Garmin Approach R10 Portable Golf Launch Monitor

[jjschafe]

Watching this with interest.  I've been trying to justify a budget launch monitor for a while now as a good way to get some data while hitting into a net in the yard.  The wildcard being that my 8 year old doesn't care about seeing a carry number, but would LOVE a simulator where he can actually see the shot go somewhere.  Not ready to pull the trigger quite yet, but if this is what it looks like - equivalent to a Mevo launch monitor with somewhat accurate simulator... it is exactly what I want.  

[Turny]

I must admit to being quite concerned snd disappointed by the reviews/comparisons so far; sold my Mevo (not +) to purchase this. The Mevo was very accurate (comparison with our club professional’s Trackman); not sure I now want to replace it with a unit that is less accurate in terms of distance and seems hopeless determining spin numbers. Reason I purchased was due to outgrowing the Mevo and wanting to use a Sim in outdoor garden 3x3x3m golf net - if I can’t practice draw/fade shots with even a modicum of accuracy, the Garmin has little value. Question now is can the algorithms be fixed to address the issues or is the R10 tech just not up to the job. I’m not expecting Trackman/GCQuad accuracy but need draw/fade and carry distance to be represented somewhat accurately. 
So decision needs to be made fairly quickly as to whether to cancel prior to shipping date as I don’t expect refunds will be given out on ‘used’ units based on claims of inaccuracy - likely to be deemed within acceptable tolerances and generally hard to prove otherwise..?

[Stevie989]

5 hours ago, psu517 said:

What does this even mean?

I typed my-golf-spy and the text was changed to ‘not allowed because of spam’ which I found a little amusing. 

[Red4282]

1 hour ago, Turny said:

I must admit to being quite concerned snd disappointed by the reviews/comparisons so far; sold my Mevo (not +) to purchase this. The Mevo was very accurate (comparison with our club professional’s Trackman); not sure I now want to replace it with a unit that is less accurate in terms of distance and seems hopeless determining spin numbers. Reason I purchased was due to outgrowing the Mevo and wanting to use a Sim in outdoor garden 3x3x3m golf net - if I can’t practice draw/fade shots with even a modicum of accuracy, the Garmin has little value. Question now is can the algorithms be fixed to address the issues or is the R10 tech just not up to the job. I’m not expecting Trackman/GCQuad accuracy but need draw/fade and carry distance to be represented somewhat accurately. 
So decision needs to be made fairly quickly as to whether to cancel prior to shipping date as I don’t expect refunds will be given out on ‘used’ units based on claims of inaccuracy - likely to be deemed within acceptable tolerances and generally hard to prove otherwise..?

From everything i have seen it will be every bit as accurate as the mevo in measuring ball speed, launch angle, club speed. I was in the market for a mevo before this came out and i seen good and bad reviews for it just like this one is getting. Some had mevo launching 10 degrees higher than what it should be.  Spin is a tricky one, the mevo seems to have  trouble with it too at times. At the very least you will get some additional data, albeit how accurate that additional data is still ip for debate, but it seems setup is crucial and  user error seems to be very easy to do. Oh and 6 free e6 courses to knock a ball around when its 10 degrees outside… all for an extra 100 bucks. Go ahead and cancel tho, its in high demand, someone will be happy lol

[psu517]

35 minutes ago, Stevie989 said:

I typed my-golf-spy and the text was changed to ‘not allowed because of spam’ which I found a little amusing. 

Ohhh I got you.  I thought you were saying my golf spy couldn’t test the unit because of spam.

 

[Turny]

10 minutes ago, Red4282 said:

From everything i have seen it will be every bit as accurate as the mevo in measuring ball speed, launch angle, club speed. I was in the market for a mevo before this came out and i seen good and bad reviews for it just like this one is getting. Some had mevo launching 10 degrees higher than what it should be.  Spin is a tricky one, the mevo seems to have  trouble with it too at times. At the very least you will get some additional data, albeit how accurate that additional data is still ip for debate, but it seems setup is crucial and  user error seems to be very easy to do. Oh and 6 free e6 courses to knock a ball around when its 10 degrees outside… all for an extra 100 bucks. Go ahead and cancel tho, its in high demand, someone will be happy lol

