Home vs Commercial Golf Simulator
The technology is the same family — but the goals, the kit spec, and the budget are quite different. Here's how to know which build you're actually planning.
What are you actually trying to do?
Before screen sizes and launch monitor specs, the single most useful question is: who uses this, and how often?
A home setup is used by one household — typically one or two regular golfers, maybe the family on weekends. Sessions are voluntary; nobody is paying per bay. The priority is swing improvement, a bit of fun, and the ability to play a round when the weather is miserable. Downtime between sessions is fine. If something needs adjusting, you ring JP.
A commercial setup — a golf club's indoor bays, a coaching studio, a hotel suite, an entertainment venue — runs on footfall. Multiple strangers hit off the same mat every day, software needs to reset cleanly between sessions, and a breakdown during a busy Saturday evening is a genuine business problem. Durability, ease of reset, and reliability under continuous use are the spec items that matter most.
Simulated Sports does both. The conversation starts in the same place either way — dimensions, goals, and budget — but the recommendations diverge from there.
Room requirements: what changes, what stays the same
The physics of swinging a driver don't change depending on who owns the building, so the minimum dimensions are the same:
Height: 3m (10ft) recommended; 2.8m (9ft) is the bare minimum
Width: 4.5m ideally — you need 2.2m clear either side of the hitting point
Length: around 6m from back wall to screen; this gives you a comfortable 3m ball-to-screen distance with 2m behind to swing freely
What does change is the structural finish. A home room — garage conversion, garden room, spare bedroom with an apex roof — can be adapted around its quirks. We've built into 8ft ceilings by cutting into the ceiling above the swing arc, set up off-centre hitting positions for tight widths, and fitted retractable screens where access doors need to stay clear. Every home install is different.
A commercial room is designed for efficiency. Clean sightlines, easy-to-clean flooring, wall and ceiling pads that stand up to years of wayward shots, and clear screen-to-projector geometry that a new user can step into without calibration. If you're building the room from scratch, this is your opportunity to design the height, width and length in from the start and avoid the workarounds entirely.
For exact dimensions and the off-centre trick for tight spaces, see our room design guide.
Where the spec diverges
The component list — launch monitor, screen/enclosure, projector, flooring, PC — is the same for both. The tier within each component is where home and commercial builds differ.
Launch monitor. For home use, a photometric monitor like SkyTrak+ gives reliable shot data for practice and course play. Radar monitors (Mevo+, Garmin R10/R50) work well but need a longer room length — generally 5.5m minimum from tee to back wall, versus about 5m for overhead/side-mounted units. For a coaching studio or professional facility, a full-data Doppler radar system (TrackMan 4/IO, Uneekor EYE XO, Foresight GC3/GCQuad) provides the club-delivery and ball-flight metrics that coaches rely on — and that require a higher investment: launch monitors alone run from €595 up to €20,600 depending on the system.
Screen & enclosure. A DIY SQ screen-and-trim kit (€1,200–€2,000) is fine for a home golfer who wants a clean setup without the full enclosure bulk. A full SQ SimCube enclosure (€2,750–€3,750 plus €500 delivery and installation) — with side walls, a containment ceiling and commercial-grade Par2Pro impact material — is the standard for clubs, coaching studios and venues where the screen takes dozens of full-speed driver strikes a day. A retractable GTS Ultra Stealth screen (€2,500–€3,500 plus delivery/install) suits driving range bays or rooms where the space doubles up for another use.
Projector. Both builds benefit from a laser projector — more reliable over time than lamp-based units and better brightness in a commercial environment. A Panasonic 6,000-lumen laser projector with a UNICOL ceiling mount is our recommendation for a studio where ambient light can vary. For a dark home room, a shorter-throw unit with lower lumen output can deliver excellent results at a lower price.
Flooring. Home installs typically layer cushioned underlay, putt turf and a 400mm × 800mm hitting strip. A commercial floor takes the same approach but specifies higher-durability materials and a larger footprint — the Studio 22 Dublin installation, for example, covered 6m × 5m of flooring with a 6m × 4m putting surface.
PC & software. Home use is well served by a mid-spec gaming PC running E6 Connect, TGC Tours, or GSPro. A coaching studio may want a high-spec build to run TrackMan software and render 4K course graphics smoothly, plus a wall-mounted touchscreen for coach and student to review data side by side.
What each type of build actually costs
Pricing follows use case quite closely.
Home builds:
Basic net-and-mat starter with a launch monitor — from around €2,615
Our most popular complete home package, the Sim-in-a-Box bundle — €8,995 — includes everything needed for a working simulator in one delivery
Fully bespoke home install, designed around your specific room with premium components — €10,000–€20,000
Commercial builds sit at the upper end of the range and above it. A coaching studio fitted with a TrackMan IO, a custom 5m × 3m screen, a laser projector and a high-spec gaming PC — similar to our Studio 22 Dublin installation — is a substantial investment. Multi-bay commercial venues scale accordingly. Exact pricing depends on the number of bays, chosen launch monitors, and the fit-out specification — a consultation is the right starting point.
One honest note: the most expensive simulator is the one you fit to the wrong use case. A home golfer putting a commercial enclosure in a 2.7m-ceiling garage, or a club trying to save money with a home-tier launch monitor that can't hold up to 40 rounds a day — both create problems that cost more to fix than to avoid. Getting the spec right at the outset is the whole point of the consultation.
See our full pricing page for a transparent breakdown by tier.
Day-to-day life with a simulator
At home, once it's installed, a golf simulator is remarkably low-maintenance. The main consumable is the hitting mat and strip — a quality mat will last years under moderate use. Keep the projector lens clean and the screen free of debris, and the setup will run reliably for a long time. Software updates happen in the background. If anything needs attention, we're a phone call away.
Commercial installations benefit from a more structured maintenance schedule: regular mat inspection and replacement, projector lamp-hour or laser-hour tracking, screen surface checks (Par2Pro's SQ impact material is built for continuous use, but a busy venue should inspect it periodically), and periodic software calibration checks. Building that schedule into the operating plan from day one avoids the scramble of fixing something mid-session.
Either way, the investment is well protected when the initial spec is right. A home simulator that fits the room and budget provides years of year-round practice and entertainment — and removes every excuse for a bad round.
Not sure yet which category your project falls into? That's a perfectly normal place to start. Ring us on 01 582 6935, or book a €50 consultation at our Belgard Road demo centre — it's fully redeemable against your order. Also see room design and golf simulators for more on components.
Home build or commercial fit-out — let's spec it correctly
Tell us your space, your footfall and your budget. We'll recommend the right tier of kit for your actual use case — no over-spec, no corners cut. Book a €50 consultation (fully redeemable) or call **01 582 6935**. See also [/pricing](/pricing) and [/room-design](/room-design).
Or call us directly: 01 582 6935