SwingByte and SwingByte 2 Discussion Thread

[nevets88]

$150. Still not ready yet though. There was another product like this that was announced but never released.

y

Swingbyte captures:

• Club head speed and acceleration at all points through your swing
• Your club's true plane from address to impact
• Club face angle relative to swing path
• Static and dynamic loft and lie at address and impact
• Angle of attack and Club path
• Tempo

https://www.swingbyte.com/how_it_works

Anyone try this yet?

[Chipless]

Since it attaches right below the grip, I don't understand how it would have enough information to calculate the club head speed, without knowing what the overall length of your club is.

[iacas]

The word around the PGA show was that once you got above 85 MPH the data got really shaky.

[Apotheosis]

Originally Posted by iacas

The word around the PGA show was that once you got above 85 MPH the data got really shaky.

Well that seems pretty much useless then doesn't it.

[nevets88]

Originally Posted by iacas

The word around the PGA show was that once you got above 85 MPH the data got really shaky.

Oh well. I guess you can use it for kids. Or your short game.

Looks like it'll be awhile before something like this gets close enough to a real Trackman and by then, the cost of a real one will be lower too.

[iacas]

Originally Posted by nevets88

Looks like it'll be awhile before something like this gets close enough to a real Trackman and by then, the cost of a real one will be lower too.

Depends on what you mean by "poor." Something with a 3 and a comma immediately following is pretty inexpensive to me...

[canadianpro]

Some of my real bad swings are below 85 mph....I could use it then!

[nevets88]

Originally Posted by iacas

Depends on what you mean by "poor." Something with a 3 and a comma immediately following is pretty inexpensive to me...

Yeah, I realize I'm asking for alot to distill a $10k (ish? not sure of exact pricing) to something in the low 3 digits.

[johnclayton1982]

I have p3swing.  It works really well.  About $400.  I put a comforter up in a closet and boom, home driving range (just hit into the double closet and the comforter stops the ball dead, like a net.  It even rolls back).  The output goes to a small TV mounted next to the closet.  I'd highly recommend the p3swing.

[nevets88]

Originally Posted by johnclayton1982

I have p3swing.  It works really well.  About $400.  I put a comforter up in a closet and boom, home driving range (just hit into the double closet and the comforter stops the ball dead, like a net.  It even rolls back).  The output goes to a small TV mounted next to the closet.  I'd highly recommend the p3swing.

Thanks. I'll look into it.

I think one day, ranges will carry a Trackman or a Flightscope for public use. I dunno, maybe eventually I'll work myself up to get one of these things when the price goes down as these things eventually do.

[jamo]

I think one day, ranges will carry a Trackman or a Flightscope for public use. I dunno, maybe eventually I'll work myself up to get one of these things when the price goes down as these things eventually do.

Some of the nicer ones do. Not in every hitting bay, of course.

[Chipless]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chipless

Since it attaches right below the grip, I don't understand how it would have enough information to calculate the club head speed, without knowing what the overall length of your club is.

I sent them an email asking this.  Here was their response:

Quote:

Thank you for your interest in Swingbyte! Before you take a swing with our device, you must pick which club you are using. We have loaded in standard data for each club, but give you the ability to customize each dimension to match the clubs in your bag.

[nevets88]

Originally Posted by jamo

Some of the nicer ones do. Not in every hitting bay, of course.

Out of curiosity - how much do they charge to use it?

[johnclayton1982]

Quote:

Thanks. I'll look into it.

Its pretty cool.  I use it mainly for wedges, practicing my Pelz dead hands swing over and over and over looking at face angle, tempo and clubhead speed (and trying to have them always be the same).  Driver it is not very good, because it doesn't do well with AoA.  The launching pod also severely masks fat shots, so if you have contact problems it probably isn't for you.  All that said, its a badass home setup that doesn't require much cash or space (all told, probably cost me $900 to set it up, and I use it most nights).

