Garmin Impact Bat Swing Sensor Review

March 20, 2019 | by Brian Duryea | @BatDigest

We used the Garmin Impact Bat Sensor for several weeks among several different hitters on several different bats. In short, we like it and believe it our favorite bat sensor on the market. Others might have a more robust system for tracking players and team management. But, in terms of a seamless plug and play type sensor to give immediate feedback, the Garmin Impact Sensor is everything you’d expect from Garmin and comes highly recommended by us.

Best Place to Buy

Another great thing about a Garmin product is they know distribution. And, more importantly, they know Amazon. At the time of this writing the best price was directly on Amazon. We couldn’t find a better price for the Sensor even directly on the Garmin website.

Garmin Impact Sensor vs Blast Motion

Blast Motion has done a great job, both technically and legally, in the bat sensor market. They’ve produced a robust baseball system that includes team management and a set of coaching tips and instructions only beat by now defunct Zepp (who lost a patent suit to Blast Motion). They also have some golf functionality which the Garmin does not have. If you want indepth coaching and feedback on your swing and/or the ability to attach it to your golf clubs then the Blast is you answer.

The thing that sets the Garmin Impact sensor apart, and makes it our favorite bat sensor, is the built in screen on the actual device. It is remarkably useful. We’d bet most, in a side by side comparison, would choose the Garmin. The immediate feedback and bat switching without using your phone or waiting for it to pair is remarkable.

Do note, there is also a Garmin Impact app too. On the app it aggregates your results by bat and by player.

Although Garmin is new to the bat sensor market, they are not new to the gadget sensor market. It’s not hard to see why the Garmin Impact is very well made.

Find the best price on the Garmin Impact Sensor.

Garmin Impact Sensor Recommendations

Unless you are running this for a full team, or also need the golf sensing abilities of the Blast Motion, we’d recommend the Garmin above the others (including the DK Sensor). Garmin’s proven ability in the wearable gadget market, their sense for immediate and useful feedback as well as their ease of use make it the most useful swing sensor on the market. (The odds of this making our baseball gift guide are HIGH).

The question you need an answer to is how useful is are the metrics this, or any swing sensor, device offers. Are things like swing speed, attack angle and swing repetitions useful? Our general experience with swing trackers are they find some use in the short run. But, after you find your swing speed and a few other metrics you don’t find it worth the time.

That said, if any device overcomes that with, the Garmin Impact—with its immediately available feedback interface, takes the cake.

Garmin Impact Sensor How We Tested

Testing the gadget is simple enough. We took it to a few different players, added a number of different bats via the app, and started swinging. We watched how players looked at their bat and hand speed consitently. Way more then they had if they had the Blast Motion.

In terms of accuracy it would be impossible for us to tell. The general sense we had was it was consistent. Fast swings by us stayed in the same ball park as each other. And swings that felt considerably slower than others stayed in the same vein too.

We used all the functionality on both the Blast and the Impact. We looked at the video recording options, the coaching tips, hand speed and bat speed. All looked and felt useful.

Again, the major advantage of the Garmin Impact, and its compelling feature, is the on sensor screen. It makes the others feel pretty useless when they don’t have that feature.