Is It Still the Best Game Tracker in 2026?

Updated in April 2026 to include a full review of Arccos Air, the Smart Laser rangefinder, the Link Pro, and the latest app updates.

When it comes to products I’ve reviewed here on Breaking Eighty, Arccos might be the one I’ve had the longest relationship with.

I still remember the first time I saw the tech. I played the Course at Yale (amazing, by the way) with Sal the Founder, a few months before they officially launched the product. I was blown away. I couldn’t believe how much it could track, and more importantly, how accurately it could do it.

That was 2014.

Fast forward to 2026, and here we are. I’ve now played over 400 rounds with Arccos. The company has gone through multiple generations of hardware. The app looks nothing like that early beta version. And they’ve built out an entire ecosystem around the original sensors, including a couple of new products that have genuinely changed how I use the system every single round.

So here’s the question: has it all paid off? Is Arccos worth it in 2026?

Short answer? Yes, but there’s more nuance to the answer now than there used to be. It’s getting more expensive, and that’s a real pain point for a lot of people. So let’s dig into all of it: what’s great, what’s new, what’s not perfect, and how it compares to the competition.

What Is Arccos Golf?

Next to a reliable rangefinder, I think Arccos may be the best piece of golf tech an amateur golfer can own. Yeah, I know, big claim. But after 400+ rounds, I’m still as much of a fan as ever.

Arccos is a game tracking system. You put sensors on your clubs, it pairs with the app, and from there it tells you everything you need to know about your golf game:

• How far you hit every shot.
• How many fairways you hit.
• How many greens you hit.
• Whether you were in a bunker.
• It gives you strokes gained statistics for your drives, approach, sand play, and putting. Basically the same analytics Tour pros use, in your pocket, for every round you play.

On top of that, when you’re on the course, Arccos functions as a full GPS caddie.

It doesn’t just provide yardages to the front, middle, and back of the green, it takes into account weather, elevation, wind, and wind direction to give you what they claim are the most accurate “plays like” distances in the game. Having tracked over 1.5 billion shots, the AI behind all of this is genuinely well-trained.

But perhaps my favorite thing about it, and this is the thing I don’t talk about enough, is that Arccos has become my de facto golf travel journal. I travel a lot for golf. I’m still working through the top 100 courses in the world, shooting videos, writing reviews. To have every shot from every round on every course I’ve ever played sitting in an app I can scroll through anytime? That’s kind of incredible.

I can tell you that on the 7th hole at Ballyneal last summer, I hit driver to 2 feet and made eagle.

I can pull up the road hole at the Old Course and see driver, 3-wood, 8-iron, 20-foot putt for par.

I can find the hole-out from 165 I made for Eagle at Champions Retreat in Augusta during Masters week.

All of it, right there. For me, that’s actually the best part of Arccos, even more than the data.

What’s New: The Arccos Ecosystem in 2026

Last time I did a full review of Arccos, the hardware story was pretty simple: Smart Sensors or Smart Grips. That’s still the foundation, but Arccos has now built a full hardware ecosystem around it, and the additions are worth understanding before you decide what to buy.

Arccos Smart Sensors

The Smart Sensors are the classic entry point. You get 16 sensors in the box (a few extras for clubs you rotate in and out), including a putter sensor that’s a bit more sensitive than the rest. You screw them into the butt of your clubs, pair them to the app, and you’re off.

The pairing process is genuinely painless. The app prompts you club by club, you point your camera at the sensor, it registers automatically, and you move on. The whole thing takes maybe 5-7 minutes. A little tedious by the end, but nothing dramatic.

Battery life is a question I hear a lot. Arccos gives a 2-year warranty on the sensors, and every time your subscription renews, you get five replacement sensors sent to you for free (just pay shipping). In practice, I’ve had very few battery issues, and there’s a software development that makes this even less of a concern, which I’ll get to in a second.

The big advantage of sensors over grips: transferability. New clubs? Unscrew and re-pair. Easy. If you rotate equipment a lot (or, like me, you’re constantly reviewing new drivers without Arccos sensors on them), the sensors give you the flexibility you need.

