FlightScope Mevo

[adamflowers 90]

Hey Everyone,

I recently got the FlightScope Mevo, and I decided to do a little review for anyone curious about purchasing this launch monitor during quarantine. I hope you find it helpful!

Qualifications:

-This will be exclusively used INTO A NET, except for the pitching portion (this will be done in a grassy field).

-All balls are Vice Pro, and the metallic dots have been applied.

-I apologize in advance if I make a mistake in my understanding of the device’s characteristics or capabilities. Please let me know in the comments if I've made any mistakes!

Unboxing:

 

The Mevo comes in a nice, compact package. Honestly, the packaging (and device!) is not much bigger than a pack of playing cards. Everything fits snugly inside the box. My only complaint is that the directions I received were primarily in Japanese. The instructions were still navigable, but a tad difficult to follow precisely. It even comes with a nice sleeve for the deivce!

 

Setup:

What is there to say: there is very little setup. Most of the setup occurs within the associated app (I used the iPhone version). Connecting the device to the phone is straightforward. The main parameters for setting up the device are inputting the mode you will be using (pitching, indoor, or outdoor), distance between the device and the ball (recommended 6 ft.), and the altitude. As I mentioned earlier, it is recommended that you put a metallic sticker on each ball you will be using with the device (in order to better read spin).

 

Pitching:

 

My first test was the pitching function: I aimed at about 20 yds with my 52, 56, and 60 degree wedges. Here are the results:

 

 

The Mevo did a good job of picking up my shots, provided that they were hit in a path relatively straight and in-front of the device. If a chip was too far left or right, it wouldn’t be picked up, but this only happened on shots that were significantly off the mark.

As you can see, the Mevo did a great job picking up consistent spin numbers with each club. On average, the 52 degree shots spun at 7383 rpm, the 56 at 7599, and the 60 at 7812. As you can see, there is a pretty consist 200 rpm difference between concurrent lofts! I was very happy with the consistency of the spin and carry numbers. The height numbers seemed to be a tad high generally speaking, but not out of the realm of possibility, and I was unsure as to the accuracy of the launch numbers.

At this point, my only complaint is there isn't a feature in the app that lets you average your stats for a single session or club (it is possible, though, that this feature is available, and I'm unsure how to access it).

Here are some examples of the data for my other types of clubs. As a note, I deleted the shots from each club that were mishit.

 

Short/Mid Irons:

 

 

Long Irons:

 

Driver:

The driver is the club that I struggle the most with, and good on the Mevo for showing that with some data!

 

Conclusion:

In a setting in which you are hitting into a net and applying the metallic stickers to your golf balls, the Mevo works FANTASTICALLY as a launch monitor. It picked up ~95% of my total shots and, the great thing was, when I felt I struck a ball poorly, the numbers on the Mevo usually backed it up (and vice versa!).

In terms of number reliability, I was impressed with the consistency and perceived accuracy of CARRY DISTANCE, SPIN RATE, BALL SPEED, CLUB SPEED, SMASH FACTOR and LAUNCH ANGLE. I was not able to assess the accuracy of ball height and time in the air, but the numbers were, at least, consistent.

As for the app interface, I wish it was more user friendly with more features like averages of specific clubs or sessions. The video feature worked okay, but there was a significant lag-time between capturing the swing and displaying the data. I am more partial to the data-only recording, but it’s nice to have the camera feature available.

Overall, I would highly recommend the FlightScope Mevo as an at-home, indoor/net launch monitor. I am very happy with the accuracy and consistency of the device with respect to its price point.

[casey_0507 113]

Great review, just picked one up to try out, should be getting it in the next week or so. 

[djaxgolf21 11]

Had you tried any others? What made you choose this one?

[edingc 8,432]

Thanks for the review! I also purchased a Mevo this year and do really like it. I previously had the Swing Caddie SC200 and think the Mevo is overall a more in depth monitor.

I've only hit range balls, but I should break it out in the backyard for some pitching practice.

The only thing I've noticed is that it does seem to over report clubhead speed slightly. Ball speed seems correct, however.

[adamflowers 90]

15 hours ago, djaxgolf21 said:

Had you tried any others? What made you choose this one?

I haven't tried any other personal launch monitors, but I've used Trackman and GCQuad plenty of times. I chose this one because, at the $500 and under price point, it seemed to track the most data. Also, it can work both indoors and outdoors, whereas something like the Rapsodo only work outside.

[HeathS16 1,526]

Thanks for the info! I have been interesting in something like this so the feedback here is appreciated!


