Garmin Foretrex 401 Waterproof Hiking GPS

Civilian Use: I was never in the military and unfortunately probably never will be but that doesn't mean you can't enjoy the 401. if you want to set a point that you want to get back to this is the best GPS for that use. It is incredibly simple yet incredibly flexible with the information that you can display. The GPS also creates tracks when the unit is on ( which I suggest deleting the memory before going on a hike or a ride so you have a clean slate). Also I like wearing it on my forearm, so the strap extender is nice! I use it Predominantly to track my motorcycle rides. To change how many points the GPS tracks navigate to the waypoints, tracks, route, set up, page. 1. Go to setup, click mark 2. Go down to tracks, click mark 3. Change distance to what suits you, For motorcycle riding 100 feet is fine. I did 5 feet at 1st and that was ridiculous, but insanely accurate. If you were walking I could see knocking down to 5 feet. 4. and make sure the recording interval IS distance Google Earth / Google Maps: To get the best tracks in Google Earth and then Google maps it is best to delete the Garmin waypoints that are included on the GPS. When you import the data into Google Earth those waypoints will just get in the way. But try it out for yourself to see what I mean. 1. Pop the cap on the back of the GPS 2. Insert the USB cable into your computer and the GPS 3. The GPS will now be like a hard drive on your computer 4. Go into Garmin/GPX/current folder 5. I drag both files (Current and Position) into a folder on your desktop, but I believe you only need the file "Current". 6. Disconnect GPS (unmount on MAC) 7. Download Google Earth for free, install, open 8. To import your data goto File, Open, then navigate to the Current file on your desktop 9. AE GPS pop-up comes up, I check all 3 options, press Okay If you deleted the Garmin waypoints the map will zoom to your tract area. If the Garmin waypoints are still there Google Earth may show those in which case you will need to rotate the globe to find your tract area. I changed my tracking points to be 100 feet apart, at 1st I had it every 5 feet which filled up the memory faster and it was just way too much data. I ride my motorcycle around the city and I can click on any point to see how fast I was going in exactly where I was and all sorts of other data. It is pretty awesome! None still learning Google Earth but here's the process to transfer to Google maps. 10. Right click on "GPS device" in the left rial, select "Save place as" 11. Save it in the same place as your other files, it has the extension .kmz - that is what google maps uses. 12. Click " create map" 13. I like to make my maps unlisted so I choose that on the bottom 14 Title your track, I do "ride 051612" or "hike 051612" 15. Click "import", then navigate to your file by clicking "choose file" 16. then click upload from file (it won't say the file is loaded like an attachment in gmail) Now you can keep a record of your journeys and you can also share your maps with other people. Then is you go to "my places" you can see all of your tracks. Sometimes the track becomes listed (public), just change it back unlisted under the title area. Oh and google maps shows the activity log by what page you are on, if you only see page of your activity log, go to the bottom and go to the next page. I love it overall. The memory using incredibly small, I think it's only a few megabytes large which is ridiculous these days. If they ever make a 501 1st they should make the memory a few gigs, and then add some basic topographical maps. I would honestly by that system in a heartbeat, but I am content with the 401 for how I am using it.

