We've launched the new forums! Read more here

Rapsodo Simulator

JonMA1

JonMA1

Well-known member
Albatross 2024 Club
Joined
Sep 22, 2017
Messages
5,146
Reaction score
5,072
Location
Northern Michigan
Handicap
High
Rapsodo has two products for golf. One is a launch monitor that goes for around $500, and the other a simulator called R-Motion with an option that sells for around $225. They are drastically different products. (I did a search on this site and only found posts on the LM.)

While I'm not interested in the launch monitor, I am considering the simulator. It's certainly not a Skytrack (not an option, btw). I think it's meant to compete with the cheap home sims like OptiGolf with some of the reviews ranking it better.

I'm curious if anyone here at THP owns one and if so what their opinions are. I'm getting bored just hitting into the net during the winter. What may feel like a good strike could in reality be a slice. While a simulator - even a cheap one - might be fun to pass the time, if the Rapsodo can measure ball flight with any degree of accuracy, it would be a bonus. I'm aware it calculates everything off of what the shaft is doing, but it supposedly does "ok" recognizing shot shapes and distances when compared simultaneously to higher-end devices.
 
I'm going to be watching this thread closely. I had never seen this before and am interested in reviews from THPers. Might be a way to get thru the winter.
 

Rapsodo MLM Launch Monitor

Sorry, if there is already a thread, but didn't find one with a search. Has anyone tried the Rapsodo MLM mobile launch monitor? Looks interesting at the price point, especially with the built-in video capture. Look forward to anyone sharing their experience.
www.thehackersparadise.com

Smartphone as Launch Monitor

The specs on the new iPhone show multiple lenses on it. I’m not familiar with the type of camera lens in a launch monitor vs a phone. Does anyone know if this is possible with current phones or could the lens for future phones gets better to make launch monitors more affordable?
www.thehackersparadise.com
 
@-CRW- Thanks but the thread you referenced is for Rapsodo's launch monitor which is different than their simulator.

The simulator attaches to the club shafts and collects the angles and speeds from the shaft. The information isn't going to be as accurate as dopler technology measuring the ball, but you can use it to play simulated rounds of golf on a PC.

Here's one of the reviews.
 
Turtlerancher said:
I'm going to be watching this thread closely. I had never seen this before and am interested in reviews from THPers. Might be a way to get thru the winter.
Click to expand...

I ordered one last night. I'll try to update this thread with a review in a week or two.
 
JonMA1 said:
I ordered one last night. I'll try to update this thread with a review in a week or two.
Click to expand...
Great minds....I had one in the shopping cart last night. Didn't pull the trigger yet though. I'll let you test drive it.?
 
Hmm, definitely let us know how it works. That could be a cheap option for a little fun in the winter.
 
Turtlerancher said:
Great minds....I had one in the shopping cart last night. Didn't pull the trigger yet though. I'll let you test drive it.?
Click to expand...
There's just this one tiny detail... I don't have a Windows PC with the minimum system requirements. So... I'll have to use my iPhone for the driving range feature and then buy a copy of Windows and run it off a partition on my Mac for the on-course feature. What could go wrong? (Sarcasm... I'm technology challenged)

When you think of it, technical problems due to an underpowered processor would add the realism of slow play to the experience.

In any event, I'll have some info back to you hopefully by the end of the week. Most of the reviews were positive, and I tend to take the negative ones with a grain of salt. It's not like I'm expecting miracles.

Stay tuned....
 
Interested to see your results. I have had the Rapsodo in my Amazon cart along with a hitting net and mat for a few months now. It's a low price at the moment too. (y)
 
I was about to say this would be brilliant for the long cold Scottish winters. Until I remembered there's not a single room in my house that is big enough to swing a club :cry:
 
vdubtx said:
Interested to see your results. I have had the Rapsodo in my Amazon cart along with a hitting net and mat for a few months now. It's a low price at the moment too. (y)
Click to expand...
I paid $225 for the 14 clip package. That was direct from Rapsodo. Hope I didn’t over-pay.
HarlettoScara said:
I was about to say this would be brilliant for the long cold Scottish winters. Until I remembered there's not a single room in my house that is big enough to swing a club :cry:
Click to expand...
I’m going to run into that problem with the driver. Sadly, that’s probably the swing the needs the most work.
 
@vdubtx @HarlettoScara @KEV @Turtlerancher

I received the device this evening. It charged, paired with my iPhone's bluetooth, and turned on fairly easily. The clips attached well to the club and the phone interface allowed me to make minor adjustments to the my clubs' length and loft. The device inserted into the clips and everything seemed solid.

