Connected Devices

LoadOut talks to four kinds of hardware, and is precise about which is which. A weather meter, a shot timer and a rifle level are live Bluetooth reads. A chronograph is a file or a photograph, never a radio. None of it is required: every number these devices supply can be typed by hand, free, on every tier.

Where devices live

Everything pairs in one place: Settings › Connected Devices, in four sub-sections.

Bluetooth meters and the shot timer pair on the phone, the tablet, and a Mac with Bluetooth. The web app runs the workspace (recipes, firearms, your data) without them, and watches pair only with a phone.

Weather meters

A weather meter reads the air where you are standing and hands it to the solver in one tap, instead of you reading numbers off one screen and typing them into another.

Kestrel 5-series

The landing carries a Before You Pair card, with steps verified on the device:

1. Turn on LiNK in the meter's Bluetooth menu.
2. Keep the meter within a few yards of your phone while it pairs. That is where to stand, not a claim about the radio's reach.
3. Tap Add a Kestrel, pick your meter out of the scan, and name it if you want: Firing Line, say, rather than a serial number.

Once a meter is paired, Read From Meter is the main button under the environment fields, in the Environment and Wind sheets on the Ballistics page and in Range Day's Advanced tab. One tap writes temperature, station pressure, humidity, wind speed and true wind direction into your inputs, with the meter's own station elevation, which lets density altitude be derived rather than guessed. The wind is averaged over five seconds first, on an Averaging Wind screen with a Use Spot Reading button for when you would rather not wait. What the meter does after that read is your call, and Live Feed or Snapshots below covers it.

WeatherFlow WEATHERmeter

1. Turn your meter on.
2. Keep the meter within a few yards of your phone while it pairs.
3. Tap Add a WEATHERmeter and pick it out of the scan.

It reads temperature, station pressure, humidity and wind speed exactly as a Kestrel does. Two things differ, and are stated rather than smoothed over:

The shipped note says what happens meanwhile: Until then, LoadOut leaves the direction blank rather than guessing. Temperature, pressure, humidity, and wind speed all read normally. If you calibrated it in the WeatherFlow app, LoadOut picks that up on connect.

Calypso

1. Turn your meter on.
2. Keep the meter near your phone, and make sure no other app is connected to it.
3. Tap Add a Calypso and pick it out of the scan.

Pairing lives in Settings › Connected Devices › Weather Meters › Calypso Wind Meter, beside the other two.

Three products pair here, and they do not all measure the same things. Each meter tells LoadOut what it carries when it connects, so the fields you get are the ones your own meter can fill:

Every one of them also reports its battery level.

Wind direction is measured from the meter's own body, against the orientation mark on its side, because a Calypso carries no compass. So LoadOut needs the one thing the meter cannot tell it, which is how that mark lines up with your shot. You say so in Set Up Direction, either by pointing the mark at your target or by letting your phone's compass measure which way the mark points. Until you do, LoadOut will not guess a direction for the wind, and its speed is held back, as the sections below explain. A WeatherDot has nothing to set up, because it reads no direction to begin with.

On Live Feed, a heading you gave through your phone is set once and then carries: LoadOut reads every live wind angle against it for the rest of the session. The strip's detail line names which heading is in use and how old it is, reading heading 214° true, set 4 minutes ago, because a current reading can be sitting on a stale reference. While a Calypso feeds you live and something is missing, the strip says what. On the Ballistics page, a Calypso that is not set up gets Wind direction needs setting up. with a Set Up Direction button. On the Custom DOPE Card, the Hit Probability Map and Scope View, a Calypso still waiting for a heading gets Wind direction needs a heading. with a Set Heading button, which runs the Meter Heading step and then reads the meter again. Once a heading is held, those three screens and the Ballistics page keep Set Heading on the strip, so you can set it again when you turn the meter. A fresh Read From Meter on a Calypso set up through your phone, with a location, asks for the heading again and replaces the old one.

A Calypso will not hand over a reading until LoadOut has authenticated to it, which is the meter's own rule rather than a LoadOut one. A build carrying no Calypso credential says so plainly, under Not Enabled in This Build: This build carries no Calypso credential, so LoadOut can pair a Calypso meter but cannot read from it. A build with the credential reads normally; nothing about your meters is lost in the meantime. Pairing still works, your paired meters are still listed, and nothing you have saved is affected. The credential is a separate thing from Pro: a build without one cannot read even with Pro, and Pro does not supply it.

Forgetting a meter disconnects it and removes it from this phone, along with what LoadOut learned about it: its product, sensors and firmware. If the meter has Weather History, that is erased too, including on phones you sync. None of it can be undone, but you can pair the meter again any time and LoadOut reads its product, sensors and firmware back off it.

