Voice Caddie SC200 Portable Golf Launch Monitor with Real-Time Audible Feedback | Accurate Swing & Ball Data | Perfect for Driving Range & Backyard Practice | Blue

First off, I would like to say that I did a lot of research before purchasing this product due to the costs involved. For the price, I just could not see spending the money on Mevo, SC300, or other more expensive unit. That said, I understood that the features of this unit would not compare, but I wanted to try it anyway and it has served its purpose in aiding my practice. I was worried by some negative reviews, but I can say that I think this just misses 5 stars due to one slight quirk.Pros:- Seems accurate. I have been fitted on Trackman, and Foresight before and the numbers in terms of club head speed and distance seem pretty accurate. This must also mean that the launch angle numbers must be in the ballpark, or else the distance calculation would be off.- Was very consistent, I took it to the range and did not have it miss a single shot. Every time I hit a ball, it registered. There were no weird outliers either. It seemed to do its job very well.- Remote is included which means you don't need to bend over to change clubs- The display is easy to read, even out in the sun (another pro is that the sun didn't seem to affect the performance at all. Used it for about an hour at mid day in the Hawaiian summer sun)- Easy to set up and use- Battery life was greatCons:- While not at all a big deal, I wish this would come with some sort of case or at least a pouch.- This is basically why it loses a star: No lob wedge/not enough loft options. When you get your unit, you will need to calibrate each of the clubs on the unit to match your bag. So, if you have a PW that is 46 degrees like mine, you go to PW, then you set it to 46 degrees. For each club, you usually get about 4 or 5 degrees of loft to play with. This means that if you have an unusually strong (or weak) PW, you will have to label it as something else. In my case, I have 4 wedges, so I can program my PW, AW, and SW no problem. But my lob wedge is left out. Also, I have a weak lofted 4 hybrid and while there is a 4 utility option, that club option doesn't go high enough to match my loft. This meant that I could either call it a 4 iron, or 5 utility on the unit.Conclusion:While the unit is still expensive, I think that it was accurate enough, and worked well enough for me to recommend the unit. It exceeded my expectations as I expected that it would not register every shot, and that it might give me the occasional strange reading, but it didn't. The unit is small and discreet, and the battery life seemed very good. The unit is easy enough to setup and use and is very easy to read. Again, if you have an "odd" bag setup, then you will not be able to get full coverage, but if you can live with that, this is a great option for a portable launch monitor. For about $200 less than the more "deluxe" units, I think it performs well and will be keeping it for practice.Ok so let me preface this with the comment that I already read all of the reviews on here, and was very careful about ball and device placement.The device arrived yesterday afternoon and I was very excited to take it to my course today to try out on the practice range.I started with a SW and then moved onto pitching wedge and it registered full swings, pitch & flop shots perfectly. The device manual states it has a 30 yard minimum and that was reflected perfectly as all really short 15-25 yard flop / chip shots didn't register at all, however just a hair longer at 30-32 yards of carry and the shots would show up without fail.Then I switched to an i8 "8 Iron" and then i6 "6 Iron" and noticed that it wouldn't register any hits with the club "i8" or "i6" selected.But oddly I did noticed that I could leave the ball and swing caddie2 in the exact same spot and just select another club on the device and the hit would register.I ended up going back to the range on several occasions to try all of the clubs listed on the remote to see if there are any other clubs which won't register a hit. I tried during cloudy days and full sun days, and I toggled between selecting PW, utility, etc. and the shots all registered, except for the mid irons 5-9iron.--------------------------------------------So here is the rest of the story:--------------------------------------------I submit my original review on Amazon an was a bit annoyed at spending the money on something that didn't work as advertised and having to deal with returning it. So I did something I don't normally do... I contacted customer support.Sky Caddie then did something no one does anymore... they had a real person answer on the third ring.Here is where it gets wierd:She didn't transfer me to some different department or person immediately. She listened to my problem, then said she was sorry to hear I was having an issue and asked if I'd hold on while she grabbed someone before they left for the day. (It was late).A person introducing themselves as a Vice President of their company comes one the phone and has me detail the issues and scenarios I went through in testing the device. He then says he would like to inspect my device and offered to simply refund