How to Choose a Home Launch Monitor

Four questions, in the order that actually eliminates options. Most buying guides run this list backwards — starting at the spec sheet and ending, too late, at the tape measure.

1. What does the room allow?

Radar monitors sit behind the ball and read flight — that's 6-8 feet of placement plus 8-plus feet of flight, about 14 feet of depth for a Garmin R10. Camera monitors read impact from beside the tee and publish 10-foot-room guidance. Ceiling first, though: 9 feet is the published functional floor, 10 the consensus for full drivers. The space guide runs your numbers against every monitor we cover; if the room only fits camera placement, half the market just left the conversation and saved you weeks of comparison shopping.

2. What's the real annual cost?

Every monitor has two prices: the sticker and the subscription, and this industry buries the second one. The honest ledger, verified 07/2026: Square Golf $0, Uneekor's base tier $0, Garmin $99.99 optional, Rapsodo $199.99 effectively required for sim use, SkyTrak $89.99-$399.99 by course pack, Bushnell $199.99-$499. Multiply by the years you'll own it before comparing stickers — a $599.99 monitor with a mandatory $199.99/yr membership costs more by year two than a $699.99 monitor with none.

3. Measured or modeled — and does it matter for you?

Indoors, radar calculates part of the spin picture from a short flight window; cameras measure it at impact. If the sim is for course play and tempo through winter, modeled spin is honestly fine, and the radar unit's price is right. If spin numbers feed wedge work or equipment decisions, measured is the line — camera units own it, and marked-ball systems like Rapsodo's RPT sit in between at a recurring $69.99/dozen.

4. What software will you actually look at?

The monitor is a sensor; the software is the product you use for two hundred hours a winter. Check the pairing before buying the sensor: GSPro's 2,500-course library demands a Windows PC with an RTX 3060-class GPU — a four-figure hidden line if you don't game — while E6 Connect runs on an iPad and Garmin's $99.99 Home Tee Hero only exists inside Garmin's ecosystem. The software comparison prices all three paths; make sure the monitor you shortlist connects to the one you'd choose.

Answer those four and the simulator analyses become a shortlist instead of a catalog — usually of exactly two.