Live Feed or Snapshots

A weather meter can feed your solution in two ways, and LoadOut does not pick one for you. Live Feed starts off. When a Kestrel, a WEATHERmeter or a Calypso connects and you have not chosen yet, a pop-up asks Live Feed or Snapshots? and names the meter: Firing Line is connected. Pick how it should feed your wind. A Read From Meter you tap yourself does not bring the pop-up up. It waits for that meter's next ordinary connection.

Neither button is picked for you. Close the pop-up without choosing and the meter stays on Snapshots, and LoadOut asks again the next time that meter connects. Live Feed is part of Pro, the same as reading a meter at all.

Choose Live Feed and, if that meter's direction is not set up yet, Set Up Direction opens straight away, after any Android notification prompt has closed. Snapshots, a paywall you close, and a pop-up you dismiss open nothing.

You can change your mind. A paired meter's ⋮ menu carries Follow This Meter, which reads Keeps pulling readings and updating your solution while you shoot. Turn it off to pull once at a time and use less battery. Beside the main button under the environment fields, the chevron opens a menu with a Live Feed row for the meter, and while a feed runs that main button turns into Stop.

While a Live Feed runs, a strip on the screens that show your solution says Following, names the meter, and gives the reading's age and whether the wind is an average or a spot reading. Freeze holds the last reading and the strip says Frozen; Follow starts the feed again. Collapse folds the strip down to a small marker, and Dismiss closes it while the feed keeps running. A small colored circle by the wind or hold readout keeps saying a feed is on: tap it to see what it means, and tap again to bring the strip back. If the link drops, the strip says Link Dropped and names the age of the reading still on screen instead of presenting it as live.

Wind direction and the Shot Azimuth

A meter reports where the wind comes from, and LoadOut works that out as a bearing against north. Your solution wants it as a clock position against the shot, with 12 o'clock toward the target and 3 o'clock from your right. What turns the one into the other is the direction of your shot, which comes from the screen's Shot Azimuth or from an aim you gave the meter itself, both covered below. LoadOut will not guess a direction to cover for a missing one. So when a reading has a wind speed but no direction that fits your shot, the speed is held back instead of being applied at an invented angle, and the screen says so in a notice box. On the Ballistics page it reads Wind 10 mph not applied: it needs a direction. Set a Shot Azimuth, or dial one under Wind.

The button under that sentence depends on why. If the meter is connected and not set up yet, it is Set Up Direction. If the meter is set up, the reading has a bearing and the screen's Shot Azimuth is empty, it is Set Shot Azimuth, which on the Ballistics page opens the Target sheet, where the Azimuth field and Point Phone Downrange fill the number in. Otherwise the sentence stands alone. Finish either one and the held wind lands at once, with no second read from the meter. While a Live Feed runs on the Ballistics page, the status line also names where the newest reading's wind is coming from, as from 3 o'clock, or as from 245° WSW when there is no direction of fire yet to put it on the clock, so a meter pointed the wrong way shows.

The same rule holds wherever a meter's wind is taken: the Ballistics page, the Target Card, the Custom DOPE Card, Configure Profile, Range Day, the Hit Probability Map, Scope View's strip and the Match Day card. Each says so on its own screen, and Match Day asks you to set Wind From or Shot Azimuth in Get Conditions. The Hit Probability Map has no Shot Azimuth of its own, so it offers Set Up Direction and never Set Shot Azimuth. A wind speed of zero counts as calm and is never held back.

Set Up Direction

A meter's wind only goes on the clock once LoadOut knows how the meter lines up with your shot, and nothing is assumed about that. Set Up Direction asks: LoadOut can only turn the meter's wind into a clock direction once it knows how the meter lines up with your shot. Pick how you want to show it. There are two choices, worded for the meter in your hand.

Neither choice is picked for a meter you have never set up, and the one you finished last shows selected the next time you open it. A choice is stored when its step is finished, so backing out of a step stores nothing.

• Calypso, Aimed at the Target. A step says Point the orientation mark on the meter at your target and leave the meter where it is. Tap Set Aim, then Done on Aim set. LoadOut shows how long ago you set it. It cannot tell if the meter gets turned, so it asks again after a restart. The wind lands on the clock at once, with no Shot Azimuth, because the mark is your line of fire.
• Calypso, Use My Phone. Two compass steps. Meter Heading asks you to hold the phone flat with its top pointing the way the mark points, then Shot Direction asks for its top at your target, and each ends on Use This Direction. A phone's compass points to magnetic north, so true bearings need your location. With none, the two magnetic bearings still work together, because both are measured against the same north, and the step ends on Shot direction set, so the wind goes on the clock now. The Shot Azimuth needs your location to be a true bearing, so it stays empty.
• Kestrel or WEATHERmeter, Aimed at the Target. Opens Aim With Meter.
• Kestrel or WEATHERmeter, Use My Phone. The meter's own bearing stands, and only your shot needs a direction. On the Ballistics page the page's own Point Phone Downrange runs and fills the Azimuth. Anywhere else the Shot Direction compass step runs by itself, and LoadOut holds that direction for the meter so each screen can take it once. A Kestrel reads true north and cannot use a magnetic phone bearing, so away from the Ballistics page and with no location it says Your phone's compass needs your location before it can give a true direction, and it is not available yet. Turn on Location for LoadOut, or choose Aimed at the Target, which needs no location.