Sent from my iPhone using MyGolfSpy

[MattDNC74 4]

Great review.  I think I'm going to get one.  You said it worked well with a net?  How far away was the ball from the net?

[StrokerAce 11,283]

On 4/18/2020 at 8:50 PM, edingc said:

Thanks for the review! I also purchased a Mevo this year and do really like it. I previously had the Swing Caddie SC200 and think the Mevo is overall a more in depth monitor.

I've only hit range balls, but I should break it out in the backyard for some pitching practice.

The only thing I've noticed is that it does seem to over report clubhead speed slightly. Ball speed seems correct, however.

Other than being more in depth than swing caddie how would you compare them? The mevo is ~200 more...is it worth the additional cost?

[edingc 8,432]

1 hour ago, GolfSpy Stroker said:

Other than being more in depth than swing caddie how would you compare them? The mevo is ~200 more...is it worth the additional cost?

There are quite a few things going for the Mevo when put head-to-head:

1) Mevo uses a rechargeable battery. While the battery life on the SC200 was good, I still burned through quite a few sets (it uses four) of AAA batteries. I would guess I got up to eight hours of practice with each set? About two weeks worth in the summer and three weeks worth at the winter range. In about a year of use I burned through like two Amazon Basics 36-packs of AAA batteries, so there is some residual costs to account for once you purchase the device.

The Mevo battery will not last as long on a single charge, but will outlast most range sessions. Downside here is that I could easily forget to charge the Mevo.

2) The video clipping feature is wonderful if you are relying on video to check your swing. I recorded myself all winter and with the SC200 I would have to manually clip videos for importing into the VirtualPro app on my Android. The Mevo auto clips video to a defined amount of time around your swing (I have mine set at three seconds before and after) and the stats are saved along with that swing.

My only criticism of the video is that the quality is less than the normal Android camera (I have a Samsung Galaxy S10e), and it occasionally skips a few frames which can be frustrating when you're trying to look at specific P-Positions. 

3) The Mevo has MyFlightscope integration for cloud storage of statistics with CSV export.  With the SC200 I'd have to talk to my camera to record club and ball speeds for a particular shot. And if I wasn't recording video on a particular day I had no easy way to look back at my swings for gapping or performance analysis. The CSV export is great as I can pull shots into Excel, remove outliers and crunch some numbers.

4) Mevo has spin numbers that are reasonably accurate given quality golf balls.

Knowing what I know now in the current COVID-19 world, I would have sprung for the Mevo+ with sidespin and sim capabilities because I'd be wearing those features out at the moment. But, assuming I can get back to the range by June or July, I see myself having the Mevo going every single day.

Back to your question - are these features worth the extra $200-ish dollars? For me, they were. I love the CSV data and video clipping. Saves me a ton of time post-practice in reviewing what I did/didn't do well that day, and I feel like having a wider sampling of numbers will be really helpful in determining my true gapping. 

Here's an example of what I do in Excel to average out data from a single range session. No way I could do this the SC200:

 

[StrokerAce 11,283]

@edingc thanks for the detailed response! Sounds like it really has a lot of data.

If you're not interested in that level of detail and are looking for a basic personal device - outside of the battery issue - would you recommend the sc200, 200plus or 300?

[adamflowers 90]

17 hours ago, MattDNC74 said:

Great review.  I think I'm going to get one.  You said it worked well with a net?  How far away was the ball from the net?

The Mevo is placed 6ft behind the ball and the ball is around 6ft in front of the ball. Overall, I used around 15-20ft of space.

[edingc 8,432]

I had the SC200. It only works when making contact with a ball. I found I could get club head speed reading reasonably accurate (with a wedge) hitting foam balls. I don't know if that would work with other clubs.

The SC200 Plus (to my knowledge) adds the ability to measure club head speed without hitting a ball. If you have SuperSpeed sticks I could see going this route. I have the separate Swing Speed Radar (the blue and gray one that SuperSpeed used to sell/recommend) for my sticks.

I think the SC300 is the closest competitor to the Mevo at $500. Looks like it measures launch angle and has data capabilities with the app.

I should mention - I originally scored the SC200 (non-plus) on an Amazon Lightning Deal for $189. Not sure if they can be found for that price now.

If you want to go the Mevo route you can find discount codes for $50 off on several YouTube channels (I think I used Andrew Jensen's) and the FS Mevo Twitter account usually has one posted, too. Mine was $464.94 delivered.

