Mevo+ - backyard set up questions

[adidag]

First-time poster, but this forum has been super helpful as I’ve explored grabbing my first launch monitor. I just pre-ordered a Mevo+ after figuring it to be the best fit for my use case and budget, but I still have some questions I was hoping those who have gotten their hands on it already might shed some light on.

Most of the reviews/discussion so far seems to surround relatively uniform indoor set-ups, but I don’t have a great indoor option so I'll primarily be looking to use it in my backyard with a net - from what I’ve found the term “outdoor” seems to be synonymous with unlimited flight usage though I’m guessing there are others looking to use one of these with a similar setup as myself. Anyhow, here are the questions I haven’t been able to sort out.. grateful for any insights the community can share on these:

1. I understand the unit should be level, but how precise does that need to be? 8ft of “flat” ground outside may not be perfectly level, especially when factoring in a hitting mat and/or tee. Is there a feature that helps with this or how is this best managed typically? (Ie. if there is, say, an inch of slope will that skew the results considerably and I won’t even realize it?)
2. What are the tradeoffs between "short indoor" (8ft-8ft) and “indoor" (8ft-13ft) setups?
3. The FAQs say iPad works with the Skills App, but not currently with the FS Golf App. What app(s) are used most, and what do you have to access on in lieu of iPad? (my hope was to use my iPad for the most part)
4. What is and isn’t WiFi connection required for? How much bandwidth is needed?
5. Will mild winds and/or dusk lighting affect accuracy?
6. A couple other things that stood out from the manual: 1) shots w/ player between mevo and ball - does this mean that right-handed draws shots will be less accurate or may just get missed occasionally?, and 2) it says you have to select the club for accurate results - is there any give on this, and is this a limitation as compared with the SkyTrak?

Please forgive my ignorance here, and thanks in advance for answers to any of these questions!

Thanks!
Adam

[pwade3]

• I understand the unit should be level, but how precise does that need to be? 8ft of “flat” ground outside may not be perfectly level, especially when factoring in a hitting mat and/or tee. Is there a feature that helps with this or how is this best managed typically? (Ie. if there is, say, an inch of slope will that skew the results considerably and I won’t even realize it?)
• It has a built in level so you can adjust as needed. It also lets you know when its acceptable
• What are the tradeoffs between "short indoor" (8ft-8ft) and “indoor" (8ft-13ft) setups?
• The more ball flight the better (This is what Flightscope has indicated to me). It will give it more time to measure.
• The FAQs say iPad works with the Skills App, but not currently with the FS Golf App. What app(s) are used most, and what do you have to access on in lieu of iPad? (my hope was to use my iPad for the most part)
• Both apps work on the iPad. I have an iPad Pro and they work fine.
• What is and isn’t WiFi connection required for? How much bandwidth is needed?
• Mevo+ creates its own wifi to connect to your ipad/iPhone so you don’t need your home wifi (unless you plan on playing TGC2019 on a laptop)
• Will mild winds and/or dusk lighting affect accuracy?
• Not hitting on short distance with indoor mode unless your hitting in a hurricane. Lol.
• A couple other things that stood out from the manual: 1) shots w/ player between mevo and ball - does this mean that right-handed draws shots will be less accurate or may just get missed occasionally?, and 2) it says you have to select the club for accurate results - is there any give on this, and is this a limitation as compared with the SkyTrak?
• Not sure what your asking on 1. Player can’t be between Mevo and ball or else you will block radar. 2- you need to select wedges, irons or woods for its radar window in E6.(I think) but it will auto suggest anyway. Using Skills app or FS app you will want to select the club so you can look at your data after you close a session or else you won’t know shots are with which clubs.

[adidag]

Thanks, super helpful.. Going back to my question around player blocking the shot - I realize that shouldn't be a concern for right-handed draw shots unless we're talking about a hard-left pull.