Went out to the garage and hit several shots and the device read almost every shot. I was happy with the results as far as the distances and direction. It's easy to align and since I don't understand the spin numbers, angle of attack and such, any inaccuracy there is not a concern. I'm not expecting a Trackman, after all.

Unfortunately, after several swings, the device turned off and wouldn't turn back on. I brought it back inside, plugged it back into the charger, and the device was still fully charged. It turned back on so I went back to the garage and measured a single swing before it turned off again.

I've contacted Rapsodo asking them for help. There is either something I'm doing incorrectly, the garage temperature is too cold, or the device is flawed. I want to give them a chance before returning it because as technically challenged as I am, its safe to assume it could be operator error.

I'd like this to be a simple fix because at $225 dollars, this thing is pretty cool. If it isn't a simple fix - like they need to send me a new device - I don't know. The last thing I want to do is fight with this thing every time I want to go out and hit golf balls in the garage.

I'll keep you folks posted when I hear back from the manufacturer.
 
Thanks for the update! That's really a bummer that it started acting up that soon. Hopefully they have good customer service support for you.
 
Hopefully you get it to work well and enjoy it.

If you don't, the Mevo might be another option. It costs more and won't simulate, but it does give accurate ball speed and if you use stickers indoors reasonably accurate launch, carry, and spin. I've had mine for a little bit now and have 702 shots tracked without any real issues to speak of besides the app occasionally closing and needed to restart. I'm using it with my Android tablet.

Dave
 
KEV said:
Thanks for the update! That's really a bummer that it started acting up that soon. Hopefully they have good customer service support for you.
Click to expand...
That's what I'm hoping for as well. Even with good customer service, I don't want to be returning one after another. I'm hoping it just something dumb I'm doing or not doing with the setup.

dthrog00 said:
If you don't, the Mevo might be another option. It costs more and won't simulate, but it does give accurate ball speed and if you use stickers indoors reasonably accurate launch, carry, and spin. I've had mine for a little bit now and have 702 shots tracked without any real issues to speak of besides the app occasionally closing and needed to restart. I'm using it with my Android tablet.
Click to expand...
Yes, I've read up on it and the Mevo is the real deal... not a toy. Have heard good things about it's accuracy.

What I'd love is a SkyTrak because it measures sidespin and left/right dispersion, which is something that desperately needs improving. But not only is the initial cost out of my budget, there's that yearly subscription charge. In the end, I have to suck it up and just accept the fact that no golf for 5 months comes with living up here.
 
JonMA1 said:
What I'd love is a SkyTrak because it measures sidespin and left/right dispersion, which is something that desperately needs improving. But not only is the initial cost out of my budget, there's that yearly subscription charge. In the end, I have to suck it up and just accept the fact that no golf for 5 months comes with living up here.
Click to expand...

What I've tried is hanging shoe strings from my cage. I aim for the string and can tell if I missed left or right. You know you're on when you hit the string!

Dave
 
Thanks for the update @JonMA1 , hope this works out because I sure hate this 5 months crap!
 
Update on the Rapsodo R-Motion...
1. Sent support an email on Thursday that device stopped working. Received a reply first thing Friday morning with an offer to send two more units to make sure I have one that works. When asked, they said the device turning off was an issue they've experienced. I asked if it's possible I did something wrong. I explained that the unit indicated it was charged when I initially put it in the charger which seemed odd. The didn't address that question but that ended up being the issue.

2. I got home from work Friday, plugged it in the charger and left it charging even though the light indicated it was charged. After an hour or so, I went out to the workshop and the device worked as it was supposed to. I attached clips holders to most of my clubs, the sensor easily paired with the phone, and I hit balls on the virtual practice range for almost an hour without an issue.

3. Distances were shorter than normal (yes, I know how that sounds, lol). I adjusted the settings which impacts club head speed. The longer the distance from the sensor to the club head, the faster the club head speed. The default lengths were shorter and the default loft angles weaker than my clubs. Correcting those settings brought the distances closer to what I expect even though most shots were still a bit short.

Today
I took some more shots into the net and everything worked well. Then I took the 7i with the sensor out to the yard and hit into the field with. I have 140 yards marked off and was hitting at least that distance on most shots. The device showed I was hitting further on average - which was weird. What I saw on shot dispersion did not match the readings, but I'll get back to that in a minute.

Simulator
We loaded the simulator software onto my wife's Surface, which is less powerful than the minimum requirements, and it ran ok. Only played one hole but it looks like it's going to be fun.

