So, the US Open just happened and now you feel like you want to up your golf game. Things have come a long way since those automatic putt return gizmos. Now there are wearable tech options that can help you understand the course, as well as improve your swing. Here’s a listing of five from Forbes that get nods from Wareable‘s Paul Lamkin. Let the game begin!
Zepp Golf 2
The glove clip sensor pictured above gives swing metrics on your phone seconds after strike.
- Two gyroscopes and two accelerometers for data
- Measures club plane, hand plane, backswing position, tempo, and hip rotation
- Offers 3D analysis and video analysis
- Smart Coach feature with top players and trackable training exercises
- Apple Watch compatible
- $149.99
Garmin Approach X40
This slim band is a mashup of fitness tracker and GPS course info and shot tracking.
- Data for 40,000 courses around the world
- Front, middle and back distance to green, as well as layups, hazards and pesky doglegs
- Round Timer
- AutoShot tracking measures shot distances and auto-records detected shots
- Post analysis and share on Garmin Connect
- Heart rate monitor
- Step tracking, distance, calories burned,move bar to encourage activity and sleep monitoring
- Alarm and alerts with vibration
- Auto synch to mobile device
- Touchscreen
- $249.99
TomTom Golfer 2
This GPS smartwatch combines a modern minimalist display with course data and automatic shot detection.
- Data for 40,000 courses around the world
- Green distances, hazards and green views
- Round Tracking includes time, distance, score and calories burned
- Shot analysis on MySports app
- $199.99
Game Golf Live
This series of sensors attaches to your belt, along with tags for your clubs for shot tracking and live stats, as well as insights for social media and competition.
- Uses social media, challenges, goal making and player comparison to encourage improvement using Game Golf platform
- Data for 40,000 courses around the world
- Records individual shots and creates stats
- Metrics include fairway accuracy, scrambling percentages, and shot dispersion for all clubs and yardages
- Course visualization
- Hoopla-features top PGA and Ladies European Tour players as users
- Smart watch compatible with Apple and Pebble (Android coming)
- $199.99 (current sale price)
Garmin Approach S20
An everyday smart golf watch with fitness tracking features.
- Data for 40,000 courses around the world
- Front, middle and back distance to green, as well as layups, hazards and pesky doglegs
- AutoShot tracking measures shot distances and auto-records detected shots
- Step tracking, distance, calories burned, move bar to encourage activity and sleep monitoring
- Alarm and alert notifications
- $199.99
As you can see there’s an exciting world out there to help your game and it revolves around sensors. What is an accelorometer and what is the difference between a gyroscope and magnetometer? For these questions, check out our learning guide on the Adafruit 9 DOF (Degrees Of Freedom) sensor. Then you’ll understand how tiny watches can measure so many things in a game. Hint: three is the magic number.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
