OB Cues DigiCue BLUE - Official Passaround Reviews

I am glad you like the product! A few answers to some comments:

WillyCornbread said:

I can see this being a integral part of my practice routine, don't think I would shoot in a tournament with it as the vibration without the visual feedback to me is a distraction at best.

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If you set all custom settings to anything other than off, and turn off vibrations for pass AND fail, then the DigiCue BLUE will log all stats of each shot, without ever vibrating. I've been using it myself this way recently specifically to play in tournaments and matches, and long practice sessions of straight pool. I quickly forget it is even there and check my phone later on to see my average for the day.

WillyCornbread said:

+ It was difficult to get the little battery / blue tooth thingy in to the end of the rubber sleeve properly. I'm pretty coordinated and it took a good 5-10 minutes of futzing to get it seated properly. Don't know what the answer is there.

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We have a video on the OB Cues website showing a different / easier way of inserting the DigiCue BLUE "puck" into the rubber housing. You roll up the edges so that you'll have less distance to insert the device into the blind bore.

WillyCornbread said:

+ The organization of the stats could be better, I found it a bit difficult to see overall what I wanted. The history section is great, and good for digging into individual shots that have faults. Then the stats section is also divided by individual faults without any way (that I can see) to look at an aggregate view of what my stroke is like by displaying all the faults for a time period to see trends. Its hard right now to know what is wrong with my stroke in general without digging into individual faults. A spider or radar chart of the fault categories with fault amounts would be a nice visualization of this overall view.
+ I would like for shots to be related to a category of some sort, either preset or preferable user customizable. Doing this I could categorize when I practice cut shots, or when I practice power draw and just assign them to this category - the history and stats could then be filtered by this. This is a simply data relation change that would make things much more useful - I don't believe one stroke fits all, (steering long cut shots, ex)

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There will be lots more coming in the future with data analysis and presentation, and we have a ton of great ideas including yours.

WillyCornbread said:

Please don't let these things stop you from buying, it's an amazing little device, and I hope that some software updates could solve some of the small things. Hitting a shot and seeing immediate, categorized feedback is amazing

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Designed by players for players, I hope that the DigiCue BLUE truly helps your stroke evolve!

Nate

Digicue Blue Review

My unit arrived last Friday (sooner than I thought) and the following is my experience for 5 days.

The unit was easy to install. I have the first Digicue so this was a repeat. The connection to bluetooth also was easy with my Iphone 7s. I started with beginner level and found it enlightening. The key (for me) was developing a gentle push stroke (see the OB info page) instead of a hit. Also staying down for 2 seconds is a habit that I need to develop. After making these mods, I went to intermediate.

My initial scores at this level were very good after I incorporated the changes from the beginner level. No faults. So on to advanced.

Well all hell broke loose. My straightness was lacking, my follow through was too short, and so forth. Shortening my bridge helped a lot and not stopping the cue after contact improved a few categories. I watched a few "Buddy Hall" videos and this helped also.

Warning do not "tap" the digicue end on the floor in desperation. You get a fault in every category which fouls the statistics.

My overall impression is excellent. Outstanding even. A beginning pool player will need a lot of handholding and could be overwhelmed. The texts on the Iphone explain each category quite well. But IMO there is a skill level below which this device may be problematic. To me a technological miracle.

Thanks OB !

PoolCat said:

Warning do not "tap" the digicue end on the floor in desperation. You get a fault in every category which fouls the statistics
Thanks OB !

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This warning is also repeated on the DigiCue BLUE warranty page. https://www.obcues.com/pages/DigiCue-BLUE-Warranty.html

"If you hit the butt of your cue very hard onto the floor it is possible that you could break the DigiCue BLUE . If this happens it will void the warranty."

Glad you like the product!

I've compared six of the nine DigiCue BLUE parameters between last month (using my iPod) and this month (using my LG G4) characterizing my stroke while playing straight pool. Recently I've been very focused on trying to push into the ball more rather than hit it. I saw a slight improvement which makes me happy. This is reflected by the follow through score.

