Mevo+ vs SkyTrak data compilation from a session today

[GungHoGolf]

I compiled data from a session today with the Mevo+ up against the SkyTrak, using several clubs. Here's a screenshot of the results, or you can view the Google Sheet directly at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bQAHr0m6SMzDFhE-KjHHgWIf1tqNEa8R78JgR8FuD2Y/edit?usp=sharing. Wasn't a great hitting session for me, nursing a sore shoulder, but the data is interesting. Will probably provoke more questions than provide answers. FYI the AoA and Dynamic Loft numbers for SkyTrak come from its calculated data in the shots db, and can only be viewed via my Advanced Analytics tool (learn more at https://gunghogolf.com/blog/Advanced-Analytics-for-SkyTrak).

FYI there's an active discussion about this data going on in the Mevo+ Users group on FB:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/mevoplus/

[Dax]

Need more time to analyze, but shorter clubs look pretty good. My big head scratcher is driver spin numbers. You say sky track does not read below a certain spin number, but all the Mevo+ spin numbers are above that min. Do you have a range off non sky track launch monitor that tells you what you driver spin range might be? I though AVX was a low spin ball.

wonder if for the driver you go with 10 feet of ball flight to see if that makes a difference(assuming Mevo can be at 8 feet behind you). The club info for Skytrack was pretty useless as it is only using algorithms and so I really only focused on the ball data for comparison here.

[GungHoGolf]

AVX is a lower-spin urethane cover ball. Not as low as 2-piece distance balls. My driver spin is low to mid-2000s. Mevo numbers are high in this test.

I could go back to 11 ft of ball flight with a driver test, good idea.

[Celeras]

GungHoGolf The user guide specifies 13 feet to the screen for indoor mode. The smaller number is for "short indoor" mode. May as well go back to the 13 if you have the room and see how much the driver improves.

[Bubba22]

Thanks Gung. Noticeable difference in spin and spin axis. Lots of data to digest. What was your overall impression? Despite calculated, the club data in ST is not bad, assuming no gear effect.

[Bubba22]

Yes driver spin looks off. There were many shots that had opposite spin axis. Was that showing opposite shot shape?

[GungHoGolf]

Most of the spin axis differentials were small (<8 deg), which isn't a lot of axis. It takes 45 deg of spin axis for backspin to equal sidespin. "Big" hooks and slices are usually 20-25 deg axis. I was only watching shot shape on the SkyTrak - you can probably infer shot shape from the HLA and offline numbers in that data.

[StodgyBarley]

Thanks for the posts guys! As a lefty, I'm very intrigued by the MEVO Plus for Sim play as my kids are right handed but it sounds like you guys might have some concerns? Putting and inaccurate spin even with the required 16-17 feet required to use it indoors? Thanks again! I LOVE my skytrak but would love to hear your thoughts if this upgrade could make sense...

[pwade3]

The spin axis is concerning. If its struggling with that it would be a big problem because the shot shape becomes unreliable (i’m stating the obvious) The rest at first glance looks good. I wonder how far the Mevo will read in the air. I was testing in my sim at 13’ to see if I could play that far. I’m thinking the further the better for a longer read. 60 deg was the only problem as hitting the ceiling curtain.

[Dax]

The spin axis is concerning. If its struggling with that it would be a big problem because the shot shape becomes unreliable (i’m stating the obvious) The rest at first glance looks good. I wonder how far the Mevo will read in the air. I was testing in my sim at 13’ to see if I could play that far. I’m thinking the further the better for a longer read. 60 deg was the only problem as hitting the ceiling curtain.

The hitting area would hopefully be pretty large. Perhaps trying to hit your driver at the 7 feet from Mevo point to give you your 12 to 13 feet of ball flight and then for your wedges hit 9 or 10 feet from the Mevo with reduced distance from your screen. The ball is flying slower with your wedges and spinning more and so it should not take too long for Mevo to pick up your wedges. As can be seen in the test above wedges and irons don't look too bad.

Just like in real life, for my driver I am always trying to get more distance. The only diff being that for radar I am always trying to get more distance from impact to the screen ;p I think I have found a solution for my sim room now, where I can go from 12 feet to 13 feet Let's just say that this for me is game changing (in many respects)

[pwade3]

Another good idea from you. When the unit shows up I will definitely try that.

[Bubba22]

Gung, do you need to select the club before hitting? If so what happens if you select wedge and hit driver (and vice versa).

[GungHoGolf]

I always do select the club. According to the FlightScope reps, all that's really necessary is that the Mevo+ knows whether it's Driver, iron, or wedge, to have the radar watch the right "window" for the expected ball flight. Haven't done testing to see what happens if you mismatch Driver and Wedge.