Price: $250 (use code BE15 for 15% off — final price around $212)

Arccos Smart Grips

The Smart Grips are Golf Pride Tour Velvet or MCC Plus4 grips with the sensors already built in. Nothing to screw in, nothing to fiddle with. They look like normal grips, they feel like normal grips, and the accuracy is on par with the standalone sensors.

The experience is more elegant. There’s nothing sticking out of the top of your club. If I weren’t constantly switching clubs and grips for reviews, I’d run the Smart Grips; they’re just that much more user-friendly.

The trade-off is obvious: if you get new clubs, you can’t transfer them, and because they don’t have a hole in the butt of the club, you can’t screw in any other accessories either. For competitive players who don’t change equipment often, these are probably the move.

With these, you get 13 grips, and one putter sensor.

Price: $299.99 to $349.99, depending on grip model. But again, the Arccos code BE15 will knock 15% off.

Arccos Air

Arccos Air (Formerly the Link Pro)

The Arccos Air is the evolution of what used to be called the Link Pro. It’s the same physical device, same form factor, but with a firmware update that unlocks a significant new capability.

First, everything the Link Pro was known for is still here. If you didn’t want your phone in your front pocket during a round, this solved it.

If you wanted to listen to music through a Bluetooth speaker while using Arccos, this solved that too.

You clip it to your belt or drop it in your pocket, pair it with your phone at the start of the round, put your phone away, and Arccos tracks everything. There’s also a button on the side that sets the pin, which, as I mentioned above, matters a lot for the accuracy of your approach and putting data.

What’s new is that Arccos Air now also supports sensorless shot tracking.

No sensors on your clubs, no phone required. You just put the device in your pocket, and Arccos uses AI trained on over 1.5 billion shots to detect every swing and figure out what you hit. I’ve played four rounds with it in sensorless mode, and shot detection is excellent; it missed maybe two or three shots across all four rounds. Where you’ll notice the difference compared to sensor-based tracking is club identification. Without sensors, the app is making an educated guess, and in my experience it gets it right about 60–70% of the time.

Editing is quick and easy, but there’s more of it in sensorless mode than you’d have with sensors on your clubs.

Already own a Link Pro? You already have Arccos Air. The firmware update is free. Just update your device, and sensorless tracking is unlocked. The only physical difference in the new packaging is that the charger says “Air” on it. So if you’ve been sitting on a Link Pro and haven’t updated the firmware yet, go do it now.

If you’re someone who wants to ditch sensors entirely and doesn’t mind a few post-round edits on club assignments, Arccos Air is a genuinely compelling option. If accuracy of club tracking is your top priority, the traditional sensor setup is still the better call.

Here’s my full Arccos Air review.

Arccos Smart Laser

The Arccos Smart Laser is their first rangefinder, and it’s a genuinely good one.

The glass is excellent. It locks onto the flag reliably, the display is crisp, and it performs as well as most of the better rangefinders I’ve reviewed. But what makes it interesting for Arccos users are the two smart features baked in.

First: when you range the flag, you get three numbers in the viewfinder — the actual laser distance, a “plays like” distance that accounts for environment, wind, elevation, and wind direction, and a gust number that tells you what a wind gust could do to your shot. The plays-like numbers have been surprisingly accurate and useful in my experience.

Second, and more importantly for the Arccos ecosystem: when you shoot the flag, it automatically sets the pin. That’s it. You’ve ranged the green; the pin is set. No walking up to the flag, no tapping a button on your watch. It just happens.

This sounds like a small thing, but it’s had a big impact on my data accuracy. Pin placement is one of the biggest factors in getting reliable approach and putting stats, and this makes it almost effortless. It’s now the reason I use the Arccos rangefinder for almost every round I play.

I’ll be honest about the GPS accuracy: I’d call it around 80%. There are holes where I’ll set the pin and notice it ended up in the wrong spot on the map, which is just a reality of GPS signal and mapping variance. But it’s easy to adjust manually after the fact, and the snail trail in the app showing exactly where you walked on the green makes figuring out where the pin actually was pretty easy.