[ERdiesel]

Originally Posted by iacas

The word around the PGA show was that once you got above 85 MPH the data got really shaky.

I've got one on pre-order and can't wait.  As for "shaky" data, can't be any worse than some of the large retail box stores' "fitting" systems that claim i carry my driver 320 yards whereas on the course its no where near that number.  Point being, i'm not expecting a $150 portable trackman but something to measure "relative progress" as in seeing my club head speed increase, my swing path improve, etc. I don't care if this device says i'm swinging the big stick on average at 120 mph when in fact i'm really swinging on average 110 mph as long as it works well enough to tell me that my average club head speed has increased, regardless of whether or not the actual #'s are off.  More importantly, I love the 3d rendering of the swing and that's what intrigues me the most, for it to be accurate enough to capture my swing plane and let me know immediately how much to the inside or ott I was in any given swing. Not to mention, this is something that you can use indoors during the winter with foam balls and still get some useful feedback. And well, the icing on the cake is if this device turns out to be complete garbage, there is a 30 day no questions asked return policy  :)

[x129]

On another golf site, one of the swingbyte developers posted and said basically above 90mph, you need to tell the program a bit more information (shaft flex) in order to be accurate. He claimed that swing speed was +-2mph of a radar system. Who knows what the reality is. The other thing to remember is that this is a clubhead monitoring system while trackman can monitor the ball.  If they quote you something like distance, you will have to remember that is just a guess and not a measured quantity.

Originally Posted by ERdiesel

I've got one on pre-order and can't wait.  As for "shaky" data, can't be any worse than some of the large retail box stores' "fitting" systems that claim i carry my driver 320 yards whereas on the course its no where near that number.  Point being, i'm not expecting a $150 portable trackman but something to measure "relative progress" as in seeing my club head speed increase, my swing path improve, etc. I don't care if this device says i'm swinging the big stick on average at 120 mph when in fact i'm really swinging on average 110 mph as long as it works well enough to tell me that my average club head speed has increased, regardless of whether or not the actual #'s are off.  More importantly, I love the 3d rendering of the swing and that's what intrigues me the most, for it to be accurate enough to capture my swing plane and let me know immediately how much to the inside or ott I was in any given swing. Not to mention, this is something that you can use indoors during the winter with foam balls and still get some useful feedback. And well, the icing on the cake is if this device turns out to be complete garbage, there is a 30 day no questions asked return policy  :)

[ERdiesel]

Originally Posted by x129

On another golf site, one of the swingbyte developers posted and said basically above 90mph, you need to tell the program a bit more information (shaft flex) in order to be accurate. He claimed that swing speed was +-2mph of a radar system. Who knows what the reality is. The other thing to remember is that this is a clubhead monitoring system while trackman can monitor the ball.  If they quote you something like distance, you will have to remember that is just a guess and not a measured quantity.

I've been following Swingbyte's progress since I caught wind of it over a year ago, and they used post screenshots comparing data from Swingbyte against #'s from a trackman and they were pretty close together.  Curious that they've since taken those screenshot comparisons off their site a while back.  But yes, I 've also read from another site where one of the founders of swingbyte is responding to questions said that you could customize specific input data to the system in regards to shaft length and flex and their mathematical "algorithms" would then do calculations to make the data output more accurate.  I suspect at some point in time as this device and smartphone app is improved on, that they will ultimately generate a database of specific shaft brands and flexes to select from and at that point all you do is customize your shaft length per club and simply select that club as the point of reference on which to base maeasurements off of. In either case, am really exciting about how this device pans out in real life.

The other factor to consider is that they claim the attached device weighs in under an ounce (so i suspect it'll be like .9 ounces or something on the higher end of an ounce).............and even assuming best case scenario, the device weighs half an ounce, that would still be about 14 additional grams right below the grip and that would reduce the clubs swing weight by a factor 3 SW points.  I.e. D4 to a D1 which is a decent change in swing weight.  I'm sure some will argue the usefulness and impact of SW, but I'm sure that some would feel an overall difference in a change of 3 SW points and I wonder how that could impact the swing. Now if the device is closer to an ounce that's almost a change of 5-6 SW points which i'm sure most would be able to feel that kind of a difference in SW.

