Bushnell GPS BackTrack Personal Locator

by Bushnell

Product Features

• Compact GPS personal locator with intuitive 2-button design
• Returns you to your car, home base, or anywhere else
• Stores up to 3 locations; fits easily in pocket or purse
• Weather-resistant; operates on 2 AAA batteries (not included)
• Includes lanyard for easy transport around your neck

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

There's nothing quite as refreshing as a good hike or snowshoe trip, but there's nothing quite as terrifying as getting lost on the trail. Enter the Bushnell GPS BackTrack personal locator, which gets you back to your car or home base safely and easily. The BackTrack is a breeze to use, with an intuitive two-button design that employs GPS technology in its most basic format. All you have to do is mark the location of your car, campsite, or anything else (the BackTrack stores up to three locations) and then forget it until it's time to return. At the end of the day, just select the stored location and the BackTrack will display the direction and distance to travel until you return. You can use it to locate a treestand or trailhead, to find your car in a crowded parking lot, even to rendezvous with a group. Plus, it's extremely compact, so you can stow it conveniently in your pocket, pack, or purse.

The BackTrack is weather-resistant and operates on two AAA batteries (not included). It also comes with a lanyard for easy attachment.

About Bushnell
Bushnell has been the industry leader in high-performance sports optics for more than 50 years. The company's guiding principle is to provide the highest quality, most reliable, and most affordable sports optics products on the market. Bushnell product lines enhance the enjoyment of every outdoor pursuit, including nature study, hunting, fishing, birding, and stargazing. Indoors, the company's binoculars bring the audience closer to the action in fast-moving sports or the fine arts at theaters and concerts.

Product Description

The Bushnell Backtrack- 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 your next outdoor adventure.

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 10 x 6 x 2 inches ; 1.6 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B001F7BL0U
• Item model number: BSHL-01
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (139 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,547 in Sports & Outdoors (See Top 100 in Sports & Outdoors)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

125 of 130 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get to where you were, December 4, 2008

By 

H. Fields - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bushnell GPS BackTrack Personal Locator (Sports)

This item is great for both the backwoods and shopping mall. I got it for my wife to find her car when she exits the mall... Yes, some of the parking lots are huge! The day that we received it, we went to a new park and brought the Backtrack along. By the time we got to the field that our grandson was at, we couldn't see the parking lot, and there were 4 of them.
When the game was over, I pressed the automobile icon and followed the direction that the Backtrack pointed us to. It led us to within a few feet of the car!
It works great and is easy to use.

345 of 383 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Ready For Prime Time, September 14, 2008

By 

TooCoolGuy "TooCoolGuy" (Hemet, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

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.

54 of 56 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bushnell Back-Track, January 4, 2009

By 

Maleko "islndsnw" (ala moana, hi) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bushnell GPS BackTrack Personal Locator (Sports)

The Back-Track does what it says, holds 3 waypoints, with 3 icons, a house, a car, and a star, so if you were on a hike you can set your car or the house icon as the base, and use the other two as waypoints, so it's not bad for day hikes. The unit has two buttons a mark/backlight button, and an on-off/waypoint button. You turn on by holding down the on/off button, then tap the on-off button to cycle through the waypoints. To mark say the car, just hold the mark button down and it clears it and sets it to 0yds. Once you start walking it shows how far in yards and then miles you've walked and the arrow points back to where you started. It turns off automatically in 10 minutes if you don't touch any buttons, and when you turn it back on, resumes where you left off so your waypoints stay intact until your reset them. It does seem to acquire fast with the sirf-star chipset, it's accurate as long as you keep the unit horizontal. Once it's vertical the arrow tends to point downward, so sometimes if it's tilted in your hand the arrow will move off true north or not exactly at your car, but as you walk closer it's dead on. The blue backlight isn't that strong but is clearly visible at night. All in all, it does what it says. It does lead you back to your car, house, campground, and the built in compass could help you on a hike. A built in clock with gps time would have been nice, maybe next version? Well worth 50 bucks though.

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