The setup also says why it cannot finish, and stores nothing when it cannot. A WEATHERmeter with an uncalibrated compass is told to calibrate it first. A Kestrel model that sends no direction is told This meter's readings carry no wind direction, so there is nothing for the direction of your shot to line up with. Some models do not report one.

You can open Set Up Direction from several places:

• The meter's card. In Settings › Connected Devices, a connected meter that is not set up carries an outlined Set Up Direction button, and its ⋮ menu has a Set Up Direction row whenever the meter is connected. The row's caption says where things stand: Not set up yet, Set 2 minutes ago, or Aimed at the target, set 2 minutes ago for a Calypso aimed with its mark. A Kestrel model that sends no direction has no door at all.
• Right after Live Feed. It opens when you pick Live Feed for a meter that is not set up.
• Read From Meter. For a Calypso that is not set up, a read on the Ballistics page, the Target Card, Configure Profile, the Match Day card or Range Day opens the setup where the Meter Heading step used to open, and the read then uses what you gave.
• The held wind box and the strip. The button in the box above, and on the Ballistics page the strip's Wind direction needs setting up. line. Once the meter is set up, the Ballistics page's strip names your direction of fire, as shot direction 155° true, set 2 minutes ago, aim set 2 minutes ago or heading 155° true, set 2 minutes ago, and tapping that part opens the setup again.
• The menu beside Read From Meter. On the Ballistics page's Environment and Wind sheets and in Configure Profile, it has a Direction group with a Set Up Direction row and the same caption.

What a setup produces is kept for the session only. A meter can be bumped or left on a bench overnight, so an aim, a Calypso's heading and a phone's shot direction are forgotten when LoadOut restarts. A meter set up with Aimed at the Target, and a Calypso set up through your phone, then ask again. A Kestrel or WEATHERmeter on Use My Phone stays set up, because its own bearing stands. Your last choice is remembered and shows selected.

Aim With Meter

A Kestrel with a compass, or a WEATHERmeter whose compass you have calibrated, can read the direction of your shot with its own compass. Aim With Meter sits under the Shot Azimuth box on four screens: the Ballistics page's Target sheet, under Point Phone Downrange; Configure Profile's Advanced card, under Firing Azimuth; Range Day's Advanced tab, under Shot Azimuth in Orientation & Angles; and the Match Day card, under Shot Azimuth in Get Conditions. It shows only while a meter that can aim is connected and sending readings, and with none the button is not there at all. A Calypso never gets it, because it has no compass and is aimed through its mark in Set Up Direction. On the Target sheet and in Configure Profile a ? beside it says Aim your Kestrel or WEATHERmeter at your target. Its own compass reads the direction you're shooting, and LoadOut fills in Azimuth with it once it can be corrected to true north.

1. Raise the meter. The step is titled Aimed at the Target. For a Kestrel it says Hold the Kestrel upright with the back of the unit pointed at your target. Then tap Aim With Meter. For a WEATHERmeter it says Hold the WEATHERmeter the way you hold it for a wind reading, but facing your target. It waits for a fresh reading, and a reading from before the step opened never counts.
2. Hold it steady. The bearing shows large, captioned corrected to true north, or magnetic north, your location is not available to correct it when LoadOut has no location. The Aim With Meter button turns on once the last three fresh bearings sit within 5 degrees of each other.
3. Tap Aim With Meter. The step reads Shot direction set to 272° W. Now measure the wind as usual, with the back of the Kestrel into the wind. The WEATHERmeter's version leaves out the back of the Kestrel. The screen's Shot Azimuth takes that bearing in whole degrees, and a wind that was held back lands at once.

A WEATHERmeter aimed with no location keeps its aim magnetic: Aim set, so the wind goes on the clock now. The Shot Azimuth needs your location to be a true bearing, so this aim leaves it empty. The wind still lands, because the meter's wind and its aim come off the same compass, and a magnetic number is never written into a Shot Azimuth. An uncalibrated WEATHERmeter says The WEATHERmeter's compass has to be calibrated before it can aim. Calibrate it, then come back. and offers Calibrate Compass. Cancel records nothing, while Done or the system Back after you have tapped Aim With Meter keeps the aim.