I’ll still be standing outside in that 10 degrees - sadly no space for an indoor set up 😀 The e6 courses are the best bit and a total bonus; will likely subscribe to HTH once/if native iPad app is released to make use of landscape over portrait. Set up of R10 seems really important. In the video comparison to trackman, the ball isn’t once aligned to the centre of the R10 and I don’t know if interference could be a factor with 2 types of unit next to each other? Again, I wouldn’t ever expect trackman accuracy. Seems to get launch direction figured out but loses it when calculating how face angle/path wound thereafter affect spin 

[rlefig]

32 minutes ago, Turny said:

I’ll still be standing outside in that 10 degrees - sadly no space for an indoor set up 😀 The e6 courses are the best bit and a total bonus; will likely subscribe to HTH once/if native iPad app is released to make use of landscape over portrait. Set up of R10 seems really important. In the video comparison to trackman, the ball isn’t once aligned to the centre of the R10 and I don’t know if interference could be a factor with 2 types of unit next to each other? Again, I wouldn’t ever expect trackman accuracy. Seems to get launch direction figured out but loses it when calculating how face angle/path wound thereafter affect spin 

I will be out in 10* as well in New England on days I am not skiing

[Harley_ou812]

I am looking into getting a car port with sides to set up the r10 inside.  We can then set up a space heater inside to take the chill off. 

 

[Ukfan323]

I really don't know what to make of these comparison videos...The Garmin is measuring club path relative to a straight line from the unit to the target, so even the sliiiightest difference between the Garmin and another tracking system could result in significant discrepancies. When it is off, it's consistently off, which tells me it's the alignment difference or something that can be tweaked in calculations.

Edited August 19, 2021 by Ukfan323

[puresurfr]

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Garmin-Approach-R10-Portable-Golf-Launch-Monitor-NEW-/165025737257?&_trksid=p2056016.m2518.l4276

 

available now and at MSRP

[wolfyand1]

certainly a little concerning given the latest reviews etc. You just have to wonder if the device is aligned properly. But the spin axis issues seems quite the issue.

[Cactus Jack]

If the R10 requires perfect alignment to function properly, then Garmin missed the mark. Based on the reviews and comments it sounds like buyers will need to pick up some commercial grade surveying equipment to use the darn thing. Now the R10 might make a great stationary sim, but doesn’t seem like a device to toss in the bag and head to the range. I hope I’m wrong, because the way it is marketed the zero margin for error alignment requirement is nonsensical. 

[Sandhurst241069]

Garmin’s advice is you have 1 foot either side of the target line .. so just be aware much of the noise about alignment issues is speculative / anecdotal only. I just want to see good club numbers coming through (by and large they seem ok overall) knowing that everything else is a calculation that can be fixed anytime by a firmware drop..

[whumber]

9 hours ago, Cactus Jack said:

If the R10 requires perfect alignment to function properly, then Garmin missed the mark. Based on the reviews and comments it sounds like buyers will need to pick up some commercial grade surveying equipment to use the darn thing. Now the R10 might make a great stationary sim, but doesn’t seem like a device to toss in the bag and head to the range. I hope I’m wrong, because the way it is marketed the zero margin for error alignment requirement is nonsensical. 

Depends on how you define properly. If you want launch direction and path to be correct in an absolute sense then there's going to be a 1-to-1 relationship between alignment and measurements. In regard to spin axis though it should not be terribly sensitive to alignment, at least for small angles. I tested this a bit on the range recently by slightly perturbing the alignment between shots and seeing the impact. The short story is that spin axis didn't seem to vary much but path and horizontal launch direction were affected exactly as you'd expect. After watching it again I'm actually pretty skeptical that the GCQuad comparison results are from an alignment issue, if it was purely an alignment issue then the horizontal launch angle should also be off by some relatively constant amount but that matches up extremely well with the GCQuad. That it's off by a relatively constant amount indoors but better outdoors would suggest that it should be fixable by a tweak to the firmware or there's something in that specific test environment throwing it off (see my outdoor issues caused by having a bag stand in the radar's FOV).