my money in full or replace it at my choice. I said I'd be very happy if he simply sent me a working replacement.Well it's been a week since my replacement device showed up and I have noticed several things. It isn't anywhere near as finicky as the first. I can hit shots farther and closer to the device than my original one, and I can even pick different targets and the device seems to do a great job of dealing with shots that aren't dead straight away from it.The real test:Every club works. Period.Regardless if I select a club via the remote or the device, (I personally feel the remote is way more convenient), all of the clubs register and I'm getting my yardages down enough that based on the feel off of the face I can tell while a ball is still in the air exactly how far it will travel to within about 3 yards on the course. That's already saved me a whole lot of questioning which club and if I will risk carrying (if I hit it poorly) or perhaps flying into an OOB / water hazard if I catch it on the screws.Does what it advertises, and the company was pleasant to deal with when I had an issue... I'll likely buy anything this company puts out in the future which fits my needs.FWIW: I'm a real person, not a paid advertiser/review writer/AI looking to rule the world, and I paid full cost to get my original unit and received no compensation whatsoever for this review. Though I will say it only seemed fair to edit this review after originally leaving a bad review on what turned out to be a faulty unit.Don't waste your money. Has trouble detecting wedge shots, especially more than 52 deg of loft, or a wedge hit at half or quarter swing, so the pitching target mode is therefore useless. Measurements are all over the place. Detected my 3/4 hit 7 iron at 140 yards (not bad and pretty accurate I thought), then when I switched to my driver, with the Swing Caddie also set to W1 (driver), it detected every shot at a swing speed of only 68 mph and a distance of 100-130 yards - ridiculous - I was striking the balls perfectly and they were travelling about 220-240 yards. Also , the memory recorded no data history for the driver session, despite returning a distance (albeit wrong) for every drive. I've also tried it with practice balls, foam and airflow, and orange, yellow/black and pink balls - couldn't detect any of them - again pretty useless if you want to practice in the garden. High possibility my unit is faulty, but I can only rate it on what I was sent and what I've experienced. One star.I have been very impressed with the accuracy of this device, especially on mid - long irons. When using wedges for short distances and also when using driver I have found it is slightly less precise, but otherwise it stacks up really well against much more expensive devices. I now use it in the garden with a practise net which has cut down my visits to the driving range considerably. Of course it doesn't show you whether your shot is straight, but if you're a half decent golfer you should feel that anyway. It's great for dialling in distances on your irons.The devise is like my golf - so not perfect! I have been working on my swing speed and this unit was recommended. On the first outing it did not seem to pick up all of my shots and gave some odd readings. Next time out I experimented with moving the unit around more and found it worked best when it was a little further back and slightly raised above the level of the tee and ball height. I agree with other reviews that it does not pick up every shot and distance readings assume a well hit ball so can give odd numbers as spin rates / ball flight curvature increases. But as I was looking for swing speeds information, not distance, this has not been a big issue for me, and on the whole the speed readings seem pretty accurate. However, this means I do not use most of the features built into the device and so it feels fairly pricy for a speed monitor.Having read the mixed reviews on here, I was in two minds whether to pull the trigger with this device. I'm so glad I did. Despite some of the criticisms, I found that the device consistently provides accurate yardages for both carry and total distance. Having played the game to a reasonable standard for many years, I had a good idea of how long I hit each club and the Voice Caddie readings reflected these distances. I've also used it with my two young sons who also play and I found it be spot on with them too. Of course, it does occasionally throw out a smelly number, but for the price I paid I'm absolutely fine with that. All I can say to those who have had a different experience is if you're within warranty try to get a replacement, as mine works fine.I have no problem as far as the monitor, but I am disappointed that the monitor arrives with batteries that is out date(no power left at all), especially in the remote control which uses a 2025 flat battery. Initially, i thought the unit has a problem when I first tried it out on the range. Which is always disappointing when one is so looking forward to trying a New Toy! The monitor is not cheap and I didn't realise it is a 2nd hand product as the box arrived dirty with thick dust on it. The seller could at least clean the box to makes it presentable?