Garmin Approach R10 Portable Golf Launch Monitor

[Emiliouf]

Just found it's also available  at 2nd swing

r10 link

[hammersia]

Further to my earlier comments, I’ve now got a levelling stand for my R10 like the one shown below. IMHO after a long range session test today a stand is essential to get the most accurate numbers.

The spirit level allows you to easily get within 1 degree or less of perfectly level. I don’t know why, but after my earlier comments about “large” AoA numbers (eg 9 degrees down), once I got the stand level the numbers came right back to where I want them, irons a consistent 4 degrees down, and slightly positive with the driver. The thing is, there’s no way I was 5 degrees off the first time I tested the unit when I didn’t have the stand. Anyway it’s all good now.

 

Direction and shot shape were near perfect. The only funny result I got was a terrible driver push sliced shot (2 degrees right, 5 degrees open) where the R10 decided there was a load of gear effect and it brought it back to the middle. That was the only funny result from 100 balls. Brilliant device for the money, so quick and easy to setup, instant readings.

 

Edited June 5, 2022 by hammersia

[GolfANA]

16 hours ago, hammersia said:

 

 

 

Did you build that or buy it somewhere? I really need that. The driving range I go to has a slightly slanted sidewalk behind the hitting bays that I believe affects the results I get from the R10. Something like what you have would help that.

Edited June 6, 2022 by GolfANA

[hammersia]

53 minutes ago, GolfANA said:

 

Did you build that or buy it somewhere? I really need that. The driving range I go to has a slightly slanted sidewalk behind the hitting bays that I believe affects the results I get from the R10. Something like what you have would help that.

Yep, I brought that off the bay, search for R10 stand, there’s a few people offering different designs.
 

Make sure the laser is included, some of the listings aren’t clear on that. 

[Ryvita]

Hey, just received my r10 finally! I'm using a net outdoors, what does everyone recommend for distance from r10 to ball and ball to net? 

[LeftDot]

21 hours ago, Ryvita said:

Hey, just received my r10 finally! I'm using a net outdoors, what does everyone recommend for distance from r10 to ball and ball to net? 

 

 

R10 to Ball is ~6ft and I believe Ball to Net is "at least 8 ft." I am using it on a range so double check that Ball to Net distance with the manual at the bottom of the box.

[dh2o]

just picked up one of these as a cheap LM to throw in the bag when I don't wanna carry the GC. is a leveling stand a must-have for this? seems like it might be for uneven outdoor terrain. how badly off are the numbers when it's not level?

[LeftDot]

3 hours ago, dh2o said:

just picked up one of these as a cheap LM to throw in the bag when I don't wanna carry the GC. is a leveling stand a must-have for this? seems like it might be for uneven outdoor terrain. how badly off are the numbers when it's not level?

 

Chiming in because I'm just learning this is a thing, including laser to align. How uneven is your hitting area/driving range where this would/could be a problem? Mine's similar to a big tee box so pretty much flat.

[dh2o]

11 minutes ago, LeftDot said:

 

Chiming in because I'm just learning this is a thing, including laser to align. How uneven is your hitting area/driving range where this would/could be a problem? Mine's similar to a big tee box so pretty much flat.

for me it really depends. some ranges i go to have hitting boxes that are slightly uneven, and depending on where the hitting area is on a given day, the device might have to be placed in old divots. so I'd say my device could end up +/- 1in out of level depending on where I am on a given day.

[jjschafe]

5 hours ago, LeftDot said:

 

 

R10 to Ball is ~6ft and I believe Ball to Net is "at least 8 ft." I am using it on a range so double check that Ball to Net distance with the manual at the bottom of the box.

7' is the sweet spot from unit to ball. 8' works from ball to net but I have seen pretty drastic increase in accuracy, especially for longer clubs, if you can get to 10' or more.

