Budget LM for Range Use

[Shane Cavitt]

Looking for a simple budget LM option to use on the range. Primarily looking for carry distance. Backspin would be nice, but not necessary. Don't need sidespin, etc... as I will be able to see ball flight. Would prefer it be able to set to the side of the ball and not behind, but not sure there is a good budget option for that. Had a Garmin G80 and it worked fine, but no longer have it. Is something like a SC200 or SC300i a good option? 

[BigBelly]

I have the SC4 and find that it's pretty good for clubhead speed, ball speed, and carry distance.

[Milk Diesel]

I grabbed the SC300i from Costco yesterday. Current $70 off at $230. Cant imagine there being a better deal if its accurate for yardages. Will update after testing in a week

[PitchPlease]

In a similar boat. I want an LM for two things: 1) ball speed and carry on range, 2) club speed for speed training. Want the most mobile / convenient package possible. 

 

I have the original Rapsodo MLM, but am highly put off by the fact I need the premium subscription for club speed without ball.

 

I'm trying to decide between:

1. PRGR - seems like the front runner right now

2. Garmin G80 - like the idea of LM, GPS, and tempo trainer; that said, I ordered and returned one like 5 years ago. Can't remember why exactly but vaguely recall issues with long game accuracy. Assume this is still an issue?

3. Rapsodo - keeping and just paying for premium sub

[Shane Cavitt]

On 4/10/2025 at 2:10 PM, Milk Diesel said:

I grabbed the SC300i from Costco yesterday. Current $70 off at $230. Cant imagine there being a better deal if its accurate for yardages. Will update after testing in a week

Any update/thoughts now that you have had a chance to use it for a few weeks?

[Shane Cavitt]

8 hours ago, PitchPlease said:

In a similar boat. I want an LM for two things: 1) ball speed and carry on range, 2) club speed for speed training. Want the most mobile / convenient package possible. 

 

I have the original Rapsodo MLM, but am highly put off by the fact I need the premium subscription for club speed without ball.

 

I'm trying to decide between:

1. PRGR - seems like the front runner right now

2. Garmin G80 - like the idea of LM, GPS, and tempo trainer; that said, I ordered and returned one like 5 years ago. Can't remember why exactly but vaguely recall issues with long game accuracy. Assume this is still an issue?

3. Rapsodo - keeping and just paying for premium sub

Had a Garmin G80 and liked it for the most part, but felt it was showing short yardages in the longer clubs like you mentioned. If not for that I would have happily kept it. 

[Milk Diesel]

10 hours ago, Shane Cavitt said:

Any update/thoughts now that you have had a chance to use it for a few weeks?

I returned it within a week. 

 

Pros:

EASY setup. Loved that. Needs less space behind ball than others so it fit on range matts. 

Accurate distances for low clubs. Wedges and up to about 8 iron seemed to be + or - a few yards.

 

Cons:

Anything 5/6 iron and up it was way off for me. I was getting 6 irons reading 200 yards+ constantly. Even had a driver read 114 clubhead and 330 yards

 

Overall felt like it could be fun for work on wedge yardages. But maybe that was due to the poor quality of range balls. Whatever the case, did not work for me

[Shane Cavitt]

8 minutes ago, Milk Diesel said:

I returned it within a week. 

 

Pros:

EASY setup. Loved that. Needs less space behind ball than others so it fit on range matts. 

Accurate distances for low clubs. Wedges and up to about 8 iron seemed to be + or - a few yards.

 

Cons:

Anything 5/6 iron and up it was way off for me. I was getting 6 irons reading 200 yards+ constantly. Even had a driver read 114 clubhead and 330 yards

 

Overall felt like it could be fun for work on wedge yardages. But maybe that was due to the poor quality of range balls. Whatever the case, did not work for me

Hate to hear that. Was hoping it might be a good option for what I want. Thanks for the review.

[Milk Diesel]

Just now, Shane Cavitt said:

Hate to hear that. Was hoping it might be a good option for what I want. Thanks for the review.

After trying several budget LM, I feel like most of us wont be happy under $3-5k

[PitchPlease]

On 5/21/2025 at 9:17 AM, Milk Diesel said:

After trying several budget LM, I feel like most of us wont be happy under $3-5k

 

I think you might be right, sadly.

 

On 5/20/2025 at 2:05 PM, PitchPlease said:

In a similar boat. I want an LM for two things: 1) ball speed and carry on range, 2) club speed for speed training. Want the most mobile / convenient package possible. 

 

I have the original Rapsodo MLM, but am highly put off by the fact I need the premium subscription for club speed without ball.

 

I'm trying to decide between:

1. PRGR - seems like the front runner right now

2. Garmin G80 - like the idea of LM, GPS, and tempo trainer; that said, I ordered and returned one like 5 years ago. Can't remember why exactly but vaguely recall issues with long game accuracy. Assume this is still an issue?

3. Rapsodo - keeping and just paying for premium sub

 

On my decision, I'm trying Rapsodo premium trial right now. Did speed training yesterday. Numbers seemed accurate, but functionally, there was a long lag before device was ready to register another swing. Not sure if that is like a safety thing... or user error...? Need to play around with it a bit more before it expires next week.

 

Edit - update: didn't care for the Rapsodo premium and couldn't figure out delay. Going to try PRGR next.