[Shankz]

My setup is outdoor into a net. I currently have it 8ft from mevo & 9ft to net. When using wedges I move the ball to the front of the hitting mat so the distance is more like 7ft to net so I don’t over shoot it. This is to factor in the higher launch angles that I struggle with. So far it seems to read just fine. Like you, my ground is not level. The app has a built in setting to adjust for a difference in ball to mevo height but I don’t use that. What I did was take a 2x4 place a level on it and figured out the slope and then placed a couple of bricks under the mevo to raise it up. Since I break down my setup after each use I marked the location on the bricks with a couple of tees so it’s easy to replace them each time. Hope that helps.

[adidag]

super helpful, thanks!

[The19thHole]

I am also in the process of building an outdoor set up and was curious about how close the mevo+ needed to be in height. Glad to hear that I have some wiggle room. Still waiting for my unit to come in. Last update was for mid-late June. Can’t really move forward with design until I have it so I can test a few different locations in my yard. Just have a temp pvc set up on my patio till then, but it’s better than nothing.

[Obedt]

I really want to get 10’ of ball flight so I built an enclosure and net. It measures 10’H x 8’W x 4’D. Just built it this weekend, and have hit a few wedges. I probably could have gone a foot or two less on height as I haven’t hit the top panel yet, but a few wedge shots have hit around that 9’ height.

[The19thHole]

Looks pretty good! My temp net is about 8.5 ft high and I can hit a full 60* without going over it from about 8ft away. I can flop it over if I want to though... so can’t do that shot too much till I build the rest of the enclosure so the roof stops the ball instead of a neighbors house.

[Gresh12]

I've used my Mevo+ mostly in my garage but I've taken it in to the backyard a few times for quick sessions (I'm waiting on a better outdoor net to go outside more often as my garage has low ceilings).

1. I understand the unit should be level, but how precise does that need to be? 8ft of “flat” ground outside may not be perfectly level, especially when factoring in a hitting mat and/or tee. Is there a feature that helps with this or how is this best managed typically? (Ie. if there is, say, an inch of slope will that skew the results considerably and I won’t even realize it?) As noted above, it warns you when it is too tilted (front to back or side to side). I built a little leveling stand with four adjustable legs on 2x6 which I use for both height and leveling (I've found I get better reads getting unit at same level as my hitting service versus using the software adjustments but others say the opposite).
2. What are the tradeoffs between "short indoor" (8ft-8ft) and “indoor" (8ft-13ft) setups? The more ball flight the better (mostly for spin measurements). I'm not sure anyone can tell you definitively except FS but I noticed what I thought were better spin readings gaining 1' indoors and I'm striving for about 11' outdoors of flight. I think short indoor will read the ball past 13' if it doesn't hit an object (how far I'm not sure).
3. The FAQs say iPad works with the Skills App, but not currently with the FS Golf App. What app(s) are used most, and what do you have to access on in lieu of iPad? (my hope was to use my iPad for the most part) FS Golf is an iPhone app but it runs on iPad. It's just not native to iPad so it's not optimized for that screen size etc but works fine.
4. What is and isn’t WiFi connection required for? How much bandwidth is needed? No WiFi for FS Golf or FS Skills needed, E6 needs to connected occasionally but not while playing, TGC is only software I have that requires active internet connection (but other sims may also). I have a strong internet connection but my guess is TGC is more reliant on graphics card than great internet.
5. Will mild winds and/or dusk lighting affect accuracy? No to wind as noted above. Radar works in the dark so you're fine outside (certain lightbulbs can cause interference inside but that's not a brightness thing).
6. A couple other things that stood out from the manual: 1) shots w/ player between mevo and ball - does this mean that right-handed draws shots will be less accurate or may just get missed occasionally?, and 2) it says you have to select the club for accurate results - is there any give on this, and is this a limitation as compared with the SkyTrak? I think it's a fairly big pull before this happens (I get very few no reads and I'm struggling with pulls right now). Where it could matter on sim is if you want to aim a bunch left (for a righty) so you intentionally start the ball way across your body to deal with break. If this is an issue you can just adjust the aim in the software so straight down your hitting area is aimed left of the pin. Club selection helps it know where to aim the radar for best results. I often play E6 without moving from what my caddie selects even though it's off a club or two with no impact but if you're not on wedge and you hit high launch shots I find they get missed. I personally find everything equal to or more accurate than my Skytrak was but I'll have more "proof" on Thursday as I'll hit some shots on Mevo+ and Trackman at the same time. The verdict for me on Mevo+ versus SkyTrak is out on spin axis and impact on ball flight. SkyTrak should have advantage in reading spin axis but the results for me were always way more curve than I see on the course (whether that is measurement or flight model I'm not sure) whereas I find the Mevo+ on average matches my shapes better but it struggles with extreme shapes back towards the middle which suggests it's a bit under on spin measurement or impact (I can get mine to pull cut or push draw but barely whereas push slices and pull hooks are definitely possible, generally I don't curve the ball much my misses are straight pulls mostly these days)