Now, the pricing on this is where things get contentious. The Smart Laser is $299, and if you want to use any of its connected features, you need a subscription. If you already have the game tracking subscription ($199/year), you can add the rangefinder subscription for an extra $99/year with your first year free. If you just want the rangefinder on its own without game tracking, it’s $299 plus $199/year for just the rangefinder subscription.

I’ve never received more negative comments on a video than I did on my Smart Laser video review. And honestly? I get it. Two subscriptions is a lot to swallow. My response is: for the power Arccos user, it genuinely enhances the experience. But for most people, this is something to consider once you’re already invested in the ecosystem, not as a first purchase.

Here’s my full review of the Arccos Smart Laser.

How Arccos Works On the Course

Arccos has mapped essentially every golf course you’d want to play.  Fairways, bunkers, greens, hazards, all of it is GPS-mapped.

When you start a round, you see a GPS overlay of the hole you’re playing, and as you hit shots, they appear on the map in real time. As you walk up to your ball, you can see in real time that you hit a 258-yard drive, for instance. When you hit your next shot, it locks that previous distance in and starts tracking the new one.

What I really like about this is just how hands-on or hands-off you can make it.

If you want everything, plays-like distances, AI strategy on every hole, green maps, etc., you can be in the app on basically every shot, and it’ll give you legitimately useful information. Or you can leave the phone in your pocket for 18 holes and come back to find your round is maybe 85% accurate, with a few shots or putts to add in. Both are valid ways to use it.

A few on-course features worth calling out specifically:

AI Caddie Recommendations — This feature shows you a club-by-club breakdown for every shot, including a dispersion chart of your most recent swings with each club and a projected score for each option. You can even pre-plan a round the night before on a course you’ve never played, which I’ve found really useful when traveling. Not everyone wants this level of analysis on the course, but for those who do, it’s genuinely impressive.

Green Maps — A newer addition (iOS only for now) that shows a heat map of breaks on each green, with optional arrows showing the direction. Useful if you’re playing somewhere totally unfamiliar and can’t read the green from where you’re approaching. Personally, I don’t think it’s a game-changer for most amateurs.  Just aim at the center of the green, but it’s a nice-to-have feature.

Set Pin Button — This might be the single biggest improvement since I last did this review three years ago. The accuracy of your approach and putting data is directly tied to how precisely Arccos knows where the pin is. You can set it from your phone (walk up, tap a button), from your Apple Watch or Arccos Air (easier) , or automatically with the Smart Laser (easiest of all). If you’re not setting pins currently, start doing it. It makes a meaningful difference in data quality, and there are a lot of Arccos users who don’t even realize this feature exists.

How Accurate Is Arccos?

Overall, I’d say Arccos with sensors is dead-on about 90–95% of the time. If you hit a shot, it knows you hit a shot. If for some reason it didn’t auto-tag, you can go back, see the spot on the map, confirm it, tell it the club, and move on. These days I very rarely experience situations where the system loses track of where I am on the course.

A couple of things to know: penalty strokes always need to be added manually, and if you take a gimme or a total tap-in, you may need to add or remove a putt. Also, if you’re playing a tight course where holes are close together, occasionally the app might not realize you’ve moved on to the next hole — that’s gotten much rarer, but it can happen.

I also want to mention something I’ve noticed more and more over the last couple of years: Arccos has gotten remarkably good at detecting shots even when the sensor on that club is dead, or not even there at all. I review a lot of drivers that don’t have Arccos sensors on them, and I’ll come back to find that Arccos has accurately tagged essentially every drive I hit, because it knows I’m on a tee box, knows I’m making a full swing, and assumes it’s likely with a driver. It’s pretty wild when you think about it, and it’s the technology underpinning Arccos Air.

No game tracking solution is perfect. GPS variance, mapping variance, and the realities of the tech mean there will always be some editing required. If you expect perfection, you’ll be disappointed. But within those constraints, Arccos is as good as it gets.