One direction of fire per screen

Each screen with a Shot Azimuth keeps one direction of fire, and the newest one you gave decides. An aim, or a direction from your phone, is written into a screen's Shot Azimuth once. Type a number there afterwards and yours stands: the meter's next readings do not put the aim back. Aim again and the new aim replaces what you typed. The Ballistics page, its Target Card and Configure Profile share the profile's one Shot Azimuth. Range Day has one for the session, and the Match Day card has one for the match. An aim you gave on one of them reaches the others at their next reading, once each, unless you set that screen's Shot Azimuth after the aim.

A Calypso aimed with its mark has no compass bearing to write, so it never fills a Shot Azimuth. The aim alone puts its wind on the clock, and a number typed into a Shot Azimuth does not move it.

Match Day's stage uses the card's direction. The first time a stage applies a reading from an aimed meter, the match writes that aim into the match's Shot Azimuth, so the card and every stage solve from one direction of fire. A Calypso aimed with its mark lands on the stage too, with no Shot Azimuth. The stage page itself looks the same and gains no new button. A meter nobody aimed behaves as before: its bearing turns through the match's Shot Azimuth, and with none the stage holds the speed back.

The Direction row on a meter's card

On a meter's card in Settings, the Direction row states the wind's direction the way your setup describes it, and says how old that setup is. The age counts up as time passes.

A WEATHERmeter aimed with no location shows the clock alone, because a magnetic bearing is never shown as true, and the note says why.

Weather History

Every paired meter has a Weather History row in its ⋮ menu. While the meter is connected, LoadOut records what it reports on this phone, and the screen draws it as charts you can drag a finger across, one for each thing your meter measures. The chips along the top set the window: 1h, 6h, 24h, 7d and All, which runs from the meter's earliest reading up to now.

The Recordings list under the chart follows the same chips, newest first. Each row is one stretch of readings recorded without a break, with its start and end time and how long it ran, and tapping a row frames that stretch on the chart. The ⋮ menu inside Weather History holds the Record Weather History switch, which is on unless you turn it off and is set separately on each phone, and Clear Weather History, which asks you to confirm before it erases the meter's history, including on phones you sync.

When LoadOut is in the background

A forgotten Bluetooth link drains a phone battery, so LoadOut does not hold a weather meter open indefinitely. A meter that is neither on Live Feed nor recording Weather History disconnects the moment LoadOut leaves the screen. A meter that is on Live Feed or recording keeps its link, but not forever: after the time you have set for its brand, LoadOut disconnects it too. Recording is on unless you switch it off, so a meter you have not touched takes the second path. LoadOut checks the clock whenever the phone wakes it, so on an iPhone a quiet meter can stay linked a little past that time, and it is always settled by the time you open LoadOut again.

That time is a setting called Disconnect in the Background After, and each brand has its own. It is a row on the brand's own screen, the one where you pair and manage that brand's meters, below the list of meters, and it is not in the general Settings list. It shows only while at least one meter of that brand is paired. The row reads How long your Kestrels stay connected while LoadOut is in the background. (Kestrels, WEATHERmeters or Calypsos, to match the screen) with its current value before the chevron, 1 Hour until you choose. It opens a page with six lengths, 15 Minutes, 30 Minutes, 1 Hour, 2 Hours, 4 Hours and 8 Hours, and there is no Never. The page says what the length covers: This setting covers all your Kestrels and no other wind meters. So a Kestrel can sit at 1 hour while a Calypso sits at 30 minutes, and a choice on one brand changes nothing for another.

When you come back, LoadOut tells you once, in a bar that stays until you act on it: LoadOut disconnected Firing Line after 1 hour in the background to save your phone's battery. Because each brand has its own length, one absence can end meters at different lengths, and the bar then names each length with the meters it ended: LoadOut disconnected Spotter after 30 minutes and Firing Line after 1 hour in the background to save your phone's battery. Meters that share a length are named together, as Firing Line and Spotter after 1 hour, or Firing Line and 2 more wind meters after 1 hour once there are three. Tap Reconnect once to bring back every meter the bar names, or close the bar. A meter that was disconnected this way stays paired and stays disconnected until you connect it again, with Reconnect, Read From Meter, Live Feed or its device screen.

What applies to every meter

Android 12 or newer is required for any Bluetooth meter, and it is a permission decision rather than a radio one: before Android 12 a Bluetooth scan required location access, and asking for your location to read a thermometer is a prompt whose stated reason and real reason do not match. On Android 12 the app asks for exactly what it uses, so LoadOut requests no location permission for Bluetooth at all.