[LeftDot]

2 hours ago, dh2o said:

for me it really depends. some ranges i go to have hitting boxes that are slightly uneven, and depending on where the hitting area is on a given day, the device might have to be placed in old divots. so I'd say my device could end up +/- 1in out of level depending on where I am on a given day.

 

Of course I invited karma to the conversation: after I wrote my response, I went to the range and the new hitting section put my R10 in a bunch of old divots. I got a couple of "tilted" warnings and noticed that tracking and numbers were off - e.g. draw to pull-draw balls were "dead straight" according to the R10.

 

 

57 minutes ago, jjschafe said:

7' is the sweet spot from unit to ball. 8' works from ball to net but I have seen pretty drastic increase in accuracy, especially for longer clubs, if you can get to 10' or more.

 

Thanks for the help. Makes me wonder if I've put mine too close to the ball, I've really just been eyeballing where it is.

 

@Ryvita check this link as well.

[hammersia]

18 hours ago, LeftDot said:

 

Chiming in because I'm just learning this is a thing, including laser to align. How uneven is your hitting area/driving range where this would/could be a problem? Mine's similar to a big tee box so pretty much flat.

As per my earlier posts, I think the levelling is a thing. I noticed AofA being 9 instead of 4 degrees, even after eyeballing that the R10 was level. 

 

After levelling / laser pointing, I couldn't be happier with the numbers produced. 

 

My eyesight is decent - my feeling so far after a couple of weeks ownership is that you won't get it sufficiently level and aligned by eyesight alone.

[Bubbtubbs]

59 minutes ago, hammersia said:

As per my earlier posts, I think the levelling is a thing. I noticed AofA being 9 instead of 4 degrees, even after eyeballing that the R10 was level. 

 

After levelling / laser pointing, I couldn't be happier with the numbers produced. 

 

My eyesight is decent - my feeling so far after a couple of weeks ownership is that you won't get it sufficiently level and aligned by eyesight alone.

It's almost like having an instrument measure things is more precise. Who knew?

[hammersia]

3 hours ago, Bubbtubbs said:

It's almost like having an instrument measure things is more precise. Who knew?

Not at all, if you’re coming from Flightscope / Trackman and using the R10 as a more portable solution then you’ve experienced auto levelling before which the R10 doesn’t have. Yet the R10 doesn’t come with such a stand - Garmin don’t consider it necessary - my experience so far is it’s very sensitive to setup tilt, more than you’d imagine. 
 

Do keep up the useful contributions though.

[donuts]

Are you sure it doesn’t come with auto leveling?  What’s the calibration setting do?

I just got mine so haven’t played around with it but I would have expected the calibration to sort out at least the leveling… not necessarily aiming… 

[hammersia]

5 hours ago, donuts said:

Are you sure it doesn’t come with auto leveling?  What’s the calibration setting do?

I just got mine so haven’t played around with it but I would have expected the calibration to sort out at least the leveling… not necessarily aiming… 

I can see on a recent update Garmin are saying it is side to side tilt calibration - which is good info and worth a go….

 

But

My original comment was about AofA looking off, ie front to back tilt. And doing the software calibration, and testing aiming by chipping at a target, isn’t going to resolve that. 

 

[donuts]

3 hours ago, hammersia said:

I can see on a recent update Garmin are saying it is side to side tilt calibration - which is good info and worth a go….

 

But

My original comment was about AofA looking off, ie front to back tilt. And doing the software calibration, and testing aiming by chipping at a target, isn’t going to resolve that. 

 

Ok thanks!

[LeftDot]

Used it on a mat range for the first time yesterday. Between the mat and a little concrete step, I had to put it on the case to get it at the right height. This ended up making it sensitive to the breeze changing its alignment, or maybe someone walked by and brushed it... 

 

Anyway, distance numbers and spin rates looked fine, but shot path/direction was useless. I ordered a leveling stand with laser immediately afterwards. 

