Bushnell 36 0050 BackTrack GPS Navigation System

Bushnell 36 0050 BackTrack GPS Navigation System

Never Get Lost Again. With the easiest to use personal location finder. Just mark the location and BackTrack will help you get back. Use it at the mall and stadium parking lots, at the festival, the park, for travel or you next outdoor adventure. Operates on 2 AAA Batteries (Not Included) Compact size stores easily in your pocket or purse Lanyard included for easy attachment

User Ratings and Reviews

5 Stars About what you should expect
I just took my new Backtrack out for a trial run to hunt squirrels after an ice storm. I didn’t really expect to get anything but just had to play with my new toy. I marked my trucks location (I took my truck in case I got a big one) and headed off into the crystal forest. Just as I thought animals are smarter than humans and were holed up for the day but the ice coated trees were spectacular!!! After crunching around for about an hour I headed back to the truck (no squirrels) using the GPS as a guide rather than using known trails. Knowing where I was I questioned the pointer arrow but soon realized it was pointing me in the general direction of my truck. Following the average direction I came to within 15 yards of my truck. This GPS will not magically transport you to the exact footprints you were standing in when you marked your spot but it will get you very close to it. For the price and for a person like myself that has NO sense of direction I LIKE IT!!!

4 Stars Pretty good for the money but beware of magnets
Great low price for a quasi-GPS. Yes, indoors it does take about a Minuit or even two to lock on to the satellite signal but faster outside with a view of the sky. One VERY important issue is that POINTER IS sensitive to magnets or large metal objects just like a hand held compass. The distance seems unaffected which is probably determined by satellite (I assume). So keep all large metal objects and especially magnets away from the thing while using it or the POINTER will point in the wrong direction. This is in any mode, both the compass and location modes. I alternated direction of a bar magnet about a foot away and it causes (only) the pointer to change wildly. Hunters watch your metal firearms. Just use it like any normal compass (hold away from large metal objects) and it will be fine. I like it very much.

5 Stars works great for hunting
i have been looking for something like this for years. i hunt rabbits with dogs in cedar swamps and it is very easy to get turned around when everything looks the same in this type of terrain. now i just punch in my wearabouts at the truck before i get in to the woods and presto it points me to my truck everytime ,no matter what,weather ,hills ,trees . i wouldn’t go hunting without it again now that i have one and so simple to use ,its just what us hunters needed .i have tryed to use the hand held gps like e-trex and this backtrack is so much nicer for what hunters need.thanks bushnell

2 Stars Not Ready For Prime Time
The Bushnell Backtrack is an interesting concept. An idiot simple dirt cheap GPS intended to do only one thing… Get you back to your starting point. If you’re constantly losing your car in huge mall parking lots, then Bushnell thinks it has a solution. Simply set your Backtrack and go shopping. At the end of your day of mall bliss your Backtrack should lead you right back to your car. Does grandpa get lost on walks? The Backtrack hanging from his neck is designed to get him home. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work….

I’m a long time user of automotive GPS systems so out of curiosity I took a Backtrack device to the mall. Before I left my car I turned on the Backtrack and within five minutes it had located itself. To be fair it probably would have taken half that time outside my car but how many customers, especially seniors, will stand outside in the rain so their GPS can find satellites a bit faster? I set the location of my car by finding the car icon and holding the set button until it memorized the location, and then I went shopping.

While I was in the mall my Backtrack went into sleep mode. No big deal, and I just woke it up as I left the store and waited a couple of minutes for it to find satellites. GPS devices depend on movement to orient themselves, so if you turn on the Backtrack and don’t move it will know roughly where it`s at but will have no clue what direction you’re facing and the built in GPS “compass” will point pretty much at random. In this case it was in `find my car’ mode and it had no clue what direction to go so I started walking. It took about 100 feet of walking at a good clip for it to get its bearings and point vaguely in the general direction of my car. If course if you stop to get your bearing and turn to look around then it won’t know that it’s now pointing the wrong way. And if you’re moving too slow it might not even realize that it’s moving and will remain lost. So I walked another 100 feet at a good clip to get another bearing, etc, etc, etc. It only took about three times longer to reach my car than it would have with dead reckoning. Somebody less tech savvy might have made an afternoon of the search if they depended solely on the Backtrack.

What I don’t think the designers took into account are limitations of GPS technology, especially technology compatible with a $70 retail price. And the limitations of the people that will be looking to the Backtrack to find their car for them. At the technology end the processor and display are way too slow, and updates are so slow and jerky that I think many people will find themselves confused. The fact that you have to be moving at a good clip to help the Backtrack orient itself is also impractical especially for seniors. Grandma’s Hoveround had better have a turbo! Bushnell should have incorporated a digital magnetic compass to keep the device oriented while stopped. As it is it’s just going to confuse a big chunk of its target audience and leave them lost.

Where it may be useful is as a low cost way to help the older kids find their way back to a camp site, or help very tech savvy adults that are healthy enough to walk fast enough to keep the device oriented. But to do either of those it needs more complete directions. Such as directions explaining that you need to be moving and moving at a good clip.

As a side note the lanyard intended to keep it securely around grandma or grandpa’s neck broke the instant I tried to use it for the first time.

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