The SG Timer

Pro LoadOut reads a Shooters Global shot timer over Bluetooth and logs every split into your record at the timer's own millisecond times, joined to the firearm and load you were shooting. Nothing gets rounded on the way and nothing gets transcribed afterwards. The SG Timer, SG Timer 2 and SG Timer GO all work.

1. Pair it. Settings › Connected Devices › Shot Timers › SG Timer. Turn the timer on, keep it near your phone while it pairs, and tap Add an SG Timer.
2. Check where the shots are going. The live page states its destination before you fire, reading Logging to: Range Day with the session named, or Logging to: your shot record with a Start a Range Day Session button beside it. A shot never lands somewhere you were not shown.
3. Run the string. The page walks Ready → Armed → Running → Stopped, with Suspended for a paused string. While armed it says how it will start: Starting in N s, or Starting after a random delay of 1.0 to 4.0 s chosen by the timer.
4. Read the shot list. Three columns: #, From Beep and Split. The first row reads Draw, because there is no previous shot to be split from.

Par comes off the timer's own setup and is shown as such: Par 8 s · from the timer's own setup, or No Par. LoadOut does not invent one.

A missing shot is named, not smoothed over

Bluetooth drops packets. When one does, the row says exactly that: Shot 4 was not received. The timer counted it. Import from the timer to fill it. A count line keeps both numbers visible: Timer counted 12 · LoadOut received 11. If the link goes down mid-string it says so, with the time, and notes that the timer may still be running.

Import From Timer

Import From Timer reads the sessions the timer already stored: Sessions stored on your timer, newest first. Dates come from the timer's own clock. Reading one takes an exchange per shot, so a long list takes a moment, and the screen says so instead of looking stalled.

A timer whose clock was never set produces sessions dated 1970, and those arrive with a Date Needed chip: Timer clock not set. You will be asked when this string was fired. You supply the date; LoadOut does not guess. Splits import as exact differences of the timer's own times.

You can also drive the timer from the phone with Start, Suspend and Stop, and a refused or unanswered command says which it was, and that nothing changed.

This is for your own practice: it does not score you against anybody, and says nothing about what any organization allows.

The SG Pulse

Pro LoadOut works with the Shooters Global SG Pulse and SG Pulse Pro, a level that mounts on your rifle. Over Bluetooth it shows your cant live, logs every shot the Pulse detects into your record, and records the wobble before each one. A Pulse Pro also runs timed strings, so it doubles as a shot timer.

Connecting a Pulse

The Pulse pairs on its own page, My SG Pulse Levels: Settings › Connected Devices › Rifle Levels › SG Pulse.

1. Turn the Pulse on.
2. Keep the Pulse near your phone while it pairs.
3. Close any other app connected to the Pulse, the Shooters Global Drills app included.
4. Tap Add an SG Pulse and tap Pair beside it in the scan.

If pairing fails, the page says what to try. A Pulse Pro needs pairing mode turned on first (Settings › Bluetooth › Pairing mode on the Pulse), and it keeps up to eight phones. On an SG Pulse, hold the power button until the blue light blinks four times, which unpairs any other phone.

A paired Pulse shows as its model and serial, as SG Pulse Pro · 1234, until you rename it. Its card shows the connection, signal and battery, the firmware, and the live cant once it is connected. The buttons on the card are Open Level, Open Timer on a Pulse Pro, Drills, and Cards on This Pulse on a Pulse that takes Target Cards. Under them, Mounted On says which rifle or ballistic profile the Pulse is on, and Shot and Timer Source picks whether shots come from the SG Pulse, LoadOut or both. The card's ⋮ has Rename Device, Disconnect and Forget Device.

The Level

Open Level on the card, or Rifle Level in the ⋮ on the Ballistics page or a Range Day session, opens the Level screen. Before you fire it says where your shots will go, as Logging to: Range Day, Logging to: Practice Session or Logging to: Dry Fire Practice, and which rifle the Pulse is mounted on.

Live, it shows your cant, the barrel's angle, and a wobble trace that reads Steady, Settling or Moving against the Pulse's green and yellow zones. Under that is a count of shots detected and the shot list, newest first, with the split between shots and a Replay button on each. A plain SG Pulse reports a shot as a count with no time, so it shows no splits. On a Pulse Pro the timer line reads Timer: Ready · Par 8 s with Start, Stop and Open Timer.

Use as Range Day Level lets Range Day's cant correction read this Pulse, one Pulse at a time, once the Pulse is verified on your rifle. The Level's ⋮ holds Drills, Calibrate, Turn On Dry Fire, Dry Fire Settings, Pulse Settings, Test Beep on a Pulse that sounds alerts, and Send Target Card to Pulse on a Pulse that takes cards. Rows that need the Pulse say Available once the Pulse is connected. until it is.