I also just uploaded an example nine iron from the app to YouTube, just to show what it can do:

 

[ee273 16]

Great Review!  I picked one up last fall and used it about 6-7 times on the range.  It really helped be dial in wedge distance.  It seemed consistent.  I haven't put it next to a trackman or foresight to test the accuracy.

 

[longdrivenate 107]

Great review! I'm also a Mevo owner, but I have a bit of an addiction to budget launch monitors haha, so I did a comparison of my experience and thoughts on the various ones I've owned. Those include the Mevo, Rapsodo MLM, Swing Speed Radar, and Swing Caddie SC200. FWIW, I have also used Trackmans, GC2s, and Toptracer systems at clubs and ranges so have benchmarked the data from the devices against most of those as well. Here are my thoughts on each of the personal launch monitors mentioned before and my recommendation at the bottom.

Swing Speed Radar

• cheap
• good for measuring swing speed without a ball
• great battery life (I've had it for 2 years and still haven't had to change the batteries)
• only measures swing speed (no ball speed, carry, smash, anything...)
• swing speed is unreliable when hitting a ball

Swing Caddie SC100/200

• Affordable
• Reliable ball speed and carry distance
• no more advanced data (spin, direction, launch angle, etc.)
• no ability to record your swing
• battery is ok but not great
• no mobile app or ability to review your data post practice

Mevo

• Ball speed and carry distance is excellent. I compared these against Trackman and they were virtually identical, usually within a yard or two on carry.
• Spin is ok. It's not super reliable but in many cases I found it to be within a few hundred RPMs of much more expensive monitors. I wouldn't trust it to be exact but it's good enough to be an indicator of whether a shot had abnormally high or low spin.
• Works well both outdoors and indoors, as well as in low light conditions (I often hit on a range at night, so this has been hugely helpful). 
• Has a solid mobile app and online interface that makes it very easy to store and review your data. This is very helpful for gapping since you can see averages by club over an entire session as opposed to just trying to remember roughly how far you hit each club by averaging shots in your head or biasing yourself towards just thinking about the data from the balls you hit well, vs your average shot. 
• Syncs with your phone so you can easily record video of your swing from any angle and automatically match the data to it. This is helpful for identifying what you're doing with your swing when you hit a ball well and what you're doing when you don't. Can share this with a coach as well if you want, which is great.
• Really small and durable. I know all these monitors are pretty small, but Mevo is by far the smallest and it's a tank. I just leave it in my bag and take it everywhere I golf, except for when I take it out to charge.
• Charges via USB so even though battery isn't great (can last a few range sessions without a recharge), it's as easy to recharge as your cell phone and you don't need to replace batteries ever.
• Can be updated and improved via software updates. In other words, it will presumably get better as Flightscope rolls out better algorithms and features in the future. With the rollout of the Mevo+ though, I don't know how confident I am that the Mevo will continue getting substantial upgrades...who knows. 
• Club speed (at least at high swing speeds) seems unreliable. This is ok if you are aware of it and just focus on ball speed/carry, but you may see inaccurate smash factors because of the miscalculated swing speeds, which might make you think you're not hitting the ball as well as you are at times. For example, there are numerous times where Trackman will have my smash at 1.5 but the same shot on Mevo shows as 1.41 because it's calculating a faster swing speed than I really have. If I didn't know the swing speed number was off, I might think I'm not actually hitting the center of the face even though it feels perfect. Hopefully this is something Mevo can improve in future updates.
• No directional data
• No shot mapping or tracking
• No games or challenges to play (I assume because it doesn't have directional data)

Rapsodo MLM

• Accurate with ball speed, carry distance, swing speed, and smash
• Very easy and cool video integration with shot tracing
• Directional feedback and shot mapping (not measured, but traced...so it's not perfect, but I've found it to be generally reliable at least for general direction and shape)
• Good mobile app to review sessions and averages
• Can play games on it like closest to the pin, long drive competitions against other users, etc. This stuff is actually pretty fun and I won a prize from Rapsodo for winning one of the monthly competitions, which made me happy. 
• Stores your videos in the cloud vs on your phone so it doesn't take up memory if you're doing video
• Small and easy to set up. Not as small as the Mevo, and doesn't feel as durable, but it's good enough that I don't have concerns about either of those things.
• Very easy and fast to set up (after calibrating when you first receive it - which is a pain in the butt)
• Can not use indoors or into a net (big con, especially during quarantine)
• Does not work well in low light conditions (works very well in sunlight but under driving range lights at night it's effectively useless)
• Shot tracing is cool and roughly accurate but it's not always the most accurate (it just guesses based on how the ball is moving in the first bit of travel). More of a gimmick for easily making fun shareable video clips with ball tracer on them than really knowing exactly what happened to your shot. Still helpful for getting a general idea of direction and shot shape though, even if not completely accurate.
• While it collects a lot of data that you can review after your session, you are somewhat limited in choosing what data you want to display while hitting (when recording video it's set to only display carry distance, ball speed, and launch angle).
• Your phone must be on the device, positioned directly behind you, for it to work. This means you can't record yourself from other angles while the device captures your data. This makes it hard to review video of your swing from front on or from the side if you want to do that while also capturing data.

