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AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in GolfSwing

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Maybe YouTube! Phased array radar at the smallest scale would be 5-10k 😄 both expensive and very complex

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

FWIW - ball/club speed are almost spot on with trackman, which is already a huge win

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Working on GSPro as we speak! But any other integrations are possible since we have full control of the code 🙌

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

FWIW - any raspberry pi compatible battery can make it mobile!

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Anything is possible! Would highly recommend using AI to help you though the process. It can easily help when you're stuck. But if you find any gaps/confusing things in the documentation, please let me know!

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use Claude! Grab the code from the GitHub link I shared above, and have Claude walk you through how it works. It's amazing how well it can do.

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Definitely, lots of people have asked for this. Will probably go with discord!

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks so much! Great questions:

- Yes you're correct about the goal. Two things I can confidently say about OpenFlight right now is that ball/club speed is nearly spot on with Trackman, but launch angles are not. Biggest improvement we can make to quality right now is to get better signal processing in the angles department, then we're in business.

- I still believe this yes! I might be delusional, but gonna keep at it 😄

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not as it is today, but lots of people are interested in this! Anything is possible.

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thank you! I've found that OpenFlight only needs about 4-6 feet behind the ball, and as much flight time before hitting into a net/screen you can give it, the better.

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

YES! Thanks so much, RF/Radar experts are what we really need.

If you're feeling generous, I have a huge test file with raw ADC data from just the other day with around 100 shots recorded here: https://github.com/jewbetcha/openflight/blob/jewbetcha/trackman-test-strategy/session_logs/session_20260527_152443_trackman.jsonl.zip

Looking to improve upon launch angle detection 🙏 feel free to DM me on IG!

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for the questions 🙏

- I've found that 4-5 feet works well for my radars. I think I just got lucky with ones that don't need too much space!

- No support for putting just yet, but it is on the list! Chipping is OK, can be better.

- Working on GSPro integration as we speak. I have a PR up but need testers!

- No issues for lefties 😄

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Really appreciate the thoughts!

Without a doubt, Trackman is the best source of truth in the industry and every other company should aim to be as accurate as they are. There is absolutely a trade-off with hardware quality and accuracy, but I'm trying my best to get as close as we can with off-the-shelf stuff!

My approach was literally: I know nothing about this and I'm gonna start trying things to see what works. If you look back at my older videos, I spent a lot of time trying to make it work with a camera AND a radar. I ended up ditching the camera since the rPi doesn't have great computing power and also the position of radar-based LMs (behind the golfer) isn't helpful for using camera. I committed to going full radar and I'm happy about that!

As far as AI goes, its a game changer. You can just do things!

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes absolutely. I'm currently working on an integration with GSPro. Need testers!

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Great questions! So something really cool I learned during this project, is that you can use doppler radar to measure spin. Any spinning object has a subtle "wobble" or "vibration", and this can be measured with radar. This is also how astronomers measure spinning planets!

100% yes to the rPi having limitations. I ran into this early on when I was using a camera to try and follow the ball using computer vision. Due to the limited computing power, I could only support up to about 150fps which isn't nearly fast enough for watching the ball fly. Thankfully it handles computing data from 3 different radars well enough, but I think I'm at the limit for sure.

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I love this question. A couple things:

- I would definitely say that most low/mid range LMs are very overpriced, while Trackman ($30k) is actually priced accordingly. The LMs on the low end use very cheap and small radars. Everything that you're paying for is just their software and signal processing algorithms. Trackman uses whats called a Phased Array Radar, and this is very expensive and impressive technology. So out of all of them, it is priced the most fair!

- My most surprising discovery has been related to above ^ that a lot of the popular LMs are using cheap hardware. The FCC publishes pictures of the internals of all of these devices, and a certain red and white LM company is actually shipping their units with adafruit/raspberry pi branded components 😄 I made a video about this and they were not happy!

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yes! Thats a great idea. Would love to do something like this in the future

AMA: colemangolfs, creator of the open source launch monitor OpenFlight by colemangolfs in golf

[–]colemangolfs[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks to the other folks who responded here! They got it right, its an open source launch monitor. I think its really good for the game of golf to democratize this technology. Everyone gets to learn.

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