Dry Fire

When you practice with an empty rifle, tap Turn On Dry Fire in the Level's ⋮. Your shots then go to a dry fire practice session, never to a barrel or your live fire figures, and your wobble is still recorded. It turns itself off each time LoadOut opens, and it cannot be changed while a string runs.

The Pulse's own shot detector does not pick up dry fire, so LoadOut finds those shots from how the Pulse moves. Dry Fire Settings, from the Level's ⋮ or its row on My SG Pulse Levels, sets how:

Review Shots lists a session's shots in groups: Detected, Possible Shots, Added by You and Marked Not My Shot, with Waiting for You on top when Review Before Saving is on. Each shot has Replay, and you can mark one Not My Shot or move a possible one in with Count It. Possible Shots are moments LoadOut looked at and did not count, each with the reason, such as An unsteady hold or A small jump. Add a Shot the Pulse Missed adds one by hand, with no time and no reads, because nobody measured when you fired it.

Calibration

There are two kinds, and they do different jobs.

Drills

Drills, on the card or in the Level's ⋮, lists LoadOut's seven drills and any you make yourself with New Drill. A drill sets the position, the shots, a par and how steady your hold has to be. Pick one and tap Open on Level to run it. To change one of LoadOut's, tap Make My Own Copy.

In a Build you start out of position and build it on the beep. In a Hold you start in position, on target, and fire on the beep. In a Transition you fire from the first position, then move through the rest in order. A plain SG Pulse has no timer, so on it a drill runs for the wobble before each shot, with no times and no par.

Training History

Training History opens from the Drills list, or from History on a drill. It keeps your drill runs, and under Stage Rehearsals the runs you started from a Match Day stage, the latest first. It is free to read, so your history stays open to you without Pro.

The Pulse Pro's Timer

A Pulse Pro is a shot timer as well as a level. Open Timer, on its card or the Level's timer line, opens the full timer screen while the Pulse is connected. It is the same screen the SG Timer uses, with Start, Suspend, Resume, Stop and Set Par. A Pulse Pro can also start at a heard beep: see Start at a Heard Beep.

Shot Replay

Shot Replay plays back the cant, the movement and the level your Pulse recorded in the seconds before it reported each shot. Open it with Replay on a shot, on the Level, in Review Shots, in Shooter Stats, on a Range Day session or on a drill result. It draws the wobble and cant on a timeline in the green, yellow and red zones, marks where the Pulse reported the shot, and splits the time into Before the Shot, Shot and Follow Through. You can play, pause, step one reading at a time, change the speed and loop it, and Compare With a Shot lays another shot beside it.

How much it keeps before each shot is Replay Span, on My SG Pulse Levels: 1 s, 2 s, 3 s or 5 s, and 3 s unless you change it.

Pulse Settings

Pulse Settings, in the Level's ⋮ while the Pulse is connected, shows every setting on the Pulse as the Pulse reports it when the page opens. On top is Shots and Wobble: Shot Sensitivity, and the Green Zone and Yellow Zone that decide when your hold reads steady or settling. All Device Settings opens the rest: Level, Timer, Beeps, LEDs, Units, Clock and Device. The Timer, Beeps, Units and Clock groups carry a Pro badge because they need a Pulse Pro; that badge is about the hardware, not about LoadOut Pro.

A change writes straight to the Pulse, and the row says whether it was saved, refused, or never sent because the link was down. A value outside the range Shooters Global publishes is not sent at all. LoadOut sets the Pulse's clock to your phone's time whenever the two drift more than a minute apart.

Test Beep and Beep Alerts

A Pulse that sounds alerts has a Beeps group in Pulse Settings: Beep Alerts to let the Pulse sound the alerts it holds, and its Beep Duration, Beep Frequency and Beeps per Alert. Test Beep, there or in the Level's ⋮, plays one alert at those three values so you can hear it. Nothing is stored.

Beep at Par and Warnings, under Shots and Wobble, is LoadOut's own setting rather than the Pulse's. On Start, it writes one alert at your par and one at each warning checkpoint from your stage timer defaults. Quiet Mode turns the whole thing off.

Timer Capture

Timer Capture lets your phone hear a shot timer's start beep and start your session at that moment. It works with any shot timer, and nothing has to be paired or connected: the phone just listens for the beep. Your shots and splits then count from the beep.

It runs on an iPhone or an Android phone. To open it, tap ⋮ and choose Listen for Timer. The row is in the ⋮ menu on three screens:

• Range Day, on every tab of a session, the Stage Plan tab included.
• A Match Day stage, its stage plan included.
• The Target Card, on the Ballistics page's Target Card tab.

While the panel is open, the same row reads Close Timer Capture.