Edited August 19, 2021 by whumber

[SojuShot]

5 minutes ago, whumber said:

Depends on how you define properly. If you want launch direction and path to be correct in an absolute sense then there's going to be a 1-to-1 relationship between alignment and measurements. In regard to spin axis though it should not be terribly sensitive to alignment, at least for small angles. I tested this a bit on the range recently by slightly perturbing the alignment between shots and seeing the impact. The short story is that spin axis didn't seem to vary much but path and horizontal launch direction were affected exactly as you'd expect. After watching it again I'm actually pretty skeptical that the GCQuad comparison results are form an alignment issue, if it was purely an alignment issue then the horizontal launch angle should also be off by some relatively constant amount but that matches up extremely well with the GCQuad. That it's off by a relatively constant amount indoors but better outdoors would suggest that it should be fixable by a tweak to the firmware or there's something in that specific test environment throwing it off (see my outdoor issues caused by having a bag stand in the radar's FOV).

Now I wonder whether GCQuad itself made an influence to Garmin R10 numbers. I think this could be easily tested by doing 10 compact swings with and without GCQuad infront of it and see if it has an impact on club data.

[Sandhurst241069]

1 hour ago, wolfyand1 said:

certainly a little concerning given the latest reviews etc. You just have to wonder if the device is aligned properly. But the spin axis issues seems quite the issue.

Clearly going to be some fine tuning for Garmin in the early stages .. but as customers we need to have realistic expectations for a basic doppler device that is measuring ball/club speed and direction and calculating all else. Looking for the G10 to get the spin axis correct after you’ve just chalked the cue (for example) is asking to be disappointed… not too mention the algorithmic assumptions on where your club’s COG is located etc.. I think this should nature to be a terrific practice aid and entertaining simulation with decent accuracy on somewhat solid shots .. just will be some rub of the green on the significant misses 🙂  unless you’re measuring spin directly that will always be the case ..

[wolfyand1]

1 hour ago, Sandhurst241069 said:

Clearly going to be some fine tuning for Garmin in the early stages .. but as customers we need to have realistic expectations for a basic doppler device that is measuring ball/club speed and direction and calculating all else. Looking for the G10 to get the spin axis correct after you’ve just chalked the cue (for example) is asking to be disappointed… not too mention the algorithmic assumptions on where your club’s COG is located etc.. I think this should nature to be a terrific practice aid and entertaining simulation with decent accuracy on somewhat solid shots .. just will be some rub of the green on the significant misses 🙂  unless you’re measuring spin directly that will always be the case ..

 

Yeah hopefullt they can dial in any algorithms and similar stuff to try and work through that. I was pretty keen on looking at getting one as a placeholder before the new Bushnell device comes out, but might hold off. 

[Aeroburner2A]

Bonjour à tous, 

 

En France je n'ai pas encore reçu le R10 commandé le 17 juillet 2021. 

Je considère vos avis et les différents comparatifs et je vous trouve pour la plupart... 

Pour ma partie, il me semble que la plupart des données hors-mis les très longs coups, sont très fiables sur les distances, les trajectoires et la vitesse de balle. 

La marge d'erreur est croissante sur les longs coups avec de grossières erreurs au lecteur qui s'explique peut-être par le swing du golfeur. Peut-être juste par une erreur logicielle. Je ne vois pas comment l'appareil peu se tromper de 40y à droite si c'est 40 y à gauche....

Je ne perds pas du tout mon impatience, cet appareil sera super j'en suis sûr au moins pour travailler les petits-jeux et les coups moyens.

Je ne pense pas que tous les golfeurs frappent à 200 yards leurs fers et 300 yards leur driver....

Les erreurs seront d'autant plus mince je crois. 

 

Il faut encourager l'initiative Garmin dans ce rapport qualité / prix ( avec simulation de trajectoire en plus des chiffres) qui s'annonce très intéressante.  

 

Pour la vidéo de comparaison, comparer des écarts de frappes avec des distances différentes est juste aberrants. Un drive désaxé à 250 yards le sera beaucoup plus si l'on pousse la balle dans le même angle jusqu'à 300 yards...

 

Bon golf à tous

 

[Simpsonia]

To those of you with an R10. I recommend going over to the Garmin support forums and PMing the community engagement team that is seeking comments on accuracy that they are creating tickets for the dev team. As all of you in corporate American can attest, they won't do s*** without tickets as evidence for the corporate middle managers, so we need to make them aware that this is a larger issue. 