I did not focus on my finish (staying down) and plan to work on this in the future. I'd like to get it closer to 1.5/2 seconds.

I also have a tiny steer to the left that pops up sometimes... it mostly doesn't affect my game much unless I hit a hard shot, in which case I'll see a touch of unwanted left hand spin on the cue ball. This made me revisit my stance and I am working on straightening it out / more square.

I’d really like to see that good scores on some of the metrics collected by this device actually relate to good shooting. It’s possible to collect data on anything, but that doesn’t mean they’re useful data.

For example, I bet that if you’re shooting a long straight shot, you’re more likely to make the shot with a nice straight stroke than a stroke that veers. Or, perhaps shots with English are more successful if some metric is good, but those kinds of shots are tolerant of poor scores on other metrics. There’s a wealth of data available from this thing. It would be interesting to see them used in some research.

And how cool would it be to see pros use this, to see real-time scores while they’re shooting. Jayson is a sponsor, maybe he’d do it.

tashworth19191 said:

I really like mine, I played with all day today. On beginner level, it never vibrated, so I guess I am beyond beginner.

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Lol, I can hear it now. I'm an "A" player cause my digicue and my ability to play the ghost so well say so. :grin:

strmanglr scott said:

Lol, I can hear it now. I'm an "A" player cause my digicue and my ability to play the ghost so well say so. :grin:

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There is NEVER a substitute for competition

Got my digi cue today, and I love it. It's already shown me a lot of things to correct, that I never would of known to correct on my own.

Finish is good, I have a bit of a left steer, I don't jab whatsoever. It took me all day to get my straightness from the low 2s and 3s, to around 7-8. My follow through went from 4-5, to around 7-9 now as well. Everything else is green. It's just these two that I've having a lot of trouble with.

My biggest wish is that it would still record all the stats and evaluate them on whatever level I set (beginner, intermediate etc.) While at the same time, only buzzing for whatever stats I want to be warned about. For example. If I'm playing a match, I really only want to be notified if I jump up, or I rush my shot. But it would still be nice to go over the rest of the data later. I don't like missing out on data.

Another big one for me is I wish there was a way to toggle between different custom profiles. So I can set a custom profile for match and for practice.

I would like it a lot more if the history shots, as well as statistics, you could swipe left or right to view them, instead of having to close the window and open another one. (Also wish they were numbered or whichever one you were on was highlighted. All I see is pages and pages of the date and time).

All of these are definitely minor issues. This is the best thing I ever bought.

tonythetiger583 said:

It took me all day to get my straightness from the low 2s and 3s, to around 7-8. My follow through went from 4-5, to around 7-9 now as well. Everything else is green. It's just these two that I've having a lot of trouble with.

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If you have a pendulum stroke, is it possible that the up-down movement of the cue along the vertical axis will cause low straightness scores. And that is ok, as long as you learn something. Doesn't mean "bad". HOWEVER, I still have a very strong suspicion that a proper pendulum stroke has close to zero vertical tip movement at the moment of impact, which is what the DigiCue BLUE measures, and therefore, possible to still achieve high scores. Now that we can quantify this numerically, our discussion of this in the community will have more value.

I'm glad you like the product!

Ntadro, could you explain how to understand the stats better for idiots like me lol? I just got my test version and want to have a better understanding for my upcoming review. Thanks

Nevermind lol. I figured it out

What would be considered a good average on advance settings?

medallio said:

What would be considered a good average on advance settings?

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Here are settings for beginner, intermediate and advanced with 0-10 scores expected. An average above these scores is the goal.

Does freeze mean “finish “? Thanks for your answers

medallio said:

Does freeze mean “finish “? Thanks for your answers

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Yes. Sorry for the typo.