The Data: What You Get After the Round

The Player tab in the app is where the real magic happens for the improvement-focused golfer.

You can sort by however many rounds you want, set a target handicap for comparison, and see exactly where you’re gaining and losing strokes relative to that benchmark. I’m currently a 10 handicap shooting for something lower, and the app tells me with uncomfortable clarity that I’m losing strokes in specific areas that I don’t always want to admit.

Sometimes the thing you think you’re good at turns out to be your actual weakness, and vice versa.

Arccos also gives you Smart Distance for each club: your expected distance on a well-struck shot, with mishits and flukes filtered out. That number on the Clubs tab is what you actually want to pull up when you’re standing over a shot on the course.

And then there’s the Activity tab, where every round you’ve played lives, shot by shot — available forever. As someone who plays a lot of bucket list courses, this is one of my favorite features.

What I Don’t Like About Arccos

My complaints about Arccos these days are few, but they’re real.

The cost is the biggest issue. Sensors retail for $250 (though the BE15 code brings it to around $212). Then there’s a $199/year subscription. Your first year is free, which helps, but $200 a year is a lot of money, especially if you’re a casual golfer or if you live somewhere like the Northeast and can only play five months out of the year. If you’re only getting out once or twice a month, the per-round cost starts to feel steep. I completely understand everyone who’s decided it’s not worth it for them.

Throw in a second subscription if you want to use the rangefinder, and the total cost of the full Arccos ecosystem is genuinely high. Do I think it’s higher than it should be? Honestly, yes. Do I think there should be a single subscription rather than two separate ones? Also, yes. But they do provide a good product, and you have to decide for yourself if the value is there for how often you play.

The buzzing sound. Apparently, some people can hear a very faint buzzing from the sensors when they’re activated. My hearing isn’t great (I’ve had my left eardrum rebuilt twice), so I’ve never noticed it. But it’s worth knowing that some people find it distracting.

Sensors can loosen over time. Occasionally, after a lot of rounds, the rubber hole a sensor screws into can loosen, and you’ll need to re-tighten it. I haven’t experienced this being much of an issue personally. Yes, every once in awhile one needs to get screwed back in, but this hasn’t been a major issue for me.

That said, I’ve heard from others that they’ve had more frequent problems, so that’s something worth considering.

Beyond that? The accuracy improvements over the last few years have addressed most of the concerns I had previously. If you stopped using Arccos a few years ago because of tracking issues, I’d genuinely encourage you to give it another look.

How Does It Compare to the Alternatives?

I’ve tested the main competitors enough to give you an honest take.

Shot Scope is the one I’d send budget-conscious golfers to first. No subscription, ever. Their V5 or X5 watches automatically track every shot and come with GPS built in, all for around $250–$300 (use Shot Scope code BREAKINGEIGHTY to save 15%). Is the app experience as good as Arccos? No. It feels more dated, more bare-bones, and (last I checked) you can’t edit shots in real time during the round, only after. The user experience gap between Shot Scope and Arccos in 2026 is significant. But if the Arccos subscription model is a dealbreaker, Shot Scope gets the job done, and the price is right. 

Garmin has the CT10 sensors that auto-track shots, but they require a compatible Garmin watch to function — and the cheapest compatible watch is around $299. So you’re looking at $600+ to get started. And while I love Garmin for health and fitness tracking (I’ve switched from Apple Watch to Garmin and I’m not going back), their Garmin Golf app just hasn’t kept up. The maps aren’t great, the shot data isn’t as deep, and the CT10 sensors haven’t seen meaningful updates in years. I keep hoping they’ll do a full overhaul, and maybe they will, but right now it’s not close to Arccos on the shot tracking side. The one exception: if you have a higher-end Garmin golf watch like the Approach S70 or Fenix 8, you can try their built-in shot tracking before buying any sensors, which is worth doing to see if you even like the concept.

My bottom line on comparisons: Arccos is the best. The app is more polished, more accurate, and more useful than anything else out there. But “best” doesn’t mean “right for everyone,” and if the price doesn’t work for you, Shot Scope is a legitimate alternative.