Ultimately, in picking the best of the bunch, IMO it's close between the Mevo and the Rapsodo. For $500 they are both great at the basics (ball speed and carry distance) but then excel at different things beyond that. Mevo IMO feels built for providing the greatest volume of data for people who are purely focused on analyzing their performance, whereas the Rapsodo feels as though it's built to provide basic data while making it easy to have fun (make shot tracer videos to share online or play cheap versions of closest to the pin, long drive, etc.). Both are awesome, but to me, the versatility of the Mevo to be able to use it anywhere and in any conditions and always get generally reliable data that is then stored in the cloud and easy to review when/where I want has been enough to make it my pick. It's really nice to be able to look back at the data from thousands of shots and see my real averages with each club, as well as improvement over time.

[casey_0507 113]

On 4/18/2020 at 12:58 PM, adamflowers said:

Hey Everyone,

I recently got the FlightScope Mevo, and I decided to do a little review for anyone curious about purchasing this launch monitor during quarantine. I hope you find it helpful!

Qualifications:

-This will be exclusively used INTO A NET, except for the pitching portion (this will be done in a grassy field).

-All balls are Vice Pro, and the metallic dots have been applied.

-I apologize in advance if I make a mistake in my understanding of the device’s characteristics or capabilities. Please let me know in the comments if I've made any mistakes!

Unboxing:

 

The Mevo comes in a nice, compact package. Honestly, the packaging (and device!) is not much bigger than a pack of playing cards. Everything fits snugly inside the box. My only complaint is that the directions I received were primarily in Japanese. The instructions were still navigable, but a tad difficult to follow precisely. It even comes with a nice sleeve for the deivce!

 

Setup:

What is there to say: there is very little setup. Most of the setup occurs within the associated app (I used the iPhone version). Connecting the device to the phone is straightforward. The main parameters for setting up the device are inputting the mode you will be using (pitching, indoor, or outdoor), distance between the device and the ball (recommended 6 ft.), and the altitude. As I mentioned earlier, it is recommended that you put a metallic sticker on each ball you will be using with the device (in order to better read spin).

 

Pitching:

 

My first test was the pitching function: I aimed at about 20 yds with my 52, 56, and 60 degree wedges. Here are the results:

 

 

The Mevo did a good job of picking up my shots, provided that they were hit in a path relatively straight and in-front of the device. If a chip was too far left or right, it wouldn’t be picked up, but this only happened on shots that were significantly off the mark.

As you can see, the Mevo did a great job picking up consistent spin numbers with each club. On average, the 52 degree shots spun at 7383 rpm, the 56 at 7599, and the 60 at 7812. As you can see, there is a pretty consist 200 rpm difference between concurrent lofts! I was very happy with the consistency of the spin and carry numbers. The height numbers seemed to be a tad high generally speaking, but not out of the realm of possibility, and I was unsure as to the accuracy of the launch numbers.

At this point, my only complaint is there isn't a feature in the app that lets you average your stats for a single session or club (it is possible, though, that this feature is available, and I'm unsure how to access it).

Here are some examples of the data for my other types of clubs. As a note, I deleted the shots from each club that were mishit.

 

Short/Mid Irons:

 

 

Long Irons:

 

Driver:

The driver is the club that I struggle the most with, and good on the Mevo for showing that with some data!

 

Conclusion:

In a setting in which you are hitting into a net and applying the metallic stickers to your golf balls, the Mevo works FANTASTICALLY as a launch monitor. It picked up ~95% of my total shots and, the great thing was, when I felt I struck a ball poorly, the numbers on the Mevo usually backed it up (and vice versa!).

In terms of number reliability, I was impressed with the consistency and perceived accuracy of CARRY DISTANCE, SPIN RATE, BALL SPEED, CLUB SPEED, SMASH FACTOR and LAUNCH ANGLE. I was not able to assess the accuracy of ball height and time in the air, but the numbers were, at least, consistent.

