New Titleist RCT help with spin accuracy?

[mgent]

I was just reading about the new Titleist Pro V1 RCT, which Titleist designed to help the accuracy of Trackman spin numbers when using it indoors... The article didn't mention anything needing to be updated or changed on the trackman, so I was wondering if using them would help with the overall / back / side / axis accuracy on other radar-based LMs? I recognize this just came out, and the balls aren't available until November, but I don't know enough about the technology of the different radar-based LMs to try and make a guess if it will be applicable across all radar...

[Dax]

There are a couple of threads discussing this at the moment. However, to answer a couple of your questions.

TM has been working with Titleist on the ball for about two years now. Thus, I suspect the firmware update for TM to be able to use the ball has been out for sometime this past year. Also, TM had a patent on this ball dating back to 1999 and that patent expired in May last year (one of the things noted in the patent was being able to use the insert within the ball to measure backspin and spin axis).

It is likely that other launch monitors could use this ball; however, I suspect they will need to do their own R&D to make it work based on the methodologies they use to measure spin. I am not sure what patents TM might have in order to derive spin numbers from this type of object inside the ball, but other companies may need to be careful in what they develop to ensure they don’t infringe on one of TMs patents (assuming of course those patents have not expired).

Only backspin can currently be measured by TM with this new ball. Thus, for the moment, the jury is out as to whether or not spin axis can also be read. I do note that TM appears to have a few patents out in the last five years for measuring spin axis. In one of the patents TM notes that spin axis can be measured using such a ball, but that the current patent that it was applying for was in respect of reading spin axis from just a normal ball. Based on this, I assume that spin axis may be able to be determined when using this ball, but this has yet to be answered.

I do believe other companies could use the ball, it will just be a bit of time though for them to complete the work needed in order to allow the ball to be used with their devices.

[bubbtubbs]

It also depends on how the R10 measures spin, since it (currently) doesn't use reflective dots indoors like TM and Flightscope monitors.

[aussiebenny]

afaik, garmin R10 does not measure the ball spin at all, and hence why it doesn't need the metallic dot. (unless they know some secret that TM and Flightscope doesn't but doubt it ofc)

Garmin does not state that they measure spin in their official support page either.

https://mygolfsimulator.com/garmin-r10-data/

https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=kj37CgzvwM98hC9WPrIQm5&productID=695391&searchQuery=data&tab=topics

[slikk66]

Garmin now claims outdoors spin rate is measured directly as of 3.8 and that metallic dots "may cause issues" doesn't mention the RCT balls though : https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?fa...wM98hC9WPrIQm5

[rrobinson]

I've tried this and the Titleist Pro V1 RCT balls are not detected at all when hit. (as of R10 firmware version 3.9).

[Brettster]

rrobinson I'm interested in what you tried?

You say:

the Titleist Pro V1 RCT balls are not detected at all when hit. (as of R10 firmware version 3.9)

Does this mean that you hit the Titleist RCT balls and there was no reading at all from R10? Surprising as I thought it would at least see the ball.

Have you reported this to Garmin through their support forums?

[rrobinson]

Yes, no detection at all when hit with any club. Apparently, doppler radar detects different signatures for moving objects based on their composition (which is why foam balls also do not work). Garmin has disabled spin rate calculation for indoor as of version 3.8 (less than 20 meters of ball flight) so its moot at the moment. Perhaps they will add back in the spin contribution if they re-train their models with the RCT balls which have been found to be more accurate on other simulators (i.e. Trackman). The R10 has been plagued with reported accuracy issues since inception, so I hope they are prioritizing this ability as I would assume it would make indoor usage more attractive.

Here is Garmin's latest on ball spin rate calculation: https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?fa...wM98hC9WPrIQm5

Note that there is already discussion and a feature request on Garmin's forums as well: https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-re...-or-pro-v1-rct