I always wonder about this too. If you have a place to hit into a net its probably great, but most of the affordable options require the silver dot stickers on the ball to track it. That could be a tedious task when going to a range.

The stickers are used when hitting into a net, as the monitor has less time to track the ball. Usually, outdoor sessions do not require the stickers.

That said, you get exactly what you pay for. The $500 monitors are going to be much less accurate than the $10,000 professional models, and do not give you all of the important information they do. But, if you are mainly looking for ball speed, they can be a useful tool.

I have a MEVO that I use during practice sessions. I find it to be pretty good, but I use it not for absolute numbers but for session to session numbers. I also have access to a TrackMan when I want to get more detailed information. I have used both togethr and find that the MEVO is very close for ball speed and spin numbers to the TrackMan.

I have a Swing Caddie SC 300 and it gives all the important vertical information including spin. Latest update to app synchronizes a video of your swing to each shot. Works well indoors or out without stickers. Got mine for about $500 on Ebay. I think it slightly over estimates distance.

Have you seen the the new Garmin R10? buy.garmin.com/.../695391

I've only seen one YouTuber reviewing this device so far. for the $600, the number of measures seem great, including club path and face angle.

Thoughts?

Club path and face angle is a big deal. If it measured spin too, this would be the best PLM out there IMO. When I can find a personal launch monitor which offers those metrics as well, at a $600 pricetag, I'm in.

But $500 for most of the better PLMs, which all basically only give you swing speed, launch angle, apex, carry distance, smash factor and ball speed (which can pretty closely be ascertained by multiplying the smash factor by SS) isn't worth it to me. On a range, I can see my apex and launch with my own two eyes for the most part. Exact numbers don't really mean a whole lot to me. So, until I can get spin and path included in a reasonably priced PLM, a simple hundred-dollar SS radar unit is fine for my needs. (That doesn't mean I'd turn down one of the present $500 options if offered to me at 1/2 price!)

This is what Garmin states will be measured by the radar:
CLUB HEAD SPEED
CLUB FACE ANGLE
CLUB PATH ANGLE
ANGLE OF ATTACK
BALL SPEED
LAUNCH ANGLE
LAUNCH DIRECTION
SPIN AXIS
SPIN RATE
APEX HEIGHT
SMASH FACTOR - I think this is just a calculated from Club Head Speed and Ball Speed
CARRY DISTANCE
TOTAL DISTANCE
DEVIATION DISTANCE

That's impressive. For $600? Hmmmm. I may have to take a closer look.