 

 

[North Butte]

5 minutes ago, LeftDot said:

Used it on a mat range for the first time yesterday. Between the mat and a little concrete step, I had to put it on the case to get it at the right height. This ended up making it sensitive to the breeze changing its alignment, or maybe someone walked by and brushed it... 

 

Anyway, distance numbers and spin rates looked fine, but shot path/direction was useless. I ordered a leveling stand with laser immediately afterwards. 

 

 

Will the leveling stand work if you are hitting off turf? Wouldn't the stand make the R10 a couple inches above the ball? 

[hammersia]

1 minute ago, North Butte said:

Will the leveling stand work if you are hitting off turf? Wouldn't the stand make the R10 a couple inches above the ball? 

So far there don't seem to be many reports of the R10 being sensitive in terms of it's height relative to the ball. Not sure it can be too high, within reason.

 

I've also done the resting on the case thing if I'm off a thick mat. 

[bimpecoven]

FYI for anyone still looking for a unit... Rock Bottom Golf is selling them through amazon for retail.  Click additional sellers and select the 599 unit.

https://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Approach-Portable-Monitor-Indoors/dp/B095QX1FSR/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AM8CQ89UU0OQ&keywords=garmin+r10&qid=1654887339&sprefix=garmin+r10%2Caps%2C155&sr=8-3

[Mistersandman]

5 hours ago, hammersia said:

So far there don't seem to be many reports of the R10 being sensitive in terms of it's height relative to the ball. Not sure it can be too high, within reason.

 

I've also done the resting on the case thing if I'm off a thick mat. 

I had mine about 10 inches higher and a foot further back and it couldn’t pick up the lower trajectory shots. 

[hammersia]

I wanted to do a more in depth accuracy check using my local Top Tracer range. I've used TT quite a lot and I consider it bang on accurate over a complete range of distances. This particular TT range has the range ball data permanently normalised to regular balls (NOT normalised for wind) so I firstly applied a correction factor to these distances (between 1.1 and 6.3% depending on club).

 

Seeing as neither Garmin or TT allow you to export the data, it was a bit of a faff, and I was only able to compare carry and distance offline across 50 shots and 7 different clubs. 

 

This test was done using my levelling stand and laser alignment previously mentioned, and the R10 was calibrated in the app as someone else pointed out ITT.

 

To be honest, the numbers, particularly for direction, weren't as good as I had previously thought. This particular range uses the pop up automatic ball dispensers so it's certainly possible that there was a fair bit of metal interfering with the readings, so I definitely intend to do a comparison test on a range without these. 

 

Club       %distance error          yards offline error              angle offline error

7 iron      1.23%                          12.3                                     4.5

5 iron      3.02%                          11.8                                     3.7

3 iron      2.26%                          12.6                                    3.7

3 wood   1.97%                           13.0                                    3.1

Driver      3.87%                          22.8                                    5.0

3 hybrid   4.92%                         6.0                                      1.8

gap w       3.32%                         2.6                                      2.0

 

I inserted the angle error to account for different club distances, and still the driver showed as most inaccurate. There was a little wind so I would expect the numbers to be worse for longer clubs, and there's no guarantee the wind didn't vary a bit through the session. Again, a repeat test on a dead calm day would be worth doing.

 

In terms of left / right, the Garmin only got it correct (against TT but also visually against the aligned target)  73% of the time. I would say this is a lot worse than when I used it in my last session, however, things to bear in mind:

 

1) If the Garmin reads 1 yard left and the TT and reality says 5 yards right, then it still counts as a miss. There were a few of these.

2) Across all the clubs, one or two wild readings throws the average errors out substantially. There was 1 driver shot that TT and reality said was 3 yards left, the R10 said 51 yards left. 

3) All the 3 hybrid reading were spot on for direction across 6 shots, but one distance reading was 11 yards out which spoilt the average.

 

Anecdotally, the launch angle numbers looked very accurate, but although you can see it on TT at the time you can't seem to export it so I can't say for sure. Club path, again, was wilder than my previous session, the Garmin frequently insisting on an 8 degrees right path for shots where I knew my path was neutral. 