For comment on height. I think you run in to big problems if your Mevo+ is higher than the mat. Anything below you can address by physically leveling or software but I think the no reads and miss reads will go up a lot if your unit is too high. I was playing with putting the other day and it was reading putts where the ball was over 2" below the radar so maybe I'm wrong here.

[Gresh12]

pwade3 I hit a few balls in my garage last night and put the foot powder spray on the short driver I have. My outcomes are consistent with your comments that anything off the toe of the driver goes way right. With this club I really only have push slice or pull hook as ball flights so I've stopped using it in general (even with my SkyTrak I found I got more out of a choke down 3 hybrid than this attempt at short driver).

I haven't tested with a proper driver though and that short driver may have issues for other reasons based on how it was rigged up to try to feel like a normal driver at 5 iron length.

Looking forward to seeing it against TM tonight but I had hoped .09 would install before I got do this test but I'm still on .08.

[pwade3]

Gresh12. I am also looking forward to your test against TM. Can they be tested side by side at the same time?

[Gresh12]

I think I can test both devices ok. Mevo+ has a bigger hitting area than I initially thought based on where I’m putting ball to fiddle with putting and I’d guess TM is bigger yet. Others have said they are on different frequencies so hopefully won’t interfere with each other. Only question for me is if having one offset slightly left and one slightly right will mess with spin axis in general (I’ll set both with the same Centre target but this feels like a risk of setup not measurement).

The other difference vs my home setup is going to be ball flight. I’ll measure but I bet there is 15’ of flight where I’m hitting and at home I range from 9’ indoor to 11’ in my back yard. It won’t be today as I’ll just get a benchmark in the time I have but I can probably test driver from varying distances to screen as well. I won’t hit irons off their non hitting turf but no reason I can’t move my Mevo and ball closer and hit off a tee on some.

[pwade3]

Just to add to Gresh12 excellent write up.
4. You will need a wifi connection if you are going to play online against other players. If not you don’t
6. I agree. Skytrak overstates ifs flight model for draws. It’s better since last Skytrak s/w update but still overstates it in my opinion compared to what I would see IRL. Mevo+ on the other hand does not measure spin axis indoors apparently. Outdoors it measures it. Indoors it calculates from club path and seems excellent for the most part. Where it fails I find is off center hits. Radar struggles a bit with that. Typically a toe hit will draw the ball or at worst keep it straight IRL. Mevo+ tends to calculate it as a slice or fade with driver or longer clubs especially if starting right of target. Won’t notice it with irons. I have found it greatly improved in the beta fireware but its usually opposite from my Skytrak which I run at the same time as Mevo+. It will be a bit different for everyone as swing paths can be different. I find that’s it’s only real weakness. Teach’s me to work on more center strike shots.

[pwade3]

Not guessing. FS did not tell me. I am passing this on from several people who test radar and understand radar. I have had numerous discussions with them and unless FS has found something that TM has not, then they are calculating it indoors. It explains why I see such a huge difference in toe or heel shots. Driver toe shots with M+ go right, ST go left. ST measures spin axis. I did not realize this prior to purchasing my M+. But it makes sense now.
I was on the fence about selling ST, but I’m very glad I kept it. Skytak has its weakness, but its also decently accurate except for HLA. It has been very informative comparing the two. Center strikes are almost exactly the same comparing the two. Gear effect just can’t be accounted for in FS. Apparently TM is working on something to help with gear effect as they have that issue indoors also. Not an issue outdoors as spin axis is measure then.
I’m with you on the swing path. I would really like them to make that available to us.

