I have a golf simulator running on a Chromebook, and it’s awesome [VIDEO]

If you’ve been around the Chromebook scene for any amount of time, you’re probably familiar with the tired insinuations that Chromebooks aren’t “real laptops” or that you can’t get work done on them. While I’m not here to try and refute every single one of those arguments, I did want to quickly share with all of you this new setup that I’ve been using a Chromebook for because, up until recently, this particular task was relegated to Windows laptops only. But not anymore. Today, I want to show you my golf simulator setup – powered by a Chromebook.

The old, Windows-bound way

Before we get into all that, let me tell you about my previous setup for all this golf simulator stuff. I’ve purchased two Windows gaming laptops in the past year to use for this exact purpose, and both of those laptops never saw any attention outside of golf-related activities. To get things running, particular software with particular drivers and particular bridge applications needed to be installed and run in just the right order to get my Skytrak to talk to my laptop just right so we could play some golf. It’s not a simple setup and is anything but what I would call user friendly.

That’s understandable, of course, since golf launch monitors aren’t exactly your run-of-the-mill consumer devices. They need specialized software, interfaces and drivers to work properly, and while all of that could technically work on a Chromebook or an iPad or Mac with the right attention, most of these software companies have chosen to keep things a bit more siloed – likely for the sake of simplifying development. Let’s face it – people aren’t coming out in droves to buy launch monitors for at-home use. Well, at least the weren’t.

A new type of golf launch monitor

Recently, a new launch monitor by Garmin – the Approach R10 – showed up and caused a bit of a stink in the fledgling at-home golf sim industry. First off, the unit itself costs $599 in a market dominated by “affordable” options that range anywhere from $2000 all the way up to $10K. That upper end is of course reserved for the more-precise devices used for club fitting and tour pros. If you want to get fully crazy with this, you can drop $25k on a Trackman that is so accurate it uses the same radars the military uses to track ballistic missiles. It can all get out of control pretty quickly, so seeing a radar-based unit that is battery powered, small enough to slip in your golf bag, and costs only a tiny fraction of the current devices on offer is already a pretty big deal.

Along with this little launch monitor also came a simple way to wirelessly connect devices to it via the Garmin Golf mobile app, and that app holds the key to letting users take advantage of something like a Chromebook to run a full-fledged simulator bay. Garmin’s golf app allows for other 3rd-party apps to integrate with it, and one of those applications is a new one on the scene called Awesome Golf Simulator.

A new type of simulator software

As the name implies, it is awesome. Built completely around mobile apps and family-focused gaming, Awesome Golf leverages the Garmin Approach R10 to give you access to a powerful driving range, tons of mini-games and challenges, and even access to 4 full-sized courses with more on the way. It’s been a wildly-fun time using the Awesome Golf Simulator software, and it is specifically because of the developer’s mobile-friendly setup that we’ve been able to play tons of golf using the Approach R10 and a Chromebook.

The setup is dead simple, and though this isn’t a how-to video, I can tell you that getting Awesome Golf Simulator installed on your Chromebook and connected to the Approach R10 takes all of about 5 minutes. Simply get the app on your Chromebook from the Play Store and install the Garmin Golf app on your phone along with the Awesome Golf Assistant app. Once you have the R10 set up via the walk-through provided by the Garmin Golf app, you can launch the Awesome Golf Assistant on your phone, launch Awesome Golf on your Chromebook, connect via the Assistant app, and you’re off and running with a completely wireless setup.

It was all so simple and seamless that I was mesmerized the first time we got it all running. The Chromebook makes a great fit for the simulator setup since it makes external display setup a cinch, and once you are projecting your screen where you choose (you could just as easily just monitor your shots on your Chromebook’s built-in display if you chose to), playing rounds of golf or mini games feels at-home and natural on a Chromebook. Shots register quickly, the interface works with touchscreen or mouse input, and there’s no part of the equation that feels half-baked or hack-y. It just works!

Chromebooks are more capable than most think

And that’s precisely why I wanted to share this with you all. The number of our viewers that will run out and buy the Garmin Approach R10 and Awesome Golf Simulator is not high, but that’s not really the point. Instead, just as it is happening with video editing and gaming on Chromebooks, the number of things you can’t do on a Chromebook just keeps dwindling, and I love it.

Sure, you can’t run other golf sim software on a Chromebook at this point due to the fact that those apps are written for Windows only, but the fact that I can run this setup with just my Chromebook is a testament to where development is headed and how Chromebooks fit into that equation in the future. As mobile devices become the target for more and more of this type of software, Chromebooks are part of that conversation just as much as phones and tablets are.

We’re a ways off from seeing most specified software like golf simulators being built for Android, Linux or the web, but Awesome Golf Simulator running on my Chromebook makes me wonder what else is possible. What is the next thing that arises that I never thought I’d do on a Chromebook that turns out to not only be possible, but awesome, too? I don’t share this fun, interesting setup with you to encourage you to start playing golf or pick up a Garmin R10 as much as I do to assure you that Chromebooks are growing in their abilities, and developers are beginning to finally see the worth in making apps that are outside the box for them as well.