The Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor (MLM)

The Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor (MLM)

Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor (MLM) performs very well in practice and offers great value for golfers looking to get the impeccable home golf set up. It retails at a snip compared to many other launch monitors available in the market. MLM works perfectly in unison with the free Rapsodo app on your iOS smartphone indoors as well as outdoors. You need to just set up an account and log in, rest your phone in the front slot of the unit and place it approx. six feet behind the ball, that’s it. The lines on the screen and the GPS overhead view will aid you in aligning the MLM correctly and selecting your hitting direction for optimal accuracy.

The Rapsodo MLM offers a clever feature where if you hold the club in front of your phone’s camera MLM automatically records the club you’re hitting. This feature may not work 100% of the time, but it certainly picks up the majority of clubs. If it does in fact miss the odd reading, you always have the option of manual input.

Once you’ve chosen your club and started hitting shots, MLM captures video of you hitting and shows shot tracer-style graphics on the screen (which are accurate most of the time), as well as some key data points like launch angle, ball speed and carry distance.

Although navigating through the app on a small screen is a bit difficult, the graphics are genuinely remarkable and the data matched up very well with those provided by top notch launch monitors, with subtle alterations in strike creating corresponding ups and downs in launch and carry distance.

The shot library feature demonstrates your concluded session in a very easy-to-digest grid format, which is inclusive of an overhead dispersion graph. Great data visualization is possible. Greatest shortcoming is that MLM is only compatible with iPhone 8 and up and iPad pro in net mode, and the iPhone 7 and beyond and the iPad 2017 and up in outdoor mode, which will leave Android users disappointed. Point to be noted here is that the new Rapsodo MLM II device is now compatible with android.  

The Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor (MLM) Reviews

The Rapsodo Mobile Launch Monitor (MLM) image gallery

  • CB of DC
  • A game changer !
Reviewed in the United States on January 9, 2024

Purchased my Rapsodo 6 weeks ago and I’m completely hooked ! Incredibly quick set up. I have an outdoor hitting station set up and I use my Rapsodo with my iPad. I love getting immediate feedback on each swing. Everything works so well , the launch monitor easily picks up each swing, connects to the iPad perfectly. This has been such a great aid to my practice sessions.

  • Aubrey
  • Get this if you want something pocket sized and helps instantly understand your swing

Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2023

I had been in the research loop of launch monitors after I fell into the “you need to perfect your swing” trap, and had been looking at this one along with some of the others out there. I was ultimately stuck between this one and the Garmin launch monitor. I have a lot of Garmin equipment and that one would sync with my watch, the golf app, and had simulations so you could play virtual courses. I ended up getting this one because of the size and the ball tracking/video reviews and am really happy that I did.

Ease of use: Once you set up an account on your mobile device of choice, it’s as easy as turning it on, opening the app, putting your device in the folding holder and pointing the video feed where you’re hitting from. Now all you have to do is swing away. There are some other steps about picking if you’re outdoors or in a net and opening the practice part or combine if you pay for the pro version. As far as devices go, it’s probably the easiest I’ve ever used and gives a ton of data.

Data tracked: It tracks spin, direction, trends, club speed, ball speed, smash factor, and a load more of data. I need to preface that the sheer amount of data that it tracks and shows trends on was a huge deciding factor for me, a data nerd. There are some users that say the numbers are a little off but I have hit on a range with very specific distances marked and the distance seems pretty spot on. After using it for a few months, I’ve changed my approach (pun not intended), because the trend had been that all golfers need to adjust their swing to fit a box and I found myself not enjoying the game because every single move I made had way too much thought. Short version; it tracks a ton of data about your shot, at the range, on the course, or hitting into a net. If the goal is to get better, it captures more than enough data. At the end of the day, the goal is to hit the ball where you want to hit it. You get instant feedback and can make the adjustments needed in real time to really help shape your shot. That alone is worth much more than the cost.

All that positivity aside, now it’s time for some negatives: 1. You need to have it well placed. 6-8ft behind where you’re hitting, pointed slightly down so you can see the whole hitting surface, and see where your shot apex will be. It sounds like it’s pretty open with the wider angle of your device’s camera but it has to be a bit more accurately placed than it seems. 2. Even with that, sometimes it misses shots. I haven’t been able to find an exact reason but it just misses sometimes. It takes a habit of being able to dismiss the shot you just did in your head when it misses so you don’t adjust without data. 3. It sits outside and if it’s sunny, with the way you have it all placed, my device will overheat fairly often. I’m sure you could put something over it for shade and that would reduce the overheating, but haven’t tried that yet.

Extra positives that I didn’t realize I would use but love: When at the range, you can just hold your club toward the camera, showing what it is, and it will automatically change it in the app. Shot tracking with video that you can look at later and see what you’re doing for those awesome shots and where you’re messing up when you top them. The biggest thing for me is, I have data backing the true distance of my shots, along with accuracy. You know those times when you say “I love my 7 iron. It’s my most accurate club I have”… Now there’s data to back it. The more you use it, the more data you have. I know that I have a lateral range of 100-170 yards with that club and the horizontal range is 15 yards. My other club has that 150-180yd range but horizontally, it’s +/- 50yds. That’s critical data and helps tremendously on the course.

If you are looking for a device that will have you looking like Rory on the course with a textbook perfect swing, this isn’t it. It’s not going to help your form or make your hips pivot from your 3:1 swing ratio. What it will do is help you understand what works and what doesn’t work with the swing you have and help you really know what your shots look like instead of the dreams of our perfect shots we keep in our head from that one time six years ago when we hit a 7 iron 200 yards and landed it with perfect backswing, 2 inches from the pin. Best yet, it’s small enough that you can have all that in a tiny bag that is easier to forget you brought with you that it is to forget to bring it.

  • Josh Yates
  • Makes practice SO much fun!

Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2020

I have had the Rapsodo MLM for about a week now and I have to say that I LOVE this thing! I had tried the Garmin G80 but as a launch monitor, it just didn’t do enough. I use Arccos for tech and tracking on the course, but I wanted something for practice, and the Rapsodo has been just awesome.

I live about 5 minutes from a TopGolf so I go there quite often to practice. I have only taken the MLM there up to this point, but it’s been great.

  • Daniel W.
  • Shockingly accurate.
Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2023

I was in between 3 different products before ultimately choosing the rapsodo mlm, mostly because I liked the idea of having instant video feedback and this also provides you with all of the most important data points that a golfer needs in a personal launch monitor. Sure you can pay more money for a launch monitor with more metrics, but unless you’re using this as a way to provide lessons or fit someone else for clubs, you really don’t need any of those. This is probably not the product you would want to use if you are a swing coach of club fitter, this product is specifically for the individual golfer and it’s perfect for tracking your progression if you’re speed training, learning how far you typically can hit each club as well as how far you max out of each club and it’s great for the golfer who is just starting to learn how to shape shots, as the ball tracer feature is actually really accurate. I honestly wasn’t expecting much from the ball tracer, I thought it would be the type of thing that I wouldn’t even bother looking at but I was dead wrong. The ball tracer is almost never wrong and it’s one of my favorite features of this Device. I highly recommend this to any golfer, regardless of skill level or handicap. And I know this is mainly to be used in a driving range setting where you can hit many shots at a time, but because of how easy and fast it is to set up you can also take this onto the course with you and set it up on the tee or in the fairway to get real-time feedback on your shots during a round.