[nick kokonas]

Hi....

I'm an investor in Swingbyte and have been using it for the past 6 weeks or so.  I can answer a few of the questions on here -- though please understand that I am not one of the developers and these are only my impressions.  Happy to answer any more you may have as well.

I have been golfing since I was 9 years old (now 44) and have tried my share of teaching aids, swing trainers, and have been utilizing Trackman, Flightscope and similar for a few years.  I'm a 4.8 index.   When the developers came to me, introduced through a mutual friend who is a PGA teaching pro, I was skeptical.  I've seen a number of electronic gizmos that do very little.  In fact I put off the meeting for about a month and only did so as a favor to my friend.

Alex, Brian and Nathan dropped one of those golf matts with a ball on a string right in my living room, attached the Swingbyte to my 3-wood, and I hit a few.  After each swing, within about 2 seconds, the tablet 'chirped' letting me know it captured the swing.  They then walked me through the features...

Swingbyte is very different than Trackman and similar launch analyzers in that it models the entire swing in 3-D.  This is something I had not seen before anywhere with my own swing.  I've utilized video (at Golftec) and have seen my swing... but with this I can see precisely where I am at every point along the swing plane because the Swingbyte is on the club itself.  So down the line, face on, and even a view from above is instant and accurate and can be rotated in 3d along any axis -- it does not rely on the positioning of a video camera.  The visual analysis can be stepped through point by point.

More interestingly, I can see the swing speed at every point along the swing plane... and could therefore easily visualize and see the data of my swing acceleration.  Like most amateurs my maximum swing speed was just before the ball -- casting slightly -- instead of accelerating through the ball.  This is something that I have used the Swingbyte to address... and while I have read about a million ways to create lag I never had a way of measuring the difference in swings except by watching the ball flight.

Also really interesting is a Tempo feature that measures very precisely the total time of the takeaway to top of swing /  top to impact / and overall swing time then gives you those numbers plus the ratio of backswing to downswing.  Again, because the accelerometers are on the club tempo can be measured precisely.  We've begun gathering Tour data on Tempo with some surprising results (see that Ernie Els article about his speed vs tempo and you'll know what I mean).  So this is the other piece of the puzzle that I've found very, very useful in practicing.

As for the speed measurements....

Swingbyte sits just below the club grip and weighs less than an ounce.  Once it is on there I don't notice it or feel anything different in the club and I've put it on a bunch of my friends' clubs and no one has swung differently.  The shaft of the club moves at a rate slower than the head, but by putting in the club data (length, type, shaft) the club head speed can be interpolated very accurately.  I've been on a set up of Trackman / Flightscope / Swingbyte at the same time and have found that Swingbyte was consistently +/- a few MPH.  But here is the key point -- the swingbyte is *internally consistant* -- meaning that from swing to swing it reports back the same baseline data.  So improvement in swing speed can be accurately tracked even if the absolute swing speed is off a few MPH.  Whether I'm swinging at 98 mph or 94 mph doesn't much matter to me... but improving upwards does.

Swingbyte is not a launch monitor nor is it intended to be such.  For golf simulation and and club fitting it is not nearly as useful as Trackman or Flightscope.  You're not going to get ball speed or spin.  Swingbyte is meant to be an instructional and *swing* analysis tool.  And in that regard it is far superior to Trackman as it monitors and reports the entirety of the swing, not just launch conditions.  It is the best learning tool I have ever seen -- totally mobile, usable on the course itself (my swing is of course different on the tee box than the range), and simple to use.  And that is why I surprised myself by investing in and helping -- to the extent I am able -- the company get off the ground, so to speak.

I'm hugely excited that they have started shipping the Android version and the iOS should have App store approval very soon.  Happy to answer any further questions.