I got this to go through a training course that involved patrolling through the woods and trying to find bad guys. Before we were allowed to start using GPS, it was difficult to accurately navigate wooded, hilly terrain using a compass and pace counts. We would often approach our objective from the wrong direction or have to search for it. Once we were allowed to start using a GPS, I brought this. No guess work at all. I had it hanging from my flack or on my wrist in the hot, cold, wet, dry, everything. This is great! Ease of use: It's a small computer on your wrist, it'll take a evening of tinkering to get used to all of its features. Once you take the time to understand it, it is so easy to use in the field. Push a button and find your current azimuth, push a button and see how far you are from your next point, push a button and get an instant 10 DIGIT GRID! Battery life: It'll last you a full day of continuous use. I left this thing on and hanging from my flack when we were driving vehicles through trails in the mountains all day for 10 days. I was the navigator and this is the only reason we made it back every night! I'm stubborn and don't always read instructions and toward the end of those 10 days I realized there is a place to plug in a charger rather than replace batteries all the time. It's safe to say its covered well and inconspicuous. Durability: When I hang this from the front of my flack and run, it bounces against the flack constantly. It doesn't break, it doesn't malfunction, it just does its job. Whether it's in the 30's and raining/snowing, or really hot outside and dry, this thing does its job. I recommend buying a screen protector to prevent scuffs. That's what I did and mine is still looking great. I have no fear of simply throwing this thing in my pack and heading out. I'm not concerned it's going to break in my pack or anything weird like that. Versatility: I've used this on the east coast and it was great. I got to Japan, changed the grid zones, and it was still great. I guess that what "Global" means. . . Need to find a place out in the woods? Punch in a grid and it'll take you there. It'll give you an arrow to follow, you follow it, you find the place you're looking for. Need to let someone know where you are? One of the screens give you a constant 10 digit grid. Need to follow a route? Take the time to insert points using grids, then select which points you want to visit and in which order. Then just follow the arrow. You can even label the points with words and icons. What elevation are you at? Yeah, it's on the screen all the time if you want it to be. I'm done typing. . . just buy this thing already!

I purchased this item a year ago and used it extensively in Afghanistan. For virtually any situation, it is, in my opinion, the perfect GPS. The beauty of this unit is that at all times, with zero waiting, you have a 10 digit grid on your wrist. If it only had that feature it would be well worth the price. But it offers a lot more. It is extremely lightweight. I regularly wear it during runs now that I'm home, and do not notice the weight on my wrist at all. Durability is excellent. I have worn this in 120+ degree heat, sub freezing cold, and pouring rain. I smashed it in an armored door about halfway through my deployment, resulting in a darker spot on the screen, but it is still perfectly usable. The dust, which destroys electronics over there at an alarming rate, had no effect on it. I had heard that the foretrex series had a horrible wrist band, but that must have been fixed with the 401. I wore it constantly, and it got knocked around a lot, with zero issues. Battery life with lithium batteries is amazing, and good with others. Signal reception is very good, I never had an issue getting a signal inside armored vehicles which is often a problem with GPS units. Offers a very impressive list of functions, which can be customized to give you various types of information. The compass feature, when used with programmable waypoints, is nothing short of amazing. Land navigation is made idiot proof. It has the ability to transmit its waypoints to other garmins, but I have not used this feature. The only downsides I can think of are that the backlight is really a bit too bright, and because of the small size, and therefore few buttons, programing multiple waypoints can take some time. Overall, I can't recommend this enough. By far the most useful piece of gear that I have purchased.

The Garmin Foretrex 401 is a great GPS! I was looking at many different GPSs from the ones with a larger screen that shows a topographic map to the more "watch-like" GPSs. The 401 offers military grid coordinates as well as the standard coordinates. It has several useful features including sunrise, sunset, avg mph, total distance traveled, etc. It also includes a mapping feature that shows you where you have traveled by sketching your path in dotted lines across the screen. You can set way points based on your current position or GPS coordinates. The Good: Waterproof Military grid coordinates Orange backlight Trace back feature The Bad: Battery dies quickly when in constant use (about 4-6 hrs) although it takes triple As that can easily be changed.. Does not work well inside armored vehicles, buildings, etc (needs line of sight with a satellite) Does not have topographic maps Requires a lot of "up" and "down" arrow pressing in order to input say a 10 digit grid bc of how the interface is set up Update: I have now had this GPS for over a year and it is working wonders! I have used it in 29 palms, Yuma, and the Middle East to navigate. Provided with a map I can quickly locate my point and even without a paper map I can use the trace back feature or set way points in order to navigate around. The battery dies even quicker in the near ( about 3 hours of constant use) but the GPS has held up well against hard wear and tear.. overall I am happy with my purchase and would buy one again. Hope this review was helpful! Let me know if you have any questions!