[Aapo]

I have also noticed that my mevo+ uses the club path to determine spin axis. It just isn't a visible parameter.

[trumb1mj]

What does this mean? "Driver toe shots with M+ go right, ST go left." With M+ I can hit a toe shot that starts right and hooks back. I can also hit one that starts left and hooks left.

[Obedt]

pwade3 do you think “fixing” or better estimating spin axis indoors is something FS could do through firmware or would it be up to different hardware? I’d like to think if the unit is tracking the dot for long enough, it could be measured but apparently that’s not how the unit works.

[pwade3]

Yes. I have been testing there beta firmware I have have found it to make quite a bit of difference. Even with gear effect. So they certainly can do it and I know they seem to work very hard a fixing all or any issues.

[pwade3]

trumb1mj I’m not going to try and I completely understand how radar operates on all levels. I have a much better understanding now then I ever did but some things are a mystery. Unless you know from FS that they are measuring spin axis, I assume they are not. I am finding gear effect to be off. It will be different for everyone as swing paths are all different. If Spin Axis was measured it should not be an issue. ST measures spin axis but its accuracy certainly can be brought into question, but at least its measured. I use it as a comparison and find at times gear effect has mixed results for me. ST and Mevo+ really very close to each other on center hit shots. Sometimes I am amazed. Gear effect shots I find not so close. I will say that FS has a beta firmware and I have found a huge difference since then. Gear effect is much closer. How they are doing that? I don’t know. Maybe they have found a way to measure spin axis. If someone knows for sure, I would love to know. It sure would be nice if FS told us.
I have included a comment from Bubba in a thread I had with right spin axis issues even with center strike with my M+. FS has cured that via firmware.


Flightscope may have a new method of measuring/calculating spin axis, however we would assume it's similar to Trackman. If it's not, we all would love to know that. Trackman methods are being upgraded to allow for gear effect. https://golfsimulatorforum.com/forum...-rate-accuracy

Leomode and Dax can chime in. Basically indoor radar will struggle with spin axis due to the short flight and lower ball revolutions. Outdoors Is not an issue. To get spin axis, radar uses calculations (like everything indoors) that that assumes center face contact to determine spin axis. Radar units cannot accurately determine face angle so rely on club path/AoA/ball direction etc to get the face to path ratio etc to help figure out the ball spin axis. Trackman is developing methods to determine face contact that will allow for adjustments in spin to accommodate for more positive (heel) or more negative (toe) spin determination. Camera units just measure spin with pictures so less of an issue.

Perhaps Dax/Leomode and others can comment on this. Again, maybe Flightscope have developed a new way of spin axis measurement.

[Dax]

pwade3 you are correct, at the moment, I do not believe that spin axis can be measured indoors with radar. I should caveat this by noting that this comment is based off of the limited flight that we are all faced with in an indoor sim environment. I would suspect that as you get to 15 feet and longer the information could become more reliable; however, even saying this, I had thought that a radar really needs 30 yards of ball flight in order to get a spin axis measurement (this is purely based off what I have read). Thus, it boils down to the parameters that are measured and the quality of those measurements that get fed into the calculations that each would have to come up with spin axis. I am sure that these calculations can be good (and from my experience, they seem to have been pretty good at measuring my common shot shape as well as my common mishits); however, TM has formerly stated a number of years ago that they had trouble with gear effect on a very specific parameter and thus we all have to realize that spin axis is calculated and is a weakness for radar when using driver (driver would be the one club that likely has the most misreads, followed by woods and hybrids with irons not really having the issue).

However, please note that for TM, they have revised their models and also added new parameters/measurements to how they compute spin axis and based on testing by LEO MODE TM's spin axis appears to be very accurate in comparison to what Foresight is measuring. There is a blog on TM's website that speaks to their use of OERT and their experience to get better measurements (I also believe that they may be using some data analytics).