And if you’re a Garmin watch user already? It’s a perfectly capable system as well, just a little lacking on stat tracking and app experience compared to the others.

How Much Does Arccos Cost in 2026?

Product	Price
Smart Sensors	$249.99 (~$212 with code BE15)
Smart Grips	$299.99-$349.99
Arccos Air	$349 (~$297 with code BE15)
Smart Laser	$299 (~254 with code BE15)
Annual Game Tracking Subscription	$199/year (first year free)
Rangefinder Add-on Subscription	$99/year (first year free)

Smart Sensors vs. Smart Grips vs. Arccos Air: Which Should You Get?

Go with Smart Sensors if you’re new to the system, you change clubs frequently, or you want the most flexibility. They’re the most proven, easiest to transfer, and the best starting point for most people.

Go with Smart Grips if you have a stable set of clubs, want the cleanest look without anything sticking out of your grips, and are willing to head to a shop for installation. The experience is more elegant.

Go with Arccos Air if you have a real aversion to putting anything on your clubs, or you already own a Link Pro (in which case you already have it via firmware update and should absolutely try it). Just go in knowing that club identification will require more editing than the sensor-based systems. Also best if you play with rental clubs a lot, and still want to track Arccos data.

Add the Smart Laser if you don’t already have a rangefinder you love, or you’re deep into the ecosystem and want truly automatic pin setting. It’s a legitimate premium rangefinder on its own merits, and the Arccos integration is genuinely useful. Just keep in mind it won’t work at all if you don’t have the rangefinder subscription.

Final Thoughts on the Arccos Golf System

Over four hundred rounds later, I still love Arccos. Still use it for nearly every round I play. I still love digging into the data to figure out what I actually need to be working on.

The system has matured in all the right ways. The biggest friction points from a few years ago, needing your phone in your pocket, not being able to listen to music, having to manually set pins — are all addressed through Arccos Air, Apple Watch integration, and the Smart Laser. The AI caddie recommendations have gotten more useful. The shot detection has gotten more accurate. And the addition of green maps, pre-round strategy tools, and sensorless tracking has made this a legitimately full ecosystem rather than just a stat tracker.

Is it expensive? Yes. More expensive than it should be? Probably. Worth it if you play regularly and care about your game? Absolutely.

If you play more than a couple times a month, like to compete against yourself, and want to really know where your strokes are going, there is nothing else like it. 

Best Golf Game Tracker

Arccos Smart Sensors – Use code “BE15” for 15% off

$249.99 (Before Discount)

Arccos Golf provides tour-level statistics about every aspect of your golf game. And the ecosystem is more robust than ever.

Use code BE15 to save 15%.

Buy from Arccos

We earn a commission if you click this link and make a purchase at no additional cost to you.

Recent Updates:

April 16th, 2026: Full update of the entire Arccos System for 2026. Review of Arccos Sensors, Arccos Grips, Arccos Air, and Smart Laser. Updated features and pricing. Comparisons to other products, and commentary on which of the Arccos golf products are worth buying, and for whom. Added video review as well.

May 1st, 2023: Review of the Arccos Gen 3 sensors

This page contains affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Everything I recommend is something I’ve personally used and stand behind.

Yes, It’s Expensive. But it’s still one of my all time favorite pieces of golf tech.

9.0

Excellent

Over a decade after it’s first release, Arccos golf continues to be the best way for amateurs to get tour level statistics about their game and rounds of golf. It’s not perfect, and the subscription model has turned a lot of people away. But over 400 rounds later, it continues to be an indispensable part of my golf life, and it only continues to improve.

The Good

1. 
   Shot tracking has continued to get more reliable
2. 
   AI features are genuinely useful
3. 
   3 different ways for people to track shots depending on personal preference

The Bad

1. 
   The subscription is steep, especially if you opt for the rangefinder
2. 
   Tracking isn’t perfect, there will always be at least some element of manual adjustment

• Presentation
  10

• Performance
  9

• Features and Quality
  9

• Price
  7

• Personal Affinity
  10