Turn your smartphone into a launch monitor
You’re at the range, and the swing feels good. You’re hitting the target with your irons, when you grab the driver and spank one into the distance. If only you had a launch monitor to tell you how far it went… Well, two golfing brothers from South Africa have developed an app that gives you some of the numbers you’d get from a £10,000 radar.
Shaun and Bryan Theron have created a simple-to-use variation of a launch monitor which can run on a smart device such as an iphone. Most launch monitors are incredibly expensive, but Joe
Public can download this app and gain access to much of the same shot data for the cost of a cheap subscription. What the app can’t do, though, is track clubhead data such as attack angle, path, face angle and dynamic loft.
Shaun, the tech boffin in the Theron family, has spent the last two-and-a-half years developing the algorithms necessary to create the app. “I left my job in the corporate world to study industrial design in Holland, then started a web design business, and taught myself how to code and build apps,” he said. “I took time out from the business to make this first app project work, and it has been entirely funded by our family. “Excitingly, the breakthrough came just a few months ago, and Bryan and I have now launched our golf technology start-up called LEVV GOLF (Launch Enhancing Velocity Vision). “We’ve always been intrigued by the numbers on launch monitors, and the fun you can have with them, so our goal was to find a way of making them more accessible for all golfers.” We meet the brothers on the range, where Shaun takes out his iphone, loads the LEVV app, places the device on a tripod, and positions it less than a metre behind him in the range box. He hits a short iron to an island green, and instantly a voice on the iphone gives him the distance the ball flew. On the screen is varied feedback – distance, carry, ball speed, spin, launch angle – key data that modern golfers and teachers love to have.
Remarkably, this information is instantaneously captured in a split second by the device’s camera as the ball leaves the clubface. “This data gives golfers insight into what happens after the ball leaves the clubface, in our opinion the most important and useful information,” says Shaun.
“The app works with any modern smart device,” says Bryan, a financial adviser with a marketing degree. “The oldest iphone you can use is the 6S. This is the first true golf launch monitor on a smart device that can offer the accuracy of products many times the cost. From the outset, the vision of the project was to build a monitor that could run on a smart device without any other hardware required. It needed to be accurate, affordable and easy to set up and use.”
You don’t actually need a tripod to balance the smart device. Bryan leaned it against a tee stuck in the ground to get the same results. “Setting up is quick, and the device is always close to the golfer, yet out of his line of sight. It can be used on the golf course while out playing, without delaying anyone.”
How much will it be? The Therons will be making their app available for a monthly subscription of around $5…