The first time

The first time you tap Listen for Timer, a short tutorial opens: The Beep Starts Your Session, Set It Up, and Listen, Shoot, Done. It shows once. Skip and Get Started both go straight on to listening, because listening is what you asked for.

Then your phone asks for the microphone. That is the only time LoadOut asks, and it asks because you tapped Listen for Timer, never on its own. If you say no, the panel says Microphone access is off for LoadOut. Allow it in Settings, then listen again. Beside it are an Open Settings button, which takes you to LoadOut in your phone's settings, and a Listen Again link. Turn the microphone on there, come back, and tap Listen Again.

A phone with no microphone LoadOut can use gets Can't listen: the microphone isn't available. and only the × to close the panel.

Listening for the beep

The panel sits at the foot of the screen and counts down while it waits: Listening for the start beep · 72 s left of 90 s, with a bar that shrinks as the time runs out. Keep the phone where it can hear the timer, on a belt or the bench rather than in a pocket.

It waits up to 90 seconds unless you change it. That length is Listen Timeout in the Garmin watch's Stage Timer Defaults, from 30 to 180 seconds.

• Cancel stops listening and leaves the panel open, reading Stopped listening. with Listen Again.
• No beep in time. The panel says No beep heard in 90 s. and offers Listen Again, or Start Without Beep.

When the beep is heard

The panel turns green and reads Beep heard at 9:41:07. The start triggered your session. The clock runs from the beep, with your shot count and your last split under it. The shots it counts are the ones your record keeps, so a shot two devices both caught counts once.

Tap Stop when the string is done. Stop also ends anything the beep started on an SG Timer or an SG Pulse.

Start Without Beep

When there is no timer, or the beep never comes, use Start Without Beep. It sits under the panel's message while it listens and after a missed beep. It asks how long you want before the start: Now, 5 s, 10 s, 15 s or 30 s. The first time it picks 10 s, and after that it remembers your last pick. The panel then counts down with a tick at 3, 2 and 1, and at zero the phone plays a start tone and vibrates. The string starts there. Cancel stops the countdown.

After Stop

The panel says how the string started, as String ended. Started by the beep at 9:41:07. or String ended. Started without a beep at 9:41:07., and shows four figures: Time, Shots, Avg Split and Best Split. Time runs from the start to your last shot.

Under the figures, Listen Again gets the next string ready. Open Shooter Stats opens the session that holds the string's shots, and Shooter Stats is part of Pro. On a Match Day stage that button reads View This Run instead, and scrolls to the run the string made in Runs on This Stage. If you remove that run from the stage, the button goes back to Open Shooter Stats, and Undo brings View This Run back.

Close the panel with its × or with Close Timer Capture. Leaving the screen closes it too, and so does switching to another tab at the bottom, so your phone never listens with no panel in front of you. The panel is not kept when LoadOut restarts.

A watch as the listener

A watch can hear the beep for you. Its Start Signal setting, in the watch's Stage Timer Defaults, decides who listens:

While Timer Capture is listening, a beep your watch hears first starts the panel exactly as one your phone hears would.

Start at a Heard Beep

When your phone or your watch hears a start beep, LoadOut can start a paired timing device at the same moment, so the device times its shots from the beep too. Each device has its own switch, Start at a Heard Beep, and it is off until you turn it on.

The beep can come from Timer Capture on your phone or from a watch set to Listen on Watch. The switch only decides whether that beep also starts the device.

The start delay has to be zero

A timer counts no shot before its own beep. If it started with a delay, it would still be counting down when your first shot broke, and the string would begin at your second shot. So:

• An SG Timer starts its own stored delay, so LoadOut starts it only when the timer reports a fixed delay of zero. Until then the card says Set this timer's start delay to zero to use this. A delayed start cannot hear the first shot. A random delay counts as not zero. LoadOut never changes the delay on your timer for you.
• An SG Pulse Pro takes its delay with each start, so LoadOut sends it a zero.

A device that is already armed, running or paused is left alone. A beep never stops or restarts a string you started yourself.

Each device keeps its own choice. When you Forget an SG Timer, its Start at a Heard Beep setting goes with it, and if you pair the timer again the switch starts off.

Microphone Witness

In SG Pulse dry fire, LoadOut finds your shots from how the Pulse moves. Microphone Witness adds your ears: your phone, or a watch that can, listens for the click of the trigger, so a press made while the rifle was not quite still can still count.

It lives in Dry Fire Settings, under Finding Shots, and it is off until you turn it on. Dry Fire Settings opens from its row on My SG Pulse Levels, or from the Level screen's ⋮, and is part of Pro. The first time you turn on Detect Dry Fire Shots with a Pulse connected, the screen offers it once, near the top: Listen for the Trigger Click? with Turn It On and Not Now. Either answer is final for the offer, and the row stays where it is for later.

