FWAW, 5.0 NTRP rated player here.
Ball machines are garbage if you are a novice. All it is going to do is reinforce bad habits. You 'may' get more consistent at hitting the ball back, but they do more harm than good if you're going at it unsupervised*. They don't perfect your footwork, mechanics, or anticipation.
Here's why: 1. Biggest thing here is footwork. With a ball machine programmed to produce the same shot over and over again, you can get super lazy/flat-footed and miss out on really, really crucial, fundamental footwork
2. Doesn't translate well to hitting against a real person. You have to watch your opponent and read their positioning and swing in order to anticipate where the ball is going to go and then start moving in that direction. That's something that takes hours and hours of actually hitting against a real person.
3. Walls are good too, but you run into the same issues presented in #1 and #2. It's only useful if you have the fundamental footwork and mechanics down.
What you do insteadThere's a lot of really cool people that play tennis. You've just got to find a circle that's at your level. Go to the USTA website for your region, start looking for leagues. Current leagues include 40 and over men's and women's teams and 18-39 combo league. Starting in March is the 'regular' 18+ season. If you're just starting out you're going to look for a 2.5 or 3.0 18+ Team. If you want to try and join a combo team (doubles, combined rating of a team) you'll look for 5.5 teams (2.5 + 3.0 partner).
Link :
https://www.usta.com/en/home/play/play-as-a-member/national/about-usta-league.htmlSave money and perhaps skip lessons. Use YouTube and your own cell phone camera. There are sooooo many great videos out there. Watch a few, try and emulate on court. Set up your phone so you can review your own footage, compare, repeat, repeat, repeat, until you master things. I have clients that have played for years and never seen themselves on camera. Once you have that sense of awareness, great things will happen. I highly recommend Essential Tennis and Top Tennis Training channels. Essential tennis is awesome because they take clients and give them what I call a tennis makeover. Top Tennis Training is two guys, who are just excellent players. So good, in fact, that they are sometimes practice partners for pro tour players.
*There are merits to using a ball machine if someone is behind/beside you helping coach you as you strike the ball, or working on more advanced drill patterns, etc.
I could talk about tennis all day long. PM me for more questions, recommendations, etc. I'd love to help you!