With all this said, it has also been mentioned that TM is working with some golf ball manufacturers to develop a ball that would allow spin axis to be measured with radar. This is one development that I am looking forward to as spin axis seems to be the one weakness that continuously comes up when people compare radar to camera (the next is room size). While I do look forward to this, I am at the moment not too worried about spin axis at all with my TM given the positive results of LEO MODE 's testing (it is actually very impressive how accurate TM is).

As another comment, irrespective of gear effect, I believe that if you hit a hook with your driver on a radar unit, you are going to see a hook being read.

All of my experience though has been from TM (TM3e and now TM4), I have not been able to compare TM with the Mevo+ and thus we need to wait for someone to do a detailed test. I believe that LEO MODE is trying to get a test done and I believe this will be one of the most thorough out there that should provide the information that a lot of people are looking for. From the online testing I have seen though, it does look like the Mevo+ is doing a good job when compared with camera based systems (I am yet to watch the one comparing it to Uneekor though - I will try and watch that today).

[pwade3]

Dax Thank you for that great information. That is wonderful and encouraging. Just from what I was originally seeing with spin axis to now has been quite an improvement. I have also been in contact with LEO MODE about this. I almost sent him my Mevo+ for him to test just before FS downloaded a new firmware that corrected the issue.
If TM figures out how to measure SA in a short distance, maybe FS won’t be far behind.

[tinker812]

Don't have mevo+ yet (ordered feb 28), otherwise would just test myself. Wondering how it (or any radar unit) would handle varying the ball-to-screen distance between shots without actually moving the unit or recalibrating. For example, could i hit driver, 3 wood, etc from 11 ft+ and move closer (say 8 ft) to the screen on 52, 56, 60 degree wedges. the high loft clubs sometimes miss the screen - would be nice having all balls hit screen to control bounce back, etc.

[Gresh12]

3' may be pushing it but I haven't tried. I may be wrong but I think when you calibrate any radar distance to ball it helps with detecting AoA at the ball more than actual ball data.

My Mevo+ reads at least 2' wide in my indoor setup (I haven't tried to push for extremes nor tried to take stock of accuracy impacts as I only know the width from it grabbing putts quite a bit to the side of my hitting mat). My Flight deck is a couple feet long roughly so I could try 2' difference forward to back roughly without moving anything. I know the TM where I take lessons you can go back and forward a lot with what seems like no change in measurement but I don't know definitively if it's impacting any of the AoA or swing direction type figures. I've also never setup a TM so I don't even know what inputs you give it about the hitting environment.

In theory you could put your screen or net on a rails and move it closer or further (similar concept to the guy that build the slider left/right for his Mevo+ to work with both handed golfers in a smaller hitting area) so the ball to launch monitor and height never change and it just gets more or less ball flight. Not sure this is a better solution than simply putting something to protect the ceiling from high shots or outdoors building something to catch them though.

[Dax]

TM requires no measurements at set up other than ball to screen distance). All you do is put the unit down (preferably at the same level of the hitting surface and then turn it on. You set indoor mode, distance from ball to screen and target and then can start to hit. I thought this was pretty much the same with Mevo+ with the exception of perhaps entering tee height. The only other variables to set (do it once really) is temp and elevation.

[Gresh12]

Posting an update on this thread instead of creating a new one as my test against Trackman had a bunch of glitches so I'll revisit (this was done quick before my lesson). Setup:

- Indoor club fitting facility with TM4 setup 8' to ball and I forgot to measure distance to screen (I will next time) but it's at least 15' so longer than most of us have.
- I couldn't move the TM so M+ was setup beside the TM and I aligned the M+ to aim at center of screen but it was definitely offset from where I would have it at home.
- M+ left in short indoor mode even though I had the flight for indoor.
- Metal dot on ProV1 ball.
- I'm still on firmware .08 and I saw there was a new FS Golf on App Store as I setup test so was hoping it was .09 but I didn't get prompted to update if the firmware was part of it. Installing this wasted time I could have used to focus on other setup issues.
- I hit 10 SW, 7I and drivers but unfortunately the report that uploaded to TM website only sent the drivers for some reason so I lost ability to compare the irons (when I was eyeballing numbers they looked very close on irons focusing on ball speed, shape, distance and roughly where it landed but this is far from scientific).

