Hey Team!
Hope the summer wrapped up nicely for all of you.
It was a very busy and encouraging summer for us at Graff, and the team and I have several significant updates to share with you all!
Since our last big update, we’ve been fortunate enough to have put together a team of world-class engineers specialized in various product departments as we’ll unpack below.
We are fully confident that this is the team that will bring us over the finish line.
We’ve promoted Eric Goodchild to CTO, and added two fantastic engineers to his team—further rounding out our development capabilities. As the Co-Founder and former CTO of Aira, Eric has extensive experience building and leading innovative engineering projects
Our first new hire, Matthew Deye, joins as Senior Firmware Engineer—focusing on bringing our extensive math models into algorithms within our firmware.
J.R. is focused on finding the optimal balance of feel and durability of the ball from both a mechanical and material perspective. Now complete, his initial primary focus was developing a new process to rapidly iterate composition and materials in-house. This has enabled us to much more quickly make progress, putting us in a position today with a ball that both feels great and has passed our durability standards. We’ll continue to make progress here up to and past launch.
Parker Feldmann—formerly of Tesla and Hamilton—continues to lead our manufacturing efforts as VP of Manufacturing.
The most complex part of the development effort is converting the raw data from the ball + sensors into exit velocity, launch angle, spin rate, and spin direction. Complicated firmware algorithms are required for accomplishing this.
As of this week, the math models for each of the four components have officially been completed. This is a huge step in our efforts to develop the most accurate product out on the market. These four models are now patent-pending and will serve as a major piece of Graff's intellectual property.
The next step is to convert the models into firmware programs to be executed in the ball. This is the last step before the firmware is ready for launch and is currently in progress.
These algorithms then plug into our physics engine, which calculates the full flight path of the ball.
J.R. is focused on optimizing the core of the ball to optimize the balance between the feel and durability of the ball. His primary focus is developing a new process to rapidly iterate composition and materials in-house that will ultimately yield the highest quality ball possible.
The mobile and web applications are now in a Beta State, and we are extremely satisfied with the current UI / UX as we’ve reached a fully-functional state.
As we approach launch, we'll continue iterating on and improving the software experience via bug fixes, feature additions, and continuing to move the platform into a production-ready state.
The latest spin of the Graff ball hardware has been completed and has resulted in significant advantages. We have made significant reductions in PCB size—which has cut our per-unit costs quite dramatically. This gives us increased flexibility on ball composition and design, making for a higher performing and longer lasting golf ball. We will continue to seek hardware efficiency improvements for the foreseeable future.
The new PCB design also features an NFC antenna, enabling deep sleep mode for longer battery life and easier pairing to the phone.
We understand that these updated timelines can be frustrating—believe us, they are extremely frustrating for us, too! But as mentioned in previous updates, refunds can be granted should you choose to not wish to move forward with us on our journey to reimagining at-home golf.
Lastly, if you've had a change of address or information since ordering:
Do not worry! Upon launch, you will be able to enter in your updated information through the checkout process.
All the best,
Team Graff