[Brutaly]

That is actually a huge difference from previous Flightscopes. The only reson to chose a club in the software was data sorting purpose and analysis in their cloud solution.

The decreased frequenzy on the radar and decreased antenna size will result in a smaller beam width so it might be that the makes the Mevo require you to input type of club. Makes me wonder how wide the placement area for the ball is compared to previous models?

The spinnnumbers is a bit concering imo but i fully expect this to be software related in the end. There were issues with Xi+ as well but they got sorted out rather quick.

[Bubba22]

The info I got was exactly as Gung says. Club selection as a driver , iron or wedge is needed.

[MisterA]

I hope to see a comparison with a Trackman soon. I own a SkyTrak but somehow never trusted the numbers. I compared my ST with TM (both indoors as outdoors) and numbers were way off (draws vs fades and so on).

Interesting Golf simulation times!

[Bubba22]

Funny that is not the experience I have with the Skytrak.

[SkeetShooter]

I'm bringing my ST to my lesson in a few weeks to test against it. My coach said he'd love to see the measurement differences indoors.

Regarding Mevo+ Its very telling how poor it is at calculating appropriate spin numbers without that metal dot (the PW data) but also I feel like those Driver numbers on Spin on the Mevo+ are so wonky. The ST is likely more accurate, (with the exception of the 2024 numbers) especially since your ball speed being lower than the 150+ threshold where issues start to present itself. The other area that is pretty telling is the club head speed. I always expected in a test the Mevo would show higher speeds here, but its good to see that its capturing that pretty reliably.

I am still curious to see how they are going to package E6 for PC users... That is really my main hangup right now. $2K for the monitor and the included software as they stated is a winner but if they are going to charge me annually to use E6 for my PC, i can't see migrating away from Skytrak.

[Shipwreck34]

GungHo, thank you very much for the data. A lot of fun to analyze and interpret. My initial key take-aways are this.

• Spin Loft
  • You have all the ST Spin Loft data listed as "Suspect", but what I learned from this was how important it is to select the club you're actually using with ST. It's a static number and exactly what you've chosen. I'm not sure if it actually helps dictate the Dynamic Loft or not, or what other parameters as well.
    • Would be interesting to see another test where you purposefully chose the wrong club. (Say, start at the opposite ends and work towards the middle. e.g. Chose Driver, hit PW down to chose 7I, hit 8I.)
• You also have AoA all listed as Suspect data for ST.
  • Being that I don't understand AoA enough, it's hard to understand why.
  • Compounding my confusion with that is even though the average is wider for ST, the outliers are more for M+
    • It was also not lost on me that those outliers were all during Chip shots with slow swing speed and high loft.
      • The data and your comments about putting seem to indicate that for as bad as ST users have it, M+ is currently worse. Hopefully that is a algorithm limitation in the software, and not a hardware limitation. Time will tell I suppose.
  • Perhaps someone can give me a layman version of AoA for perspective?
• For the Driver, personally I think you missed suspect data for the ST.
  • 6 of your 8 shots all had a Spin Rate of 2024, and 5 of those in a row. That seems almost impossible to me.
    • Given the variance with no real outliers, I would count the ST data there as suspect, not the M+
• Also for the Driver
  • Spin Axis and how it affected how Offline the shot was.
    • My surprise was how off they BOTH were, and with similar but opposite outliers.
      • Those two outliers were also the farthest Offline shots.
        
• Horizontal LA
  • I would also call the ST data here Suspect. It's a little harder to see, and it's just my opinion.
    • Even though the data sets are close, the ST seems to have two issues here.
      • 1) It appears to generalize more
      • 2) When it's off, it's OFF
        • This does not directly correlate with Spin Axis outliers, as I would have suspected.
          
• How close the Ball Speeds were
  • Not perfect by any means, but definitely the closest tolerance.
  • Also curious, ST seems to under value the subsequent Club Head speed.
    • That from what I understand was already a known thing. Just one more LM to confirm it, I'd say.
      
• I was surprised on how close the Carry distances were, even with the outliers
  • Possibly suggesting these parameters are both calculated independently instead of part of the greater formula?
    • I would think they are directly related. How can you carry the same distance when so much of it is lateral, not forward?
      • Isn't Carry distance forward, not total?
      • When my ball hits a wall, or rolls back down a hill my Carry distance decreases, not increases.
        
        

All-in-all really neat info! Hope we get some more!

[Shipwreck34]

Looks like I missed that. My apologies.

[GungHoGolf]

Carry is total distance carried (until the ball hits the ground), on a straight line from tee to impact point. Does not take into account horizontal deviation from the target line, either by spin axis or offline launch.