You only see the choices your devices can make. A watch choice appears only when a watch with LoadOut on it says it can listen for the click, and the store versions of the watch apps do not, so on most phones the choices are Off and Phone.

Picking a phone choice asks for the microphone, and only then. If you refuse, the choice goes back to Off and LoadOut says LoadOut cannot listen without the microphone, so Microphone Witness is off. To allow it, open Settings, find LoadOut and turn on the microphone. with an Open Settings button.

When it listens

Only while a dry fire session runs. That includes with your phone locked or LoadOut behind another app, and it stops when you turn Dry Fire off, your Pulse disconnects or the session ends. Your phone shows that the microphone is in use while LoadOut listens. On Android, LoadOut also shows a notification, Microphone Witness Is On, if notifications are allowed.

What a heard click does

A press that missed only because the rifle was not quite still counts as a shot when its click was heard, and the shot carries a small Heard tag. A heard press that missed for any other reason does not count. It goes to Possible Shots, also tagged Heard, for you to look at. The tag shows on the live shot list, in Review Shots and in Possible Shots. A heard click does not change a shot's confidence.

The Garmin Xero

Pro Three ways to get a Garmin Xero C1 Pro session in, and none of them is Bluetooth. The Xero was never a radio integration here. All three land in the same per-rifle velocity log.

Reading the screen

Photograph the Xero's results or Session Summary (one screen is enough) and add the Shot List across several photos for the per-shot string. The reading happens on your phone.

Nothing gets accepted quietly. The review opens with one line about the whole read:

Under the banner, every value carries its own marks, starting at the same place on every row so you can read the column straight down. Unsure and Double-check say the read is not certain about that one; You set this replaces both the moment you type a value. Quieter notes say how a number got there rather than how much to trust it: converted from m/s, decimal restored, re-read magnified, computed, read by AI. A number with a dotted underline can be tapped to see the patch of your own photo it was read from, and a screen showing two different units at once is refused outright.

Improve with AI, as a last resort

The log and the trend

Accepting a check files it against the rifle you picked. The Velocity Check screen keeps a scrollable history (Date, Shots, Avg, SD, ES, with Min, Max, Rifle and Load reached by scrolling), and a row tap expands the full card: a source chip reading Photo · OCR or Garmin .fit, the profile, rifle and load it was filed against, five figures, and a per-shot graph you can tap to name a shot and its difference from the average.

A printed report carries two standard deviations, each labelled with the estimator that produced it, SD · Sample (n−1) and SD · Population, rather than one unlabelled number two people would compute differently.

You can override the rifle or load for one capture without editing the profile; when that breaks the profile's pairing, the capture carries a Non-Profile Firearm or Non-Profile Load chip, recorded with it, so a year later the history says what you were actually shooting.

Use Avg as Muzzle Velocity in the card's footer starts a ballistic profile with that average already in it, plus the rifle and load when the capture knew them. It appears only when there is a real average and the capture binds a profile. Velocity Trend then draws that rifle across a season, so you can watch for the drift a barrel picks up as it wears; where it has no data it draws nothing rather than inventing a point.

Device Compatibility

Settings › Device Compatibility lists the features this device cannot run, each with the reason: Requires Android 12 or newer, Requires Android 11 or newer, Requires iOS 18 or newer.

The tile appears only when something is actually gated. On a device that can run everything it is not there at all, because an empty compatibility screen would be a list of nothing.

When pairing fails

Work down this list first; most failures are one of the first four.

1. Bluetooth is on, and LoadOut has permission. On Android, check Settings › Device Compatibility too. A meter needs Android 12 or newer, and an older phone gets a row saying so.
2. The device is awake and advertising. A Kestrel needs LiNK switched on in its own Bluetooth menu; a Calypso, a WEATHERmeter and an SG Timer just need to be on. A meter asleep in a bag is not discoverable.
3. Stand close while it pairs. Within a few yards of the phone. Distance is a pairing problem far more often than it is a hardware one.
4. One app at a time holds the connection. A meter already connected to the vendor's app, or to a second phone, will not appear. Close the other app, or disconnect there first.
5. Check what the scan says. If a device is found but refused, LoadOut names the reason. That device is not an SG Timer is a different fact from finding nothing at all.
6. Forget and re-pair. Each paired device card carries rename and forget; adding it again clears a stale pairing.

Still stuck? Write to support@johnsondigitalsystems.com with: your phone model and OS version; the device make, model and firmware version; which step above it failed at and what the screen said, word for word; and whether the vendor's own app can see the device right now. That last one separates a LoadOut problem from a hardware problem in one line.