What They Have in Common
Both run on GPS, require no subscription, and offer free course updates across massive libraries (40,000 courses on the Voice 3S+, 36,000 on the V5). Both give you front/center/back distances and hazard yardages. Neither has green contours or plays-like distance. Both are designed for on-course use without ongoing fees.
Where They Differ
What You're Actually Looking At (or Listening To)
The Voice 3S+ is a clip-on handheld with a monochrome 128×64 pixel LCD. There's no hole map, no green view, no color. What it does have — and this is genuinely its whole pitch — is a speaker. It speaks your yardages. Front, center, back. In 11 languages. With 10 voice options (male and female). If you're walking off a tee box mid-conversation, or you're a player who finds it easier to hear a number than squint at a tiny screen, that's a real feature, not a gimmick.
The V5 is a 43mm GPS watch with a 1.2-inch MIP display — memory-in-pixel, which means it's always-on and reads clearly in full sunlight without draining the battery. It shows full-color hole maps with every hazard and dogleg mapped. You get a real picture of the hole you're playing, not just three numbers.
The form factor gap here is significant. Clip-on handheld versus wrist-worn watch means you're essentially choosing between two completely different workflows on the course.
Shot Tracking: The V5's Real Edge
This is where the gap widens considerably. The V5 includes 16 club tracking tags — small sensors that screw into the grip butt of each club. Once they're in, the watch detects every shot automatically, records the distance, and logs it to the Shot Scope app. After the round, you get strokes gained, 100+ performance statistics, and handicap benchmarking. All of it free.
The Voice 3S+ has "shot distance measurement" — you manually mark shots. That's a meaningfully different workflow. Manual tracking requires remembering to press a button at the right moment, which is easy to forget when you're managing a bad lie or keeping up with pace of play. If building a real picture of your game over time matters to you, the V5 has the infrastructure to do it; the Voice 3S+ doesn't.
Battery and Charging
The Voice 3S+ lists 18 hours of GPS battery life, which is the longer spec on paper. It charges via micro USB — which is a genuine annoyance in 2026 when nearly everything else has moved to USB-C.
The V5's battery is rated for "2+ rounds of golf" in GPS mode, which is a vague spec. Shot Scope doesn't publish a hard hour count, and the charging connection isn't specified on the product page either. If you're doing multi-day golf trips, the Voice 3S+'s 18-hour number is more reassuring — though for a normal weekend golfer playing one round at a time, both should be fine.
Price and Value Math
The Voice 3S+ is $129.99. The V5 is $249.99 — a $120 difference. Neither requires a subscription, so three-year total cost of ownership is just the purchase price. The question is whether automatic shot tracking, full hole maps, strokes gained, and a proper color watch display are worth $120 more to you. For most golfers thinking about their game seriously enough to be comparing GPS devices, the answer is yes.
Who Should Buy Which
Get the Shot Scope V5 if:
- You want to track your performance over time — strokes gained and 100+ stats are genuinely useful if you're working to improve
- You want a proper GPS watch with full hole maps and hazard detail
- You'd rather have the 16 tags included than buy them separately later
- A $120 price difference is manageable and you want more than front/center/back numbers
Get the GolfBuddy GB VOICE 3S+ if:
- Spoken yardages are specifically what you want — you don't want to look at a screen mid-round, or you play with players who benefit from hearing yardages aloud
- You're adding a GPS device to complement something else you already have (a rangefinder, another watch) and just want a simple clip-on backup
- $129.99 is your actual ceiling and you're not interested in tracking stats
The Bottom Line
The Shot Scope V5 is the better GPS device by most measures that matter to a golfer trying to improve: automatic shot tracking with included tags, full hole maps, strokes gained, a readable MIP display, and zero subscription fees. The Voice 3S+ is a genuinely useful tool if you specifically want spoken yardages — that talking feature is its entire identity, and it does it well — but it's a narrower product serving a narrower need. For most golfers choosing between these two, one is a GPS watch with real analytics and the other is a talking yardage device.
Get the Shot Scope V5.