The good: I have to say I really enjoy using this GPS device. It works for pretty much all my outdoor sports, skiing, mtn biking, hiking. It powers up quickly, acquires satellites fast enough for me and the display fields are easy to change quickly on the fly. It's pretty durable. The bad: I am glad they started including the elastic wristband extension with the unit. I had to pay $20 for my first one as an accessory. However, in a couple years of use, the elastic and the velcro wear out progressively faster until they just don't work at all. Which is why I ended up buying another Foretrex 401. The velcro on my last one failed while skiing in the backcountry, and it was lost. "Waterproof" is a big over statement. I'd say it's water "resistant" and only partially until the rubber dust cover inevitable tears off. Even with careful and light use, that piece of rubber tore off in just a few months leaving the mini-USB port exposed to moisture and eventual corrosion. A simple fix would prevent this without any increased cost to design and implement. Also, the battery compartment is NOT water proof or even water resistant. The battery leads will rust quickly, even here in CO where the relative humidity is very low. If you live in a more humid area, be prepared for full on corrosion in a very short amount of time. A 10 cent rubber seal would prevent this, but apparently Garmin can't muster that much investment. The ugly: Garmin is horrible at software development. There's just no other way for me to describe it. They're updates fail, or provide notices of necessary updates but then won't install. I'm constantly getting notices that I need to update the Garmin SW which seems to do pretty much nothing to begin with, but they force you to install it. Further aggravating is the fact that Garmin really doesn't even support this model in their SW. So why are you ramming it down my throat Garmin?? Their customer support has been pathetic. Emailing somebody in India who either doesn't understand the product themselves, or showers you with niceties to divert your attention from the fact they don't understand the problem or the device your using is just an exercise in frustration. It literally made me want to throw this thing through their corporate office window with a nasty letter! I resigned myself to accepting that despite all the claims by Garmin, this device is a standalone product with virtually no SW support. With that mindset, I'm now pleasantly surprised when Garmin's SW actually does something for a change. I like uploading the GPS file to their GarminConnect site to view the map info etc, but again, that's a crap shoot as to whether it will recognize my device on any given day. Batteries: You can pretty much bank on about 8 -12 hrs of use from each set of 3 AAA batteries it requires. Not great, but not bad. The problem though is that inevitably you'll get a "Low battery" notice in the middle of your activity, change the batteries, and then have two separate .gpx files that can not be stitched together with any of the Garmin SW tools. There are some 3rd party SW apps that can stitch the two files together, but I've seen none for less than $100. For such a simple friggin' feature, I'm not willing to pay more than about $10, but it should be included in Garmin's SW. Like I said, Garmin just sucks at software though.

It took me a few minutes to learn to navigate the menus, but they are logical and handy. The screen is very clear and zooms in or out so you can see a small local area or a larger map. Pushing one button two times creates and confirms a "waypoint". Later you can select that way point and the compass will guide you back. When you get home, connect it to your computer (no need to turn on the 401), open Google Earth, go to the tools menu and choose GPS / Garmin and click on Import. Google Earth zooms in on the track you just moved through, shows all the waypoints you created on the way and shows the track you walked with a blue line. Amazing. Or choose a point in Google Earth and create a new waypoint with those coordinates (bottom of screen in Google Earth) and you can then select that way point and the 401 will guide you there with its onscren compass. CAUTION: The 401 came with the default units at D M.M, but to coordinate with Google Earth, you need to go to settings / units and change to D M S.S. The unit is new, so I can't comment on how it will stand up over time, but it looks very solid. I've been playing with it all day on a single set of two AAA rechargeable batteries. All in all, I am VERY impressed. There are many other features I haven't played with yet, but being able to get back to a waypoint created during (or at the beginning of) a hike, program in a waypoint taken from Google Earth, seeing tracks and waypoints I created along the way in Google Earth all add up to a perfect device for me. I love it.