Edited June 14, 2022 by hammersia
numbers

[LeftDot]

@hammersia Have you considered removing the outliers and then rechecking numbers? Outside of the obvious statistical impact, I would hope that most folks who hit a straight shot and see Garmin tell them "50 yds left" would dismiss it as wrong and irrelevant to what they're working on. Edit: not that it's not frustrating to see blatantly obvious wrong numbers...

Edited June 14, 2022 by LeftDot

[hammersia]

14 hours ago, LeftDot said:

@hammersia Have you considered removing the outliers and then rechecking numbers? Outside of the obvious statistical impact, I would hope that most folks who hit a straight shot and see Garmin tell them "50 yds left" would dismiss it as wrong and irrelevant to what they're working on. Edit: not that it's not frustrating to see blatantly obvious wrong numbers...

I’ve been considering it but….

 

My main interest is getting accurate numbers into a net. The outliers might be harder to identify in that case. And in my experience, TT doesn’t miss a shot. 

 

Edited June 15, 2022 by hammersia

[LeftDot]

15 hours ago, hammersia said:

I’ve been considering it but….

 

My main interest is getting accurate numbers into a net. The outliers might be harder to identify in that case. And in my experience, TT doesn’t miss a shot. 

 

 

Yeah, a net eliminates pretty much all of the ball flight you could use to know in-the-moment good/not good data, though I guess you could compare the first 10 or whatever feet to the shot shape? Shot shape says straight but way left, you know the ball went straight and center, interpret how you will.

 

TT may not miss a shot but it's also not $600 and portable 😉 IMO at this price point nothing is going to be perfect and some compromises and concessions have to be made. I personally am fine with some bad data on alignment and path from the R10: I spent 1/4th the money compared to "good" LMs, 1/10th compared to "better" LMs, and 1/27th the money compared to "best" LMs.

[kiddoc]

On 6/10/2022 at 11:58 AM, bimpecoven said:

FYI for anyone still looking for a unit... Rock Bottom Golf is selling them through amazon for retail.  Click additional sellers and select the 599 unit.

https://www.amazon.com/Garmin-Approach-Portable-Monitor-Indoors/dp/B095QX1FSR/ref=sr_1_3?crid=AM8CQ89UU0OQ&keywords=garmin+r10&qid=1654887339&sprefix=garmin+r10%2Caps%2C155&sr=8-3

My PGATSS had a stand at checkout with 10 units on it last night.

 

[hammersia]

On 6/14/2022 at 1:06 PM, hammersia said:

I wanted to do a more in depth accuracy check using my local Top Tracer range. I've used TT quite a lot and I consider it bang on accurate over a complete range of distances. This particular TT range has the range ball data permanently normalised to regular balls (NOT normalised for wind) so I firstly applied a correction factor to these distances (between 1.1 and 6.3% depending on club).

 

Seeing as neither Garmin or TT allow you to export the data, it was a bit of a faff, and I was only able to compare carry and distance offline across 50 shots and 7 different clubs. 

 

This test was done using my levelling stand and laser alignment previously mentioned, and the R10 was calibrated in the app as someone else pointed out ITT.

 

To be honest, the numbers, particularly for direction, weren't as good as I had previously thought. This particular range uses the pop up automatic ball dispensers so it's certainly possible that there was a fair bit of metal interfering with the readings, so I definitely intend to do a comparison test on a range without these. 

 

Club       %distance error          yards offline error              angle offline error

7 iron      1.23%                          12.3                                     4.5

5 iron      3.02%                          11.8                                     3.7

3 iron      2.26%                          12.6                                    3.7

3 wood   1.97%                           13.0                                    3.1

Driver      3.87%                          22.8                                    5.0

3 hybrid   4.92%                         6.0                                      1.8

gap w       3.32%                         2.6                                      2.0

 

I inserted the angle error to account for different club distances, and still the driver showed as most inaccurate. There was a little wind so I would expect the numbers to be worse for longer clubs, and there's no guarantee the wind didn't vary a bit through the session. Again, a repeat test on a dead calm day would be worth doing.