Edited August 19, 2021 by Simpsonia

[hammersia]

16 minutes ago, Simpsonia said:

To those of you with an R10. I recommend going over to the Garmin support forums and PMing the community engagement team that is seeking comments on accuracy that they are creating tickets for the dev team. As all of you in corporate American can attest, they won't do s*** without tickets as evidence for the corporate middle managers, so we need to make them aware that this is a larger issue. 

Seems like only 3 people have got them so far, so er....

 

But your point is correct

[vsabre]

14 minutes ago, hammersia said:

Seems like only 3 people have got them so far, so er....

 

But your point is correct

I've got a shipping label coming from RainorShine that's two days old, not an R10 but I'm sure I can put the label on my driver face and use it as impact tape. Obviously they have a shipment coming in this week ( I assume) and are printing those puppies out so early orders won't cancel.

[Follothru]

For those checking this this thread for shipping info: I ordered from Carl's Golfland on July 20th. Just received the shipping notice today(Aug 19th). Should arrive on Monday the 23rd.

[Wildest1]

I set up my R10 in my back yard 6+ feet behind the ball, hitting into a net about 8 feet in front of the ball.

My main goal is to get accurate distances, direction and shot shape.

 

My biggest problem is aligning the R10 to directly aim at the target line. Eyeballing the 1/2 inch long red line on top is not much to work with. The horizontal launch angle and shot shape seem to be directly affected by the alignment of the R10. Without another LM to compare it to, I have to rotate the R10 left or right based on how the direction and shape of my shot "feels."

 

There also appears to be a fade bias. I often hit irons on the course with a baby draw, and this shot shape has never shown up with the R10. Do you have any suggestions on how to accurately align the R10? And how critical do you think the alignment is to measured performance?

 

Has anyone else experienced similar issues?

[toddmanley]

13 hours ago, Sandhurst241069 said:

Garmin’s advice is you have 1 foot either side of the target line .. so just be aware much of the noise about alignment issues is speculative / anecdotal only. I just want to see good club numbers coming through (by and large they seem ok overall) knowing that everything else is a calculation that can be fixed anytime by a firmware drop..

Mine arrives today and I'm hoping to get some outdoor driving range time with it tonight or tomorrow.  I'm curious to see how the alignment boundaries really work - I'm guessing that there's a margin of error and then you fall off a cliff with readings when you get way too far outside the target line.  If there's consistency in readings to +/- 1 foot then it makes it easier to plop this down on the range or course...but if it's +/- 2 inches than a bit more rigor will be required for alignment.

[Simpsonia]

1 hour ago, Wildest1 said:

I set up my R10 in my back yard 6+ feet behind the ball, hitting into a net about 8 feet in front of the ball.

My main goal is to get accurate distances, direction and shot shape.

 

My biggest problem is aligning the R10 to directly aim at the target line. Eyeballing the 1/2 inch long red line on top is not much to work with. The horizontal launch angle and shot shape seem to be directly affected by the alignment of the R10. Without another LM to compare it to, I have to rotate the R10 left or right based on how the direction and shape of my shot "feels."

 

There also appears to be a fade bias. I often hit irons on the course with a baby draw, and this shot shape has never shown up with the R10. Do you have any suggestions on how to accurately align the R10? And how critical do you think the alignment is to measured performance?

 

Has anyone else experienced similar issues?

 

I just busted out my 25' tape measure to lay a straight line from the net through the hitting pad of my mat, then back another 8' to where I put the Garmin. Was pretty quick and easy. Probably can't get much straighter than that without a laser. 

[Red4282]

32 minutes ago, Simpsonia said:

 

I just busted out my 25' tape measure to lay a straight line from the net through the hitting pad of my mat, then back another 8' to where I put the Garmin. Was pretty quick and easy. Probably can't get much straighter than that without a laser. 

Theres also degrees of rotation to consider. Like lining up a putt. Some see the alignment mark on the ball dead on, and to someone else it looks a foot right. Im sure this causes some user error too

[willbones]

Ping a chalk line, or just use string. 

