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I recently set up a simulator in my garage with a Mevo+. After using it for a bit, it felt like the spin axis was off, especially for drives. I tried using the "offline mode," which is supposed to give better spin values is GS Pro. That seemed to help some, but I just didn't trust the side spin. After looking into it more (which I probably should have done ahead of time!), it looks like radar-based units (like the Mevo+) when used indoors can't directly measure side spin, so it's calculating it based on other parameters. The next best launch monitor in my price range is the GC2, which is supposed to be very good for spin.
So I bought a GC2 from eBay to replace the Mevo+. Before I returned the Mevo+, I took some shots with my driver and 7 iron to compare how the two launch monitors read each shot. I thought I'd share in case it was useful to anyone deciding between these two.
The data below is in scatterplots, with the GC2 data on the x-axis, and the Mevo+ data on the y-axis. Each data point is how the GC2 and the Mevo+ read the same shot. In each plot, the vertical axis range is the same as the horizontal axis range. If both devices agreed perfectly, every data point would be on a line between the bottom left corner and the top right corner.
First, the 7 iron.
Here is the ball speed for the GC2 vs the Mevo+. The speeds are almost identical.
Here is the launch angle. Some deviations, but pretty similar. The slope for a linear fit seems to be less than one, suggesting the Mevo+ is underestimating launch angle, assuming the GC2 is correct. Maybe that is due to a miscalibration for the distance from the Mevo+ to the ball?
Here is the horizontal angle. Pretty well correlated, with an offset of ~3°. My guess is I had the GC2 turned to the right a little bit, so it was off a bit for each shot.
Here is the total spin. They match very well.
Here is the side spin. I plotted both the "offline" and "raw spin axis" from the Mevo+ (see below for what that means). There is some decent correlation between the GC2 and the Mevo+, but a pretty big offset between them. I don't know which unit to trust. As I said above, I do think the GC2 is angled ~3°, but I wouldn't think that would cause an offset in the measured side spin in the GC2. I don't ordinarily have a huge hook, but I've been tweaking my swing and grip since I got the simulator set up (and haven't hit anything outdoors), so I can't really rely on my "usual" ball path. If anyone has any thoughts on what is happening here, I'd be interested in hearing it. My best guess is just that I have developed a huge hook.
Now, on to the driver.
Here is the ball speed for the GC2 vs the Mevo+. Again, the speeds are almost identical.
Here is the launch angle. Again, pretty good correlation, with the slope of the linear fit being a bit less than one.
Here is the horizontal angle. Again, pretty similar numbers, with an offset of ~3°, probably due to the GC2 being misaligned a bit.
Here is the total spin. Pretty good correlation, but a handful of low-spin shots don't really match. I plotted the ratio of the Mevo+/GC2 total spin vs. GC2 spin here. The spins line up well, except for some that are ~2x for low spin shots. I halved the spin of every shot with a ratio >1.4 here, which provides a much better fit. So I think this is the known issue of Mevo+ sometimes doubling the spin.
Here is the side spin. This is where I was initially doubtful of the Mevo+ numbers, and apparently with good reason. If you trust the GC2 numbers, then the Mevo+ spin axis with the driver isn't much better than a guess.
Summary: For the 7 iron, the speed, horizontal angle, launch angle, and total spin matched pretty well. The spin axis between the two was reasonably well correlated, but with an offset. For the driver, the total spin was sometimes doubled for low-spin strikes. The side spins for the driver were essentially uncorrelated between the GC2 and the Mevo+
Overall, if the GC2 side spin numbers are correct, then the Mevo+ side spin numbers are terrible for the driver (and, presumably, other high-speed clubs). For everything else, the Mevo+ is pretty good.
Here is some more detailed information on the setup. The distance from the Mevo+ to the ball was 8 feet, and the distance from the ball to the screen was 12 feet. I used Titleist RCT balls. For Mevo+ numbers, I used the range in GS Pro and saved the values from there. I had "offline mode" and "ignore 45° spin" (or whatever those settings are) checked in GS Pro. The CSV outputted from GS Pro had both the "offline" and "raw spin axis" numbers, so I plotted both of those above, though one didn't seem to be obviously better than the other to me. For GC2 numbers, I copied the numbers from the screen on the GC2. The GC2 was probably not carefully aligned--it was probably 2 degrees off to the right, based on the numbers above. The GC2 is an older one--serial number 1,4xx. According to the loading screen, the GC2 is version 2.0.12, hardware revision 2, boot loader version 1.6. I don't know the age of the flash. I have no idea if any of that matters--just giving it for completeness.