[Shipwreck34]

Understood. I think I was reading Carry, thinking "Total", and typing "Carry". Mixing apples and oranges. Makes sense.

[Dax]

I'm bringing my ST to my lesson in a few weeks to test against it. My coach said he'd love to see the measurement differences indoors.

Regarding Mevo+ Its very telling how poor it is at calculating appropriate spin numbers without that metal dot (the PW data) but also I feel like those Driver numbers on Spin on the Mevo+ are so wonky. The ST is likely more accurate, (with the exception of the 2024 numbers) especially since your ball speed being lower than the 150+ threshold where issues start to present itself. The other area that is pretty telling is the club head speed. I always expected in a test the Mevo would show higher speeds here, but its good to see that its capturing that pretty reliably.

I am still curious to see how they are going to package E6 for PC users... That is really my main hangup right now. $2K for the monitor and the included software as they stated is a winner but if they are going to charge me annually to use E6 for my PC, i can't see migrating away from Skytrak.

Perhaps calling E6 might answer your question. If it is available for the PC, then it could be as easy as just buying the appropriate version of the software through e6 directly? When I purchased e6 and e6 1.6 from them, I never dealt with TM at all.

[SkeetShooter]

My argument is why should I have to purchase something that was marketed as being included with the LM? It shouldnt matter that I'm use a PC or an iOS device.

[pwade3]

Looks like putting will be a challenge for those that want to putt in there sim (I don’t). This video shows the Mevo+ reading all the putts but at the end it looks like the HLA starts to go right way to much.

[GungHoGolf]

Putting has been very hit-or-miss in my testing. Putts under 20' are usually not read... sometimes a 15' putt will be picked up. And horizontal launch angle is kind of a crap shoot. If they don't fix this, tournaments will either need 20' gimmes, and/or a straight putting patch like TGC offers SkyTrak users.

[Dax]

Skeetshooter, my point is why not call e6 and ask them? e6 connect was designed for multiplatforms so perhaps it is a none issue. However, you really need to ask e6 Golf. This is where these companies can get frustrating. If everyone remembers back in the day when e6 was marketing the next upgrade, it was supposed to be multiplatform and we ended up with e6 1.6, which was way less than what they were promising when they spoke of the next release. I ended up getting something that was much less than what was promised when I purchased.

[SkeetShooter]

Totally understandable where you are coming from. I'm just not going to pay for it. I'm more interested in TGC2019 than E6. I played the connect demo and I liked it, but the spin was so unrealistic for me on greens, that it did turn me off from ever considering paying for the sim software. I have not yet played TGC, but maybe one day I will. I'm trying to stay realistic with my expectations but also my budget.

[GungHoGolf]

I find that approach shot spin onto greens is far more realistic on E6 Connect than TGC19. Ball physics (especially bounces on fairways) also better on E6.

[Celeras]

This is exactly what I would expect from radar indoor testing. Its nice to be optimistic with new products, but you have to be realistic about the technology. Radar and simulation does not mix.

Results should be much more favorable outdoors, assuming you can get the SkyTrak to actually work outside in the sun haha.

[Gresh12]

I really feel like we need to test against a GC2 or GC Quad and get quite a few data points.

I have a SkyTrak which I think is decent for accuracy but not the defining “truth” (I appreciate none are perfect).

My SkyTrak never gives HLA between .1 and 1.8 it either reports zero or 1.8 (negative or positive). I also get a reasonable number of shots that HLA is clearly wrong in a session. They are easy to identify as I have a target towel in the middle of my net that trigonometry tells me if I hit the towel it’s at most 5* HLA in either direction. I’d suspect Mevo+ should win on HLA accuracy.

The spin is tougher to judge. I’ve always given my SkyTrak the benefit of the doubt on total spin as I mostly hit irons in my garage with it due to ceiling height. That said when I hit driver occasionally the spin always reads way higher than I’d expect based on other data sources. I see a lot of 3K and 4K spin values which are suspect based on my swing numbers and course distances.

I wonder how the Mevo+ is doing spin if it’s not read properly. I’m guessing there is no italics or flag on calculated vs measured spin. I’d be really curious outdoors what the driver spins look like on both devices (in a setup where sun light not impacting SkyTrak). I wonder if Mevo is defaulting to its club data and it won’t have strike location for fear effect etc.

I always feel the curvature is way too high on my SkyTrak relative to outside. Whether that’s measurement or algorithm I don’t know.

[Bubba22]

My feeling is that the spin and axis tilt will be more accurate for ST. I completely agree that the HLA will be less accurate for ST as all side based unit swill struggle with the horizontal azumuth.

[Celeras]

[Edit] Oh! Total spin and not back spin. I get it nevermind