Remember your first launch monitor experience?
If you’re of a more seasoned vintage (like I am) and experienced this category during its infancy a couple decades ago, there were two schools of opinion.
On one hand, launch monitors had a Star Trek “Beam me up, Scotty” element to them.
On the other, there were multiple functionality aspects that left a lot to be desired.
Graphics? They could be pretty crappy. Performance consistency? Pretty inconsistent. As for setup, you needed the help of a Swiss watchmaker to get it right.
Comparing the early days of launch monitors to clown mouths and windmills might be an exaggeration but there were aspects of the experience that felt gimmicky at best.
Not anymore.
Launch Monitor Innovations
Today, the category innovates at warp speed. Technical improvements and software upgrades continue at an almost dizzying pace.
Uneekor lives and breathes non-stop improvement.
The Irvine, Calif., company’s engineering team appreciates that the brand has earned a “top of the pyramid” reputation, especially in the overhead launch monitor space and it wants to maintain it. How? By flat-out refusing to rest on its laurels.
“I went over to Korea three weeks ago and came back more confident in what we do as a company than I ever have,” says Greg Sabella, Uneekor’s Vice-President of Marketing.
“Part of that is being around an engineering team that’s dedicated to the smallest, most minute functions of a launch monitor. They’re all brilliant people. They use their 14 years of experience to make the tiniest improvements to technical aspects of our products that are already really good. And that’s across our entire lineup including hardware and software.”
An Embraced Culture in Korea
Screen golf dominates Korean golf culture.
Since Uneekor was born in that country (before it moved to the United States in 2016), the company has remained under a microscope for its advanced training and player development capabilities.
“On one city block in Korea, there might be as many as 10 to 15 indoor golf centers using Uneekor,” Sabella says. “It’s a huge number. We have simulated courses for the fun side but our product is truly geared to helping golfers improve their game by giving them the right metrics to tell them what they do well and what they need to improve on.”
The Mission
Uneekor’s overriding priority is to make the best system in the world to measure ball data. Building on that goal, it is dedicated to making the best system in the world to measure club data.
The Eye XO, Eye XO2 and QED overhead models and the Eye Mini, Uneekor’s recently announced first portable indoor and outdoor unit, all come equipped with the same forward-thinking innovation.
“Clubhead speed, ball speed and spin are three important numbers but there are so many other dynamic things happening when a club and a ball impact,” Sabella says. “We measure 22 different data points with our Eye XO2 overhead. It’s not just one number. It’s how all of the numbers correlate and work together that counts.”
Say Cheese
Uneekor’s critical point of difference is its infrared and camera technology.
Combining the two optics platforms allows the innovative platform to capture video pre-impact, at-impact and post-impact along with a still image of the ball on the clubface at impact.
The EYE XO2 overhead model comes with three cameras along with advanced infrared sensor technology to provide consumers, teaching professionals, coaches and club fitters with comprehensive swing data and feedback.
“Our high-speed cameras are technically brilliant,” Sabella says. “From a software standpoint, we have a team of engineers working on all of the measurements and simulated trajectories to make them as accurate as possible. And because of our camera technology, we feel confident in saying we are No. 1 in the overhead launch monitor category.”
Truth in Technology
We’ve all had those moments on the range when we hit a shot, look at the result and mutter, “I didn’t hook that shot that bad.”
Do that with a Uneekor launch monitor and you realize that you probably did hook it that bad.
No getting around it: That launch monitor is probably 10 times smarter than our perceived “feel” at impact.
“My trust level in the numbers is through the roof especially after seeing what goes into making one of our overhead units,” Sabella says. “I saw one of our overhead units taken apart recently and was floored by how many parts go in there. The guy working on it showed me the brain, the motherboard where all of the calculations and all of the true engineering occurs to produce the numbers that we see.”
With about 10,000 overhead launch monitors in 700 sites around the world, Uneekor’s dedication to technology and innovation speaks for itself.
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