I'm not going to post driver full spreadsheet for worry it gets too criticized (and reposted everywhere) when I'm not confident in the setup this time but I'll give observations on the 9 drives (one M+ no read). The good:

- Average carry distance was 2 yards longer on M+, the 5 decently struck shots were within a couple yards on each shot and the 4 misses varied by around 10 yards but there was 1 sky, 2 duck hooks and the very last shot may have been a misread on both devices (more on that later)
- M+ was 1 mph faster on club speed on almost every shot consistently
- M+ was 1.5 mph faster on ball speed on almost every shot consistently
- Average VLA was the same and all shots were less than 1* different
- Total spin was scary close on the first 7 shots (all less than 50 rpms different but 6 were 21 or less rpms different), the 8th shot was 350 different and the 9th was a mess (M+ gave me 1600 spin and TM 4300 neither of which I think is right)
- AoA was always within 1* except the 9th shot which is where I think both misread (M+ -1.6 and TM -4.1, I'm often down but not 4 down)

The not good but keep reading before you get too critical:

- HLA the M+ was 1.3* right of TM on average but also almost exactly this amount on every shot. I'm fairly convinced this was because I had to put the device off to the side of the TM so even though I used the software to set center I think it was off from alignment as I had to move the line in the software way more than I ever would do at home (if I'm more than a couple arrow pushes off I move the device at home). I also have a string in my center of the net at home and when I hit it the M+ reads within half a degree either way on HLA.
- Spin Axis was not "the same" except on the 2 duck hooks where spin axis was very negative and very close on both machines. Excluding those 2 shots the M+ was right biased by about 6* of axis (including reading fade vs draw when they were fairly neutral shots). This could easily relate to setup as noted above under HLA, it could be .09 will fix this or it could just be off (not saying TM is perfect but the shape was consistent with the reported face/path which I can't see on M+ so I'll give TM the benefit of the doubt as the more proven machine and it showing me what it tracked). I've said it in other threads but my path is very neutral these days (9 of the 10 shots had the path with 1* of zero) so spin axis for me is driven by face angle and strike/gear effect for whatever that is worth.

The anecdotal (mild defense of the not good):

- The shape on the wedges and 7 irons were definitely the same. There was no draws on TM that were fades on M+ (whether there were magnitude differences I can't say without the data which appears to be gone).
- We played 9 holes on E6 using the M+ (his PC can't run TM simulator as its too old for more than just the range so we tried mine). This time we put the M+ centered right in front of the TM and the TM was left on (initially by accident) so some shots picked up on both units while we played the sim round. The M+ picked up everything except one pitch and we turned off putting after the first hole but the TM was hit or miss because it had something blocking part of it's view. We eyeballed the shots both machines picked up and ball flights looked similar (we didn't study the numbers) so I'm holding out some hope that being as far off center as I had it for the test led to HLA reading right and additional right spin axis (at least on driver).

I'll try again next week but instead of trying to rush in 30 shots across 3 clubs I'll try to do 10 shots on 1 club properly.

[Jerryb]

I have bought a Mevo+ but am still waiting for it. In the meantime I am setting up my outdoor simulator hitting area. After a lot of reAding I am locking in on about 8’ to 11’ tee to screen and 7’ to 9’ from tee back to Mevo+. I have about 24’ depth to work with but I would like some extra space in the back for a few chairs. I am thinking about building a tunnel enclosure after seeing a few on the net. With a 4000+ lumen projector and with my setup hitting in a westerly direction I am thinking after 2 or 3 pm depending on the time of year I can project onto my impact screen instead of using the iPad. Has anyone done this?

Also I am concerned when using a simulator than gap and lob wedges will go above the 10’ screen even at 7 ‘ away. I will have the enclosure to handle the ball but does the Mevo + pick up the shot when it goes high into a ceiling? Thanks so much for any replies! Can’t wait to get this installed!