My review

I was last on the pass around list, but imo it was worth waiting for. I already had app on my iPhone and the digicue blue arrived with battery already installed so I can’t say anything about ease of installation. Unbeknownst to me it was already set on advanced settings. I was happy to find that I was getting pretty good numbers at that setting.
For me( I’m sure for most)getting good results on the “follow through “ was difficult. It’s really not how far your stick goes through but rather how smooth your acceleration is. I actually didn’t know what it meant until I realized you can click on each category and it explains what it is looking for. Anyhow I decided to punish myself and put follow through settings at Advanced/Smooth. There is only one possible higher setting than that. Needless to say I could barely do it lol.
One issue that kept coming up was that I steer my tip to right. Not a lot, but enough to miss certain shots. By being aware of this made me adjust my head position and I’m pocketing much better. One reading that surprised me was on a draw shot. I have lines on my table to practice and I had object ball and cue ball on that line and I drew back straight on that line and I got a straightness error. I don’t see how that’s possible. The only other thing that perplexed me was the app stopped recording shots a few minutes into my session this morning even though stick still buzzed. In fairness I had a few other apps open.
Overall if you want solid stroke I cannot recommend this enough. Now I just have to save up!
I took screen shots of my overall results. Will post if anyone is interested and explains how to post pictures on here

I had the same issue with the follow through as well, my thinking that if your jab is good (mine was almost always at the top score), your follow through should be good as well, but the DigiCue disagreed. I stopped paying attention to that score since I could not see anything there that may make me miss or affect the spin.

medallio said:

I was last on the pass around list, but imo it was worth waiting for. I already had app on my iPhone and the digicue blue arrived with battery already installed so I can’t say anything about ease of installation. Unbeknownst to me it was already set on advanced settings. I was happy to find that I was getting pretty good numbers at that setting.
For me( I’m sure for most)getting good results on the “follow through “ was difficult. It’s really not how far your stick goes through but rather how smooth your acceleration is. I actually didn’t know what it meant until I realized you can click on each category and it explains what it is looking for. Anyhow I decided to punish myself and put follow through settings at Advanced/Smooth. There is only one possible higher setting than that. Needless to say I could barely do it lol.
One issue that kept coming up was that I steer my tip to right. Not a lot, but enough to miss certain shots. By being aware of this made me adjust my head position and I’m pocketing much better. One reading that surprised me was on a draw shot. I have lines on my table to practice and I had object ball and cue ball on that line and I drew back straight on that line and I got a straightness error. I don’t see how that’s possible. The only other thing that perplexed me was the app stopped recording shots a few minutes into my session this morning even though stick still buzzed. In fairness I had a few other apps open.
Overall if you want solid stroke I cannot recommend this enough. Now I just have to save up!

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hang-the-9 said:

I had the same issue with the follow through as well, my thinking that if your jab is good (mine was almost always at the top score), your follow through should be good as well, but the DigiCue disagreed. I stopped paying attention to that score since I could not see anything there that may make me miss or affect the spin.

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I am thinking that there are going to be a lot of pool players who play well, and score around a 5 or 6 with "follow through". I designed the DigiCue BLUE to scale across all cue sports, including billiards and snooker. Pool is kind of in between those two games, where you are potting balls with a bit more clearance and navigating for position. I think you can do this, especially on a smaller pool table, with a punchy impact without the loss of accuracy causing misses. Snooker requires a bit more of a gentle "casting off" of the cue ball consistently, and three cushion billiards constantly demands it due to the heavier balls and spin required (massive push). I also am thinking that a punchier stoke can be a rock star sometimes and fall apart other times (more fluctuation in performance?) comparatively.

I have some friends who also find the "follow through" setting to be tough to score high on, and others who love what it measures. This is the best news for me, because it means that through our testing and trials I've set the parameter exactly where it should be... so that it generates an analytical and informative discussion.

I also want to add that high or low scores doesn't mean "good" or "bad" in black&white... the DigiCue is a tool to help quantify and benchmark your stroke so that you can set your own goals that are trackable instead of staying lost.

Got some 7s and 8s today

2 things I forgot to mention. One, I hope in future maybe more time segment options. So I could do draw shots for 5 minutes then something else etc etc. A way around that, my second thing, is I highly recommend filming yourself so you can see how your stats correspond with how you shot. For example in one session in shot 7 I had 5 stroke errors. Sure enough my 7th shot filmed was horrible in execution. Combine the technology