Edited May 29 by PitchPlease

[bmcshea10]

On 4/8/2025 at 4:36 PM, Shane Cavitt said:

Looking for a simple budget LM option to use on the range. Primarily looking for carry distance. Backspin would be nice, but not necessary. Don't need sidespin, etc... as I will be able to see ball flight. Would prefer it be able to set to the side of the ball and not behind, but not sure there is a good budget option for that. Had a Garmin G80 and it worked fine, but no longer have it. Is something like a SC200 or SC300i a good option? 

mlm2 pro or mevo, but they do sit behind the ball. Either one of those would far and away be your best options. MLM 2 Pro more expensive but more accurate and easier to set-up.

[MidwestHacker]

On 5/21/2025 at 8:38 AM, bmcshea10 said:

mlm2 pro or mevo, but they do sit behind the ball. Either one of those would far and away be your best options. MLM 2 Pro more expensive but more accurate and easier to set-up.

Do you have personal experience with the Mevo? Looking at maybe picking one up, but unsure of how accurate it actually is? Seen wildly differing opinions on various forums. 

[biker74]

On 5/21/2025 at 8:17 AM, Milk Diesel said:

After trying several budget LM, I feel like most of us wont be happy under $3-5k

Spot on 

 

been researching this now for months.And unless you shell out the $3 plus.. or should I say $5. Than you can’t expect the world. Most have certain balls you have to hit, premium memberships, etc .. so that under $1000 makes it at $1000

 

i would say the best bang for your buck under $1k would be the voice caddie line.Sure I might get some slack from this.But easy to use, don’t have to use the app, and provides basic data needed to make you get a good fix for working on your swing outdoors 

The Garmins, raspado pro, mevo, etc are all membership based. And require some tinkering to get perfect alignment. So for me.Pre round club data is easiest to be obtained using the voice caddie sc300i or the sc4 pro.May not be the perfect device for some.But turn on, put on ground work logo facing ball line..and  just swing.Turn around and you see the data. when done just fold it up, put in case. And go to the first tee 

 

simple 

 

 

 

[tets]

Mevo is not membership based.. everything is free including the app and unlimited cloud storage

[robdalky]

For speed training, PRGR has been adequate for me

 

solid club, ball speed, carry distance

 

can use indoors or out, ball or not

 

No spin numbers, but not a bad deal for a couple hundred bucks 

[EDT501]

I recently picked up a Mevo and have found it to be a useful practice tool. All I really needed was something that would give me carry on an outdoor range with functional accuracy and it’s definitely delivered in that regard. Excluding big mishits, I can’t think of a time it’s given me a reading on carry, swing speed, ball speed, or launch angle that didn’t seem right. The spin numbers are definitely iffy looking sometimes, but to get great spin accuracy you have to spend a LOT of money and it’s just not something I need. 
 

it’s been a game changer in practicing partial swings with wedges and irons. As someone who doesn’t have access to a short game facility with pitching up to 100 yards, the ability to get instant reliable feedback on how far I’m hitting it with partial wedges has more than made this unit worth it to me.

[Triple Lindy]

I love the SC300i. Fits my needs perfectly. I use it mostly into a net, but have occasionally taken it to the range to verify distances with my rangefinder. I’ve tested the speed training part just to verify that it worked, but haven’t spent much time with it. I know my distances pretty well, so I use it primarily when practicing partial shots and wedges. But it has been accurate for me with all clubs.

 

Simplicity won the day when it came to a LM for me. I like being able to turn it on, set it down and start hitting. I tried the R10, MLM2 Pro and OG Skytrak. But I really didn’t care about the sim stuff, so I felt like I was overpaying. I had originally tested the SC300i, but it was $550 when I did. Once the price dropped to $250, I went back to it.

[clevited]

You get what you pay for with these things.  Most all of the ones mentioned so far do not measure anything but speed.  They guess at spin, and carry etc.  Photometric that is proven to work fine outdoors (original skytrak was hit or miss for example) is going to be much better than SC300, prgr, etc.  

 

I had the garmin G80 and while I loved the concept, even just for ball speed and club speed measuring when working on speed, it also does this but it had an additional problem of having an artificial ball speed ceiling.  I have tried multiple units, and all have the same issue of capping out at a certain ballspeed even though it could supposedly read higher.

 

I have had a GC3 and that was great for the range but I hated the cost and I only ended up using it for the range (tried to do an outdoor simulator setup but it sucked and I sold the GC3).  Bushnell launch pro would be great as you don't have to pay for all of the software.  Alternatively, the mevo+ seems to work very well outdoors at the range and captures what the wind is doing and everything that day.  I think it tracks most of the flight (doesn't seem like all as some people think), and then I think back calculates spin axis and such (I could be wrong on that but I just got mine).  It seems a little strange with swing speed consistency but ball speed, launch angle, carry, shot shape and the numbers it gives to represent what was hit seems reasonable so you can learn a lot.

 

I have heard good things about the MLM Pro as well.  The Garmin R10 I have heard very little regarding good things, mostly bad but I have not tested for myself.

[VincentV]

Garmin r10

[PitchPlease]

Follow up here in case anyone is like me and searches forums for purchase decisions. I ended up with PRGR off Amazon on a prime day deal (~$180). 

 

Does what I want it to: a) swing speed training, b) sense of yardages on range / before round. Seems fairly accurate, sans it doesn't calculate spin, so if you don't flush it you need to take that into account. But for a cheap, portable device it does everything I want.

 

EDIT - for reference, I tested a few devices including Rapsodo MLM (didn't like subscription or lag time for speed training); Swing Caddie SC200i (some inaccuracies >100 mph); Garmin S80 (also inaccuracies). 

 

Edited July 16 by PitchPlease