650 Sim Owners Survey: What They Really Think
The Survey That Changes Everything
The Short Answer
650+ launch monitor owners surveyed. 100% buy-again rate. The putting problem nobody fixed. The room depth secret every buyer misses. Data from real owners.
Six hundred and fifty people responded with ratings on thirty different launch monitors, and the result is one spreadsheet that tells you more about the home simulator market than every spec sheet combined.
Yardstick Golf ran a survey on r/Golfsimulator — 650+ owners rated their launch monitors on accuracy, setup difficulty, support quality, short-game realism, and whether they’d buy the same unit again. The dataset is public. The results are fascinating. And some of them will make you rethink everything you thought you knew about what matters in a launch monitor.
The Biggest Surprise: Price Doesn’t Predict Satisfaction
You’d think the most expensive launch monitors would have the happiest owners. They don’t.
The Uneekor EYE Mini goes for an average of $3,588 in the survey. 100% buy-again rate.
The Full Swing Kit costs $4,000. 100% buy-again rate.
The Flightscope Mevo Gen 2 costs $1,299. Also 100% buy-again rate.
The Nova Open Launch costs $1,500. 100% buy-again rate.
So what do these four units have in common? They span wildly different price points and technology types (two camera, two radar), but they all share clarity of purpose. Every single one of them knows exactly what it is and delivers on that promise without compromise.
The Mevo Gen 2 is a radar unit that needs 16 feet of ball flight. If you have the space, it gives you great data at a fraction of the price of camera systems. The EYE Mini needs 8 feet and delivers the best short-game realism in the survey. Both owners know what they signed up for.
Compare that to the Flightscope Mevo Plus at $1,960 — 60% buy-again. Or the Mevo+ Pro at $2,757 — 67%. Same brand, more money, way lower satisfaction. What changed? These units sit in a weird middle zone where owners expected more than they got.
The lesson: it’s better to be great at one thing than average at everything.
The Putting Problem Nobody Has Fixed
There’s a number in this survey that should keep launch monitor engineers up at night.
Putting scores across the entire survey:
| Launch Monitor | Putting (/10) |
|---|---|
| Nova Open Launch | 9.67 |
| Uneekor EYE Mini | 8.45 |
| Uneekor EYE Mini Lite | 7.89 |
| Bushnell Launch Pro | 7.81 |
| Flightscope Mevo Gen 2 | 6.0 |
| SkyTrak+ | 5.85 |
| Full Swing Kit | 3.17 |
Seven out of nine units scored below 8/10 on putting. The most expensive unit in the survey — Full Swing Kit at $4,000 — scored 3.17. That’s not a typo.
Putting is the industry’s unsolved problem. It’s the reason I wrote about why GOLF+ Sim’s mixed reality putting might be the first real solution. It’s the reason I told you nobody has cracked this code yet.
A launch monitor that nails full-swing accuracy but can’t handle a 15-foot putt is a golf simulator with a hole in it. If you’re building a sim and putting matters to you — and it should, because that’s half the game — this data says you should prioritize the Nova Open Launch or the Uneekor EYE Mini, or wait for the mixed reality solutions coming in late 2026.
The Room Depth Variable Nobody Talks About
| Launch Monitor | Room Depth Needed |
|---|---|
| Uneekor EYE Mini | 8 ft |
| Bushnell Launch Pro | 12 ft |
| SkyTrak+ | 12 ft |
| Uneekor EYE Mini Lite | 12 ft |
| Nova Open Launch | 10 ft |
| Flightscope Mevo Gen 2 | 16 ft |
| Full Swing Kit | 16-18 ft |
The difference between 8 feet and 16 feet is the difference between “this fits in my garage” and “I need to knock down a wall.”
The EYE Mini works in 8 feet. The Mevo Gen 2 needs 16. That’s double the depth — and the Mevo Gen 2 costs $2,300 less. But the cheaper unit won’t work in a standard single-car garage. The more expensive one will.
This is why I keep saying room dimensions are the first thing you should check, not the last. Measure your space before you fall in love with a launch monitor. Go read my complete space requirements guide — it’ll save you from buying a unit that literally cannot work in your room.
The Subscription Bite
The Bushnell Launch Pro is the accuracy king — 9.37/10 for distance, 9.47 for direction, 9.44 for shot shape. That’s the best full-swing accuracy in the entire survey. And yet its buy-again rate is 83%.
The EYE Mini Lite has lower accuracy scores (9.0/10 average) but a 100% buy-again rate.
Why? Two words: subscription fatigue.
Almost every BLP owner in the survey reports paying about $1,100/year for the subscription that unlocks club data and simulation. That’s $5,500 over five years. On top of the $2,381 average purchase price.
The EYE Mini Lite requires stickers for club data but has no required subscription. Owners pay an average of $2,221 and never think about it again.
This is the subscription trap I’ve been warning you about. The purchase price is the down payment. The five-year cost is the price you actually pay. And the data proves that owners who pay zero ongoing subscription are happier with their purchase — even when the raw accuracy numbers are lower.
What Would Ace Buy Based on This Data?
You’ve seen the numbers. If it were my money, I’d spend it like this:
If you have 8 feet of depth and $3,500: The EYE Mini. 100% buy-again, best short game in the survey, works in the tightest space. This is the no-compromise indoor unit.
If you have 12 feet and $2,200: The EYE Mini Lite. 100% buy-again, 9.0 accuracy, no subscription. The value sweet spot.
If you have 10 feet and $1,500: The Nova Open Launch. 100% buy-again, 9.2 accuracy, 9.67 putting. This is the dark horse nobody’s talking about (yet).
If you have 16 feet and $1,299: The Mevo Gen 2. 100% buy-again, no subscription, solid accuracy. The budget king — with a massive caveat about space.
If you want the most popular unit that everyone else owns: The SkyTrak+ at $2,362. 88% buy-again, works in 12 feet, huge community. It’s not the best at any single thing, but it’s good enough at everything that most owners would do it again. That’s not nothing.
What This Survey Gets Right (and Wrong)
Yardstick’s methodology is solid. Crowdsourced from r/Golfsimulator, public data, filterable spreadsheet. The sample size of 650+ is meaningful for the most popular units (SkyTrak+ at 71, BLP at 68, EYE Mini at 40).
But a few units have tiny sample sizes. The Mevo Gen 2 has only 1 respondent. That 100% buy-again rate is from a single person. Take the small-sample data with a grain of salt.
Also, this is a self-selected survey. Happy people are more likely to respond. Unhappy people might have sold their unit and moved on. The buy-again rates are likely inflated across the board — but the relative differences between units are still meaningful.
What This Survey Actually Tells Us
The 2026 Yardstick survey tells me three things I didn’t know before:
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Room depth is the single most important spec. Nobody talks about it. Everyone should. 8 feet vs 12 feet vs 16 feet determines your choices more than budget does.
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Putting is the industry’s biggest failure. Even the best units score 8-9/10. Most are below 7. If someone cracks putting, they win the market.
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Subscription-free is the happiness multiplier. Units without ongoing costs have consistently higher buy-again rates. The five-year cost is the only cost that matters.
If you’re shopping right now, start with your space requirements. Then check your total cost of ownership. Then read the reviews for whatever made the short list.
The survey data is a gift. Use it. But it’s a starting point, not the last word.
Read the full reviews: