weeks and then, one day, it wouln't charge. I contacted Golf Buddy technical support and they responded with the following:

Thank you for contacting GolfBuddy.

I am sorry that you have an issue with your unit. May we kindly ask that you do an "Emergency Reboot" and a "Firmware Upgrade" to check if this will rememdy the issue at hand.

Here are the instructions to try an emergency reboot on your GB WT3 unit:

Press the OK, Arrow up and Arrow down all at once to restart the system.

After doing these steps, try updating the firmware on your unit. This helps the unit´s system (firmware) perform more accurately. You can update the firmware using the GolfBuddy World Course Manager.

The problem is that this didn't work so I requested an RMA # and instructions on how to ship it back. They received the unit, presumably inspected it, and contacted me by phone. During that call, the tech said he would be sending me a replacement. That replacement came on Tuesday. I opened the box, removed the unit, and it would not power up. I therefore suspected I would have to charge it so I hooked it up to the charger (not an easy thing to do) and plugged it into my computer via the USB port. It did not charge. In fact, it behaved exactly like the one I had sent back. So I called Golf Buddy support and explained to the tech what trouble I was having.

I requested a pre-paid label to ship this one back because I do not see why I should pay to send back a defective unit that I have not used in any way, shape, or form. I did not get one. Instead, I got the "boilerplate" on how and where to ship the unit.

So, instead of just complying, I am writing this post to warn others about Golf Buddy.


Update: on 8-19 I received an email from UPS with the pre-paid access. I will be sending this unit back on 8-20.

3 comments:

Tom said...

Thanks for the warning. I, myself, don't bother with a GPS. I eyeball the distance and then just swing away ... which, along with the ground sometimes getting in the way, probably explains why I'm always short of the green.

Steven said...

Did you try a wall charger instead of the computer? a lot of computers put out 0.5A or less over the USB ports, and some devices want up to 2.4A or so...

Douglas said...

I did, Steven, after I talked to Golf Buddy support. I had a phone charger which matched up pin-wise so I used it. It was right after that when the device crapped out. It is possible that this is what caused the fault.