So I bought a GC2 from eBay to replace the Mevo+. Before I returned the Mevo+, I took some shots with my driver and 7 iron to compare how the two launch monitors read each shot. I thought I'd share in case it was useful to anyone deciding between these two.
The data below is in scatterplots, with the GC2 data on the x-axis, and the Mevo+ data on the y-axis. Each data point is how the GC2 and the Mevo+ read the same shot. In each plot, the vertical axis range is the same as the horizontal axis range. If both devices agreed perfectly, every data point would be on a line between the bottom left corner and the top right corner.
First, the 7 iron.
Here is the ball speed for the GC2 vs the Mevo+. The speeds are almost identical.
Here is the launch angle. Some deviations, but pretty similar. The slope for a linear fit seems to be less than one, suggesting the Mevo+ is underestimating launch angle, assuming the GC2 is correct. Maybe that is due to a miscalibration for the distance from the Mevo+ to the ball?
Here is the horizontal angle. Pretty well correlated, with an offset of ~3°. My guess is I had the GC2 turned to the right a little bit, so it was off a bit for each shot.
Here is the total spin. They match very well.
Here is the side spin. I plotted both the "offline" and "raw spin axis" from the Mevo+ (see below for what that means). There is some decent correlation between the GC2 and the Mevo+, but a pretty big offset between them. I don't know which unit to trust. As I said above, I do think the GC2 is angled ~3°, but I wouldn't think that would cause an offset in the measured side spin in the GC2. I don't ordinarily have a huge hook, but I've been tweaking my swing and grip since I got the simulator set up (and haven't hit anything outdoors), so I can't really rely on my "usual" ball path. If anyone has any thoughts on what is happening here, I'd be interested in hearing it. My best guess is just that I have developed a huge hook.
Now, on to the driver.
Here is the ball speed for the GC2 vs the Mevo+. Again, the speeds are almost identical.
Here is the launch angle. Again, pretty good correlation, with the slope of the linear fit being a bit less than one.
Here is the horizontal angle. Again, pretty similar numbers, with an offset of ~3°, probably due to the GC2 being misaligned a bit.
Here is the total spin. Pretty good correlation, but a handful of low-spin shots don't really match. I plotted the ratio of the Mevo+/GC2 total spin vs. GC2 spin here. The spins line up well, except for some that are ~2x for low spin shots. I halved the spin of every shot with a ratio >1.4 here, which provides a much better fit. So I think this is the known issue of Mevo+ sometimes doubling the spin.
Here is the side spin. This is where I was initially doubtful of the Mevo+ numbers, and apparently with good reason. If you trust the GC2 numbers, then the Mevo+ spin axis with the driver isn't much better than a guess.
Summary: For the 7 iron, the speed, horizontal angle, launch angle, and total spin matched pretty well. The spin axis between the two was reasonably well correlated, but with an offset. For the driver, the total spin was sometimes doubled for low-spin strikes. The side spins for the driver were essentially uncorrelated between the GC2 and the Mevo+
Overall, if the GC2 side spin numbers are correct, then the Mevo+ side spin numbers are terrible for the driver (and, presumably, other high-speed clubs). For everything else, the Mevo+ is pretty good.
Here is some more detailed information on the setup. The distance from the Mevo+ to the ball was 8 feet, and the distance from the ball to the screen was 12 feet. I used Titleist RCT balls. For Mevo+ numbers, I used the range in GS Pro and saved the values from there. I had "offline mode" and "ignore 45° spin" (or whatever those settings are) checked in GS Pro. The CSV outputted from GS Pro had both the "offline" and "raw spin axis" numbers, so I plotted both of those above, though one didn't seem to be obviously better than the other to me. For GC2 numbers, I copied the numbers from the screen on the GC2. The GC2 was probably not carefully aligned--it was probably 2 degrees off to the right, based on the numbers above. The GC2 is an older one--serial number 1,4xx. According to the loading screen, the GC2 is version 2.0.12, hardware revision 2, boot loader version 1.6. I don't know the age of the flash. I have no idea if any of that matters--just giving it for completeness.
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