 

In terms of left / right, the Garmin only got it correct (against TT but also visually against the aligned target)  73% of the time. I would say this is a lot worse than when I used it in my last session, however, things to bear in mind:

 

1) If the Garmin reads 1 yard left and the TT and reality says 5 yards right, then it still counts as a miss. There were a few of these.

2) Across all the clubs, one or two wild readings throws the average errors out substantially. There was 1 driver shot that TT and reality said was 3 yards left, the R10 said 51 yards left. 

3) All the 3 hybrid reading were spot on for direction across 6 shots, but one distance reading was 11 yards out which spoilt the average.

 

Anecdotally, the launch angle numbers looked very accurate, but although you can see it on TT at the time you can't seem to export it so I can't say for sure. Club path, again, was wilder than my previous session, the Garmin frequently insisting on an 8 degrees right path for shots where I knew my path was neutral. 

 

So following my previous posts, I've gone back to repeat the test of TT vs R10 but addressing what I thought might be causing issues -

 

I went to a different TT range which doesn't have the automatic pop up ball dispensers, and the bay dividers are canvas, so there shouldn't have been any metal interference.

 

Also this range had very decent brand new white Mizuno range balls (standard yellow on the earlier test), and no ball normalisation. 

 

The results across all clubs were very similar to the first test. The ball direction error was the same except for the 7 iron which improved from 4.5 to 2.5 degrees. The number of left / right errors was slightly worse than at the previous range, 76% vs 79% (there was an error in my earlier calculation). Again, gap wedge the most accurate.

 

Overall carry distance errors were a bit worse, 4.53 vs 2.94%. 

 

On club data, hard to say as again, as can't export the data. Felt like there were fewer extreme 8 degree right paths than on the previous session. 

 

However having previously said how great TT was, on this occasion I wasn't quite so confident in either the distance or direction numbers, they didn't seem to match up that well to my observations. There was maybe a touch more wind and also the range surface is on more bumpy lumpy ground. 

 

Conclusions:

I'm actually pretty happy that the first test was repeatable. Seems like the R10 isn't too fussy about typical driving range metal obstructions, and reads different sorts of range balls in the same way. Doesn't miss a shot. For wedge gapping it should function extremely accurately. 

 

For future tests, I intend to look closer at the club data and get a feel for how convincing and consistent that aspect is.

[Cm105202]

On 6/15/2022 at 8:20 AM, LeftDot said:

 

Yeah, a net eliminates pretty much all of the ball flight you could use to know in-the-moment good/not good data, though I guess you could compare the first 10 or whatever feet to the shot shape? Shot shape says straight but way left, you know the ball went straight and center, interpret how you will.

 

TT may not miss a shot but it's also not $600 and portable 😉 IMO at this price point nothing is going to be perfect and some compromises and concessions have to be made. I personally am fine with some bad data on alignment and path from the R10: I spent 1/4th the money compared to "good" LMs, 1/10th compared to "better" LMs, and 1/27th the money compared to "best" LMs.

Exactly! Given the price comparison this looks really solid. 

[LeftDot]

I searched the thread for a couple of different keywords and didn't see this brought up: Has anyone run in to issues with the R10 going in to standby too frequently when temps get hot? I've had a couple of range sessions where that seems to be what's happened. R10 goes to standby, sometimes the app will tell me sometimes not. Try to wake it up with the button, green light, back to flashing white after maybe 5 seconds. Only way to fix it is to end the range session and resync before opening a new session.

 

Gonna have to be a goober at the range for the rest of the summer, setting up a sunshade from alignment sticks and my towel in order to keep my gadgets within operating temperature 😆