Ernest Sports ES16 - New Camera Based LM

[Csarran]

[wbond]

Csarran Any idea what is actually measured and what is calculated?

[Csarran]

The only mention was it measured AOA, club speed, path...with camera Im guessing it will now measure the ball data with club data.

[Dax]

They say it will incorp a Doppler radar Tech as well as cameras.

[wilson]

Looks similar to ST. Camera Based. January (PGA Show I presume)

[sdrthedj]

ohhhh.......that looks interesting. Soft launch November 1st!

[Mikkaat]

FINALLY, something we can talk about, brings back memories of the ST discussions.

Any indication on price points, or SIM as yet?

[Mike80]

Looks pretty cool! Does this require reading ball flight from the side like Skytrak or can it read ball flight positioned behind you pointing toward the screen? I would like to see something new that can sit behind the ball flight that doesn't need as much distance as Trackman or the Flightscope. Because this would take care of the left and right handed issues and wouldn't require the 20 feet (10 ft behind ball and 10 ft after ball).

[sdrthedj]

I would guess that this will setup like a GC2 and Skytrak. Camera based needs to be set close to the ball get good clean focused pictures of the ball for spin.

Now, that being said.....let's go completely hypothetical:

Radar and Camera. Unit using radar for LA, ball speed, path, AofA. Camera being used for spin only. If that is case, than camra could be more purposed buit with focus and be stationed 5 feet behind ball? I don't belive that, but I guess it's possible. Would have to spend more money on camera's to get the focus.

[Dax]

The arrows on the back of the unit make me think that this would sit beside the ball and not behind.

[Cklguy2013]

This looks great and from a dependable vendor. I have the ES12 and measured it against a Trackman and it was within 1 mph on ball speed, so I'm very happy with that unit.

[sdrthedj]

some concerns.....it has errows on the front. Every unit they produce has the same arrows and they are used for selecting clubs. And selecting clubs usually does not mean ball data

[jerry3]

The arrows confuse me. I was told ES16 will show the following: Angle of attack, club speed, ball speed, smash factor, launch angle, direction, spin, carry and total distance.

I'm still waiting to see what will be directly measured. They should be able to measure the same things as Skytrak / GC2 and actually a little more because of doppler.

[wbond]

It may show it, the question will be what is it showing, a calculation or a measurement? Very interesting though.

[jav_au]

VERY interested in this. This could potentially bring some more competition to a market that needs it. I remember reading somewhere that the 2.5k mark was the target. Also the combination of radar and camera should give us the best of both worlds. Right????

[davray666]

Definitely interesting but I would not place any pre-orders without a detailed description on what it does and then an independent review that shows that it does do what it claims.
Endorsed BS reviews by various pro's seam to be industry standard. Let's hope Ernest Sports have enough confidence in their product to change that and give us some honest reviews.
A simple radar is very good at measuring object speed as long as the object is moving towards or away from you in a straight line. As soon as you decide to do what TM and FS do and measure object movement left/right and up/down it becomes massively more complicated and expensive to build. A target price of 2.5k including cameras would indicate that the radar part is a single beam type with no beam forming.
Exciting times indeed. We might very well be heading towards a saturated market where customer support, reasonable pricing and BS free marketing becomes mandatory to make some money.

[goatbarn]

Not sure how the camera tech of taking high speed shots of the ball from the side would correlate to the radar measuring from the side as well.

Radar units sit behind the golfer, camera units sit next to the ball (or overhead). So a camera/radar unit would sit where....and measure what?

I assume they'll use the same trickery and say this and this are displayed, but I'm imagining that it'll only measure club head speed, on top of the ball measurements, and what ball measurements will it actually make?

Holy grail is spin and spin axis. If it doesn't measure those, a $2.5k price tag would be comical.

[FaultyClubs]

At this point it might be useful to refer back to the discussion when the ES14 came out... http://golfsimulatorforum.com/forum/...listed/97-es14

Ernest Sports calls all their products "launch monitors" but in truth measure precious little of what one would normally expect from a launch monitor. Hopefully the ES16 is different! We (the lowly consumer) need more competition in the marketplace if we're ever going to get choices and prices that suit us rather than the manufacturer.

A radar unit can measure speed from the side without getting unduly complicated (ie expensive) so it's possible I guess. Not sure why they don't just use the cameras but maybe they can use it to differentiate themselves in the marketing (claim it's more accurate especially at higher speeds). The camera could be something cheap just to measure launch angle. Even LA would be an improvement on previous ES products so maybe they thought that was enough? Or it could measure spin and spin axis etc and be a real contender.

If anyone is talking to them, the key question is not what is displayed but what is directly measured. (I remember asking them that question on the ES14 and they gave me a clear, no bull answer despite the marketing hype on the unit.) And what are those dreaded arrows on the front (well spotted sd!)? Better not be to select clubs... lol

You guys seem to be picking up a lot of pieces of information somewhere...has there been any information on course play?

EDIT: fixed atrocious spelling...sorry