I was able to download Alaska State Park maps onto my computer, import them into Garmin's Basecamp software, then convert the tracks (trail maps) into routes. Those routes can then be uploaded to this wonderful little device in seconds along with all of the waypoints (trail heads, campsites, ranger stations, etc.). In essence, it works as a true GPS with maps, despite its perceived limitations. At each trail juncture or fork, I create a waypoint in Basecamp that indicates the name of the respected splitting trail. Should I take that trail, I simply switch to the necessary route which I have also uploaded. It is nearly seamless. Topography is a no-go, but if you can't see the topography and don't have a map, you shouldn't be out there anyway. Me and my buddy were on a hike and the trail was overgrown and riddled with newly felled trees. Thanks to this device, I could tell which tree to scoot under to regain the trail because of its ability to handle rudimentary map/trail info from my computer. A few hundred yards up and there it is, the vista we were looking for. Tip: Turn on the WAAS GPS mode. It is accurate to 3 meters (only available in North America) and makes a huge difference in terms of raw accuracy. I will never hike without this. Especially in the Alaskan wilderness, Anchorage backcountry or what have you. Waterproof, rugged, accurate, efficient (battery life), and smaller than you think. Additionally, it takes light AAA batteries, so recharging, even days out on the trail is never an issue, as you would find with the "fancier" and more expensive Garmin Fenix line. No maps is a myth... See what you can find and link it up with Basecamp.

I am an active duty Soldier with 20 years of service. I have deployed multiple times with this equipment and would buy it again. I have used this on multiple combat deployments and for Artillery fire

I first used one of these whilst "working overseas" and thought it was brilliant. And so, on my return, I got one as a permanent addition to my kit. Since owning, I've taken it on various courses and exercises "for emergency use only". As any good soldier will tell you, this does not negate the importance of being able to map read the old fashioned way, but it's great as a confirmation tool if and when you become "geographically embarrassed". While there are much more expensive GPS devices available, with more gadgetry than you could ever need, this reasonably priced watch has everything you could ask for. The menu layout is very simple with a dropdown style layout that is very easy to navigate through, and multiple display modes that can be customised to suit your requirements in terms of simplicity or detail. Initial setup is painless and quick too. For those that don't have a clue what MGRS or OGB-M are or are technophobes, the accompanying guide will see you right and help you ensuring that you set the relevant datum correctly. This isn't a TomTom or similar device, and the LCD screen is made up of a series of pixilated lines of info, so it might take some time for those not familiar with GPS watches to get to grips with how to read the various screens. A bit of a novelty maybe, but I really like that you can set the user/owner information should you ever lose it, or are found unconscious on the face of Penn-y-Fan! It takes 2x AAA batteries that last absolutely ages considering that whilst on, it is constantly communicating with GPS satellites. And a power save/sleep function so that it's not constantly displaying info when you don't need it. It also has an illumination function that you would expect to find on most digital watches, which is strong enough to be able to clearly see the whole screen in the dark, but faint enough that you don't light up when you require to be more discreet. Overall an amazing little watch at a decent and fair price, but dontvexpect plug'n'play, a bit of setup is required and is made easier if you have experience of GPS technology.

Excelente GPS para montaña, muy practico, usado en ámbito militar debido a su calidad, se carga el track a seguir o se crea una ruta (con opción en caso de perdida de volver sobre los pasos). También tiene varias funciones extras como salida del sol, altímetro, etc. Ventajas: - Usa pilas (en cualquier momento se pueden cambiar) - Alta precisión - Cómodo de llevar - Intuitivo Desventajas: - No soporta mapas

Got it a couple days ago and so far it's a good device. It does not come with batteries though. Even though it says included. Not a deal breaker of course. My search and rescue team use the 401e because it is waterproof and resilient.

Encontré lo que buscaba en precio y tiempo de entrega rapido, recomiendo el producto y al vendedor

Après avoir essayer plusieurs modèles de GPS compact, beaucoup moins chère, et étant rester un peu déçu! Je commande Le Garmin Foretrex, utiliser dans plusieurs armées, cela commence a être une référence! Après plus d'une semaine d’essais, en randonner, c'est un excellent appareil. Il faut juste bien le configurer au début, il devient alors très précis, sont point fort est l'alimentation avec des piles (AAA) Ni-MH autonomie de 17h, ce qui permet de l'alimenter, dans toute les conditions et de juste avoir a les changer, en randonner de plusieurs jours ! la fonction altimètre est bluffante! Matériel sérieux !