[pybm]

In case anyone else is interested, I had a look at the R10's performance versus Trackman and GC Quad in GungHoGolf's recent YouTube videos.  Basically, I put all the metrics from R10 / Trackman / GC Quad for each shot into a spreadsheet and had a look at the average difference (and st dev) for each metric.  Around 50 shots in total - so not a huge sample.  (I ignored the little chip shots in the GC Quad video.)

 

Seems to me that it did a great job on ball metrics being measured directly (speed, launch, direction).  Club speed measurement looks close too, but with a slightly "slow" bias for the R10

 

Start to see some variability in R10 measurement of club metrics (AoA, face, path), with path being the weakest.  Looks like there was a strong negative bias in R10 path measurement.  That will be driving the fade bias seen in spin axis.  Also wide variability with path (e.g., vs Trackman the difference in path had st dev of 6.7 degrees)

 

The consistent biases in some measurements (club speed and path) make me think there is potential to tighten things up with future firmware / software

 

Saw some large variations in carry and offline deviation with driver.  I wonder how much can be improved by improving the measurement of the club metrics (face and path), vs how much is just due to R10 being unable to factor in gear effect and contact point on face?

 

I was expecting R10 to perform "better" outdoors where it gets to see a bit more of the flight. But this didn't seem to be the case, other than perhaps spin axis was a bit better.  I guess outdoors the "accuracy" probably is impacted by comparing the R10 calculations to the Trackman’s observation of actual ball flight which will include any effects of ambient conditions (wind, altitude, temperature, etc).

 

 

[Murdock]

For anyone wanting to purchase one, or curious on inventory, I ordered from Crutchfield July 16th and hadn't heard anything or gotten a response to my emails.  So, yesterday I called them and they told me they weren't scheduled to get it until September 17th. 

 

A few days ago I got ansy figuring that maybe the actual golf retailers would get them first or have more inventory, so I ordered from Maple Hill Golf on Aug 13th and figured I'd just cancel one of the two.  To my surprise, I got the FedEx shipping confirmation from Maple Hill last night, should be delivered Saturday.  So give them a try if you don't want to wait for the backorder to be filled.  

 

For those who are commenting on accuracy, I'm not sure what you are expecting from a $600 doppler device.  Me personally, as long as it's within a reasonable range I'm happy with it.  I can't get tied up on if my spin rate is 4200 or 4500 rpm, as I'm not expecting that type of accuracy.  Club/ball path is TBD obviously, and I'd suggest everyone just do your own testing because it appears some people are getting good results, while others aren't.  

 

Also,  I had a FS Mevo (regular, not +) and I went through rigorous testing (there's a thread on here you can view yourself), because I felt it was always way off.   I actually went so far as to go to an open field, hit shots with it and measure the distance with a laser (a professional $500 Leica, not a rangefinder)...and it was very often 10-15 yards off.   Sometimes it would appear to be close on my local range, other times it wasn't close....I had no faith in the overall carry distance (other parameters I couldn't accurately test).  Even the chipping function wasn't close, I'd hit a 15 yard chip (hand measured distance) and it would read 28 yards.  Even went through a bunch of testing with the FS folks, and they wanted me to come to their office in Orlando so they could compare it to their high end models (I just said screw it, I've wasted enough time, so just sold it).  Maybe my unit was wonky, and of course there could be human error, but I'm a technical professional by trade and I am overly detailed in making sure things are calibrated/measured correctly.  In the end, I didn't feel that the Mevo was so great that I couldn't get an upgrade from another device....so figured I'd give the Garmin a shot.  YMMV of course.  

 

What is promising with a Garmin device though, is their response to upgrading firmware and working out bugs.  I have a surf watch from them and the tides were slightly off (as well as other folks around the world), their tech folks got on it, released a FW update and things worked great.  With FS, they would rarely send out new updates, at least compared to Garmin.  If you have the unit, I'd almost expect a FW update almost every time you plug it into Garmin Express....at least for the first few weeks/months.  Also, as another person commented, make sure you post your complaints on their forum, as their tech folks look on there regularly and work on things.  They definitely aren't coming on to WRX 🙂   (PS - I'm not a Garmin 'fanboy' or stock holder, I'm just commenting on what I've noticed with their CS).  

[Stevie989]

I have a builders level/laser that I’ll probably use to align the r10.