10 Days of ATA #3—Garmin’s Xero A1i Bow Sight Doubles As A Digital Rangefinder
We selected the Garmin Xero A1i Bo Sight as one of the most impressive products we saw at the ATA Show 2018. This auto ranging digital bow sight pulls the workload of a traditional sight and a digital rangefinder by automatically ranging the distance to a target and providing a lighted pin for the shot.
Available in two models ranging from $799.99 to $999.99, the Garmin Xero A1i Bow Sight is highly configurable to allow for different arrow profiles and single or multi-pin configurations.
The Xero A1i also features Laser Locate, which tracks the arrow's point of impact and sends that info to a Garmin GPS, which allows the user to find their arrow and begin tracking their game. Note: This sight is not legal in all states so please check your local regulations before purchasing.
Hey guys. I'm Josh with Garmin. ATA 2018, we just released our new Xero bow sight. This is the A1i Bow Sight. It is a digital range finding bow sight. It's going to be an LED interface. What this is going to do is, you can actually range out to any distance out to 100 yards, and it's going to give you a single pin, or fixed pin, however you set it up, and allow you, while at full drawn, to get different yardage. So I can draw back here, 20-yard, 18-yard pin, say that deer jumps, or that elk moves around, now he's moved out to, say, 30 yards. Without letting down my bow, I can now move the sight over, reengage him, and now it's going to give me a new yardage with a new pin, all pretty seamlessly, and pretty instant as well.
Obviously, we've all been in that situation where you're full drawn, a deer, elk, or whatever it is you're hunting moves, now you've got to let the bow down, grab your range finder, re-range, got your new range, now you've got to go back there. Probably going to be in between your pins. Most of us set our pins, you know, 20, 30, 40. Of course, that animal's usually at like 27, or 33. This is going to give you a 33-yard pin, or a 27-yard pin.
It's really going to help with your accuracy, going to give you a much cleaner shot on an animal. You're confidently going to know that yardage every time, and just give you a good opportunity on harvesting that animal.
A couple other cool things this sight will do, since it is GPS enabled, and it knows your heading, it knows the distance of your shot, it will actually provide you a waypoint that can then be sent to our handheld devices, such as our Rhino, or our Oregon, or our Phoenix Series watches. You know how it is. You're up in a tree stand, or you're shooting across some thick stuff. Maybe it's a 50-yard shot. Well, once you get on the ground, that whole terrain looks different, and sometimes it's kind of hard to find where that point of impact was. So that waypoint will now give you a chance to get right where that arrow impacted the deer, or hopefully not the ground. But you'll be able to kind of locate where you started at, and begin that blood trail. So really cool feature that integrates with the other Garmin products.
The A1i, which is our higher end model, also gives you the ability to save arrow profiles. So say you're practicing with some 100-grain broadheads, then you want to move up to a 125 broadhead. You don't have to go reprogram everything each time. You just save that arrow profile, and you can go back and forth depending on which game you're going after for different weighted arrows. So pretty cool on that, on that it is