Nerd Alert!

Just arrived today, the Swingbyte. I heard about it during the "new gear" news from the 2012 equipment expo. I'm a kind of an analytical, video my swing type guy. Thought I would give it a try...



Inside this ipod-looking package is a little golf toy. It attaches just below the golf grip, supposed to not feel it is there, they say. Supposed to measure your swing path, impact face angle, club head speed etc like a launch monitor somewhat. You link it to your smartphone/tablet and use the app to view results.

I'll try to give it a go this weekend, will write back on how it works.

Interesting. Curious to see your impressions.

OK, well it was brutally hot this morning already but I decided to go out and give the Swingbyte a try.

First I'll tell you about the setup.

The product packaging is very fancy looking, but surprisingly, there are no instructions included. One very small piece of paper that says "Download the App". Seems like they could have put some better info, but ok, I downloaded the app...

App downloaded, I set into pairing the unit and configuring my "bag" in the app. I setup each of my clubs with the actual length, lie angles etc.



Headed out the range and gave it a try. I started off with 6 iron, shown below installed on the club shaft and also I put a little impact tape on the club face to try to add that mentally into the results.




Before I could capture swings, I had to calibrate the unit. I'm not positive I did this step correctly, and may try recalibrating again next time out. (see below).

However once I selected the club and gave a swing, each swing appears on the app after about a 4 second delay. There are two main "screens" to view the swing data. One is the illustrated swing path drawing, the other is the raw data numbers with figures such as club head speed, tempo, club path, etc. Each new swing updates the screen with the new data, but all are captured with time and date stamp in the history. You can pull up a previous swing and review the data or play back the swing in a animation, or step thru using the slider.

First comment: regarding the visuals of the animation matching real life. I've down lots of video of my swing. I know that I have a shut closed face on take away, and tend to hold it out and keep it over the plane, and have shut face at impact. The animation matched it very very closely.

Second comment: the data screen. I have used fitting monitors and trackman during a lesson a few times, so I know roughly my 6 iron and driver club head speeds as well as club path tendencies. I would say that it matched very closely.

The only thing I noticed that seemed like it might be "off" is the shaft lean and dynamic loft. I almost think it was due to a mis-calibration, since it looks like all my swings recorded show about 4.5* too much shaft lean both at address and impact. i.e. a 10.5 driver shows 6.5* at address and 2* at impact... I'll try to test that out some more, re-calibrate, etc. It was just too hot this morning to do much more.

I hit the 6 iron, Driver, 9 iron, and Hybrid. The 6 iron results seemed as expected (not great, but as expected). The Driver results were pretty depressing, (sigh). The 9 iron swings were also accurate, but I was able to make some changes on the swing to fix some path issues using each swing's feedback with reasonable success. Started getting some good results. The Hybrid was also very beneficial to measure. It was long enough to expose the faults, but I was able to "work it out" a little. I think with some time this could be as helpful as video analysis. Heck it's almost like a personal cheap launch monitor.






... more later

Way too much data for my brain. My filters are clouded already with pithy data about golf. I will be very interested what you feel is beneficial for you.

jfurr wrote:

Before I could capture swings, I had to calibrate the unit. I'm not positive I did this step correctly, and may try recalibrating again next time out.

I have this toy also, and find it to be quite accurate. But I am mostly using it for swing plane/path/club path right now. Not really evaluating the data yet.

Question though... what do you mean you had to calibrate it? After setting up my bag, I just strapped it on, turned it on, and starting recording swings. Nothing in my instructions about 'calibrating'?

Thanks,

mschad wrote:

jfurr wrote: Before I could capture swings, I had to calibrate the unit. I'm not positive I did this step correctly, and may try recalibrating again next time out. I have this toy also, and find it to be quite accurate. But I am mostly using it for swing plane/path/club path right now. Not really evaluating the data yet. Question though... what do you mean you had to calibrate it? After setting up my bag, I just strapped it on, turned it on, and starting recording swings. Nothing in my instructions about 'calibrating'? Thanks,

mschad, that's funny, we both got MP-53's around the same time and now we both have the Swingbyte... (I have moved away from the 53's to some Pings for now which are working better for me at the moment)...

Anyway... when I clicked "Add+" to take my first swing reading, a pop up screen on the phone said (paraphrase) "Your device needs to be calibrated. Place the club with the device attached on the ground or lean against a stationary object and click the button". Perhaps I have a newer version of the software app?

Regardless, I'm going to have to work with it some more to see. It's possible the calibration and readings are spot-on, and I just have some weird tendencies I wasn't aware of with having the shaft leaning forward at address that much. I did some experimenting with it a few minutes tonight with the putter, which was easy to do some weird swing shapes and face angles with as a test, and am starting to believe more that it is reading correctly.

I understand why some golfers dislike all this data stuff. TMI. I have a friend who would rather die than see a video of himself swinging a golf club. But I'm the opposite. The more visuals, numbers, and knowledge the better. Like I said, already some of the information this thing tells me is at least as helpful as seeing video. Plus if you know a little about the ball flight laws, d-plane, gear effect (hence the face tape) -- then it all starts to click seeing the recording of the swing path, face angle, plane, angle of attack etc.

If anyone cares, I'll write back with some more thoughts after I work with it some more. I think I'm on to working backwards to a discovery in my address setup that may be critical.

@jfurr: I am like you, really like the visual. The swingbyte immediately told me my take away was to much to the inside, and my club head was coming down outside my swingplane. Worked on this at the range and immediately had better ball strikes, and could easily fade the ball with my irons.... which I really struggled doing previously. It is one thing for someone to tell you what you need to do, but totally understandable when you can see it, and see the change when you do it correctly. In my opinion, the swingbyte is one of the BEST training aids ever.