This review is for the Bag Boy Golf Push Cart Tracker. It pains me to say this, but this particular cart tracker has been a disappointment. I really like Bag Boy products, and actually use one of their push carts that I absolutely love. But this tracker just has not worked well at all. So, allow me to explain more, covering both the actual tracker device and the associated app from Bag Boy. I had some hiccups the first time or two using it. I was getting basically zero info from the tracker, even though I had it connected properly via bluetooth and the app at the beginning of the round. What I determined is that my Fitbit device, which also syncs with active tracking via bluetooth from my smart phone, was somehow interfering with the Tracker’s communications with my phone/app. So, the past few rounds I disconnected Fitbit to be sure nothing interfered with the Tracker. This helped, but it still was no where near accurate. For example, in my last round the time was reported accurately, and the calories burned reported accurately, mirroring very similar to what I typically see from my Fitbit for a round of golf on this particular course. However the distance was very incorrect, which is specifically what this Tracker is supposed to be measuring. The full walking round is about 5.25 miles, and the most I have seen the tracker record is 1.7 miles. When I look at the app, it definitely accurately reflects the path I walked. So something is just not working properly between either what the tracker is recording or reporting to the app. Speaking of the app… It is an OK app, and does the job, but I have a big issue with the way it forces location privacy settings to be set to “Always” on. I get why it may need that setting to draw an accurate tracking map while playing golf, and I don’t have an issue with that part. However, it is ridiculous to require it to be on just to bring the app up to do something simple like review settings, or the history of past rounds. It literally will not let you get past opening the app and do ANYTHING without turning location back on. So, if you only want it to get tracking info when you are at the course, but no where else even when not playing golf, it is impossible. It forces you to reveal your location every-single-time you want to use the app for any function. That is a BAD design and does not respect privacy choices any given user may wish to make. I didn’t even think about this until my phone alerted me 3 days after my last round saying “hey, this app has been tracking you in the background for the past 3 days. Do you want to allow it continue…”. Sorry BagBoy, but no, I don’t. So now I just have to remember to enable/disable location for every round of golf, or any time I just want to do something simple with the app such as adjust a setting or look at a past round. I’m going to keep using the Tracker a few more rounds to see if something changes with the basic ability to accurately measure distance. But given what I have experienced so far in all the rounds I have used it so far, I’m leaning toward shelving this one, and just going back to using a simple fitness tracking device. If something magical happens and my experience drastically improves with this Tracker and app, I will update this review accordingly.