As for the app interface, I wish it was more user friendly with more features like averages of specific clubs or sessions. The video feature worked okay, but there was a significant lag-time between capturing the swing and displaying the data. I am more partial to the data-only recording, but it’s nice to have the camera feature available.

Overall, I would highly recommend the FlightScope Mevo as an at-home, indoor/net launch monitor. I am very happy with the accuracy and consistency of the device with respect to its price point.

sorry for all the highlighting. When looking at the shot view, select the club icon and select the club you want to see averages for. Even if it's the only club on the session. Averages will then show below. 

[adamflowers 90]

10 hours ago, casey_0507 said:

sorry for all the highlighting. When looking at the shot view, select the club icon and select the club you want to see averages for. Even if it's the only club on the session. Averages will then show below. 

This is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks a lot!

[Trial&Error 214]

I also have and use Mevo......and I actually also like to use the feature of going onto myflightscope.com, your sessions can automatically go to the cloud and you can review all data on the website instead of the phone, and also can export into spreadsheets if wanted. Can also easily get those wanted "club averages" from there too

[Trial&Error 214]

Without mevo at the end of my season last season, I could not have built nor would I have known these numbers, which have become a backbone of my wedge knowledge: 78-93-104-114.

When I hhave a wedge distance, I literally chant those numbers in my head now, they are the carry numbers for a 3/4 swing with each of my wedges. Reason I memorized that is b/c (thanks to mevo) I found a pattern in my numbers. If I know my 3/4 carry number, I found out that subtracting 7 yds and adding 7 yds also fell in line with my carry numbers for 1/2 and full swings. This opened up more shots than I knew I had, by ALOT!

[ObsessiveIndecisive 42]

On 4/20/2020 at 10:25 AM, edingc said:

There are quite a few things going for the Mevo when put head-to-head:

1) Mevo uses a rechargeable battery. While the battery life on the SC200 was good, I still burned through quite a few sets (it uses four) of AAA batteries. I would guess I got up to eight hours of practice with each set? About two weeks worth in the summer and three weeks worth at the winter range. In about a year of use I burned through like two Amazon Basics 36-packs of AAA batteries, so there is some residual costs to account for once you purchase the device.

The Mevo battery will not last as long on a single charge, but will outlast most range sessions. Downside here is that I could easily forget to charge the Mevo.

2) The video clipping feature is wonderful if you are relying on video to check your swing. I recorded myself all winter and with the SC200 I would have to manually clip videos for importing into the VirtualPro app on my Android. The Mevo auto clips video to a defined amount of time around your swing (I have mine set at three seconds before and after) and the stats are saved along with that swing.

My only criticism of the video is that the quality is less than the normal Android camera (I have a Samsung Galaxy S10e), and it occasionally skips a few frames which can be frustrating when you're trying to look at specific P-Positions. 

3) The Mevo has MyFlightscope integration for cloud storage of statistics with CSV export.  With the SC200 I'd have to talk to my camera to record club and ball speeds for a particular shot. And if I wasn't recording video on a particular day I had no easy way to look back at my swings for gapping or performance analysis. The CSV export is great as I can pull shots into Excel, remove outliers and crunch some numbers.

4) Mevo has spin numbers that are reasonably accurate given quality golf balls.

Knowing what I know now in the current COVID-19 world, I would have sprung for the Mevo+ with sidespin and sim capabilities because I'd be wearing those features out at the moment. But, assuming I can get back to the range by June or July, I see myself having the Mevo going every single day.

Back to your question - are these features worth the extra $200-ish dollars? For me, they were. I love the CSV data and video clipping. Saves me a ton of time post-practice in reviewing what I did/didn't do well that day, and I feel like having a wider sampling of numbers will be really helpful in determining my true gapping. 

Here's an example of what I do in Excel to average out data from a single range session. No way I could do this the SC200:

 

I just got the Mevo a week or so ago and I have been using the data similarly. My first project was the try and find optimal swing weight as I have felt like my clubs are too low (currently around D1.5). I am compiling my data in excel with some formulas to exclude mishits (along with foot spray) to get something like this:

I don't know excel all that well so I am still trying to figure out how to write a formula that takes the standard deviation of carry for my subset of good strikes but, sadly, I have more than enough time to figure that out before I am on a course again.

Next up will be spending the remaining time in quarantine to improve my ball striking. 

Edited April 26, 2020 by ObsessiveIndecisive

[tjyorke 20]

I have one to use, they are fantastic. Better than I think sometimes. I ordered dots and now I realize it works really well without them. I am using it in my bk yard net and works great. I was on trackman all  winter and this is really good.