Accuracy
As mentioned above, this device measures club head speed based on the distance from the sensor to the club head. It also measures swing path, face angle, angle of attack. It then uses this information to predict ball speed and flight (it also measures tempo, btw). While it senses that a ball has been hit, it does not measure where on the face it hits. Two shanked wedge shots registered as perfect down-the-line shots this morning. It can only measure the face angle relative to the sensor. If the sensor is misaligned, it will affect the results. If you normally address the ball with the face hooded or open, it will affect the results - unless you correctly misalign the sensor to compensate.

Buying this product without first understanding those limitations will likely lead to disappointment. But c'mon, who in their right mind would really expect a $200 product to perform anywhere close to another costing 10 times as much?

Shot dispersion
What I found while hitting out into the field is that it will pick up the curvature of the shot pretty well, which makes sense when you consider the ball flight laws. Where it failed at times was the starting line. But that probably wasn't as much the device as the operator. Think about it... all the device can read is where the club face is pointing at address and subsequently what happens during the swing relative to that starting point. In other words, my body might be aligned to the target but if the club face is open a little and I don't realize it, I'm going to see a different result with the actual ball flight than what the sensor predicts. The same is true if the sensor is not aligned properly to the club face. There are also the effects of hitting off the toe or hosel - two things this device cannot detect or predict.

Distance
This got weird. When hitting off the mat, the distances indicated by the device seemed short with consistent club head speed. But when I hit out into the field, the club head speed increased as did the distances. While I do hit the occasional 150+ yard 7i, I was getting several readings of 155-161 yards that, unfortunately, were not happening. Same with the 4h. I was hitting some horrific shots that were showing up in the 200 yard range. That of course is an easy fix by adjusting the settings. What bothered me is that my outdoor swing speed was reading consistently higher than my indoor swing by a considerable margin. But again, I don't believe it has anything to do with the device.

Conclusion
There are some things about this that worry me. The sensor is small and if not inserted in the clip correctly, will go flying and possibly lost. I'm also concerned about longevity of device... only time will tell. But if the R-Motion continues to perform as it has for the last two days, I'll be very happy with the purchase. As of tonight, I'd rate it a 4 out of 5 because I never expected this to be a Trackman. Make no mistake, I've felt from the beginning that this is more of a toy than a tool for improvement. But if I get to the point where I understand angle of attack and some of the other data, there is the possibility it might help. It sure as hell can't do any more damage to my swing than I've done already. In the end, it's an inexpensive simulator that will hopefully turn out to be a lot of fun this winter.
 
Thanks for the great write up on this one @JonMA1 :cool:?
 
vdubtx said:
Thanks for the great write up on this one @JonMA1 :cool:?
Click to expand...
I just read where the prices are dropping again. Not sure if that's good or bad. But I will say that despite some of the Amazon reviews, I've found their customer service to be very good as long as you contact them through the "Contact Us" email link on the website. Even though my device is now working fine, they are still sending me a second sensor.
 
I played my first complete round with the R-Motion this morning and I have to say, it's as much fun and as close to real golf as any simulator I've payed to play. For someone who has blindly hit balls into a net and played the WGT online golf game for the last several winters, this is a step up.

It has opened Pandora's box, however. I'm now looking at gaming PC's online and thinking about modifications that can be made to my workshop. Where will this madness end?!
 
JonMA1 said:
I played my first complete round with the R-Motion this morning and I have to say, it's as much fun and as close to real golf as any simulator I've payed to play. For someone who has blindly hit balls into a net and played the WGT online golf game for the last several winters, this is a step up.

It has opened Pandora's box, however. I'm now looking at gaming PC's online and thinking about modifications that can be made to my workshop. Where will this madness end?!
Click to expand...
Haha, I've been asked" Why are you measuring all the ceiling heights? " ?
 
dthrog00 said:
Hopefully you get it to work well and enjoy it.

If you don't, the Mevo might be another option. It costs more and won't simulate, but it does give accurate ball speed and if you use stickers indoors reasonably accurate launch, carry, and spin. I've had mine for a little bit now and have 702 shots tracked without any real issues to speak of besides the app occasionally closing and needed to restart. I'm using it with my Android tablet.

Dave
Click to expand...

Launch monitors are nice to have, but I've noticed it has brought out a little bit of the worst in me. Rather than just try to put a good swing on the ball and have fun I have to try to make distance numbers... not good, leads to all kinds of problems w/over swinging etc...

I've put the Mevo away for now and am still hitting balls in the garage, but have gone back to mostly the Callaway foam balls and working on putting a controlled swing on the ball that results in acceptable trajectory and straight initial launch. I think I have a very robust setup, but it also removes any potential of damage to the garage/home.

If you have the same personality flaws as me beware distance obsession with the launch monitor! I don't think it ends well if it goes unchecked.

Dave
 
@JonMA1 How is the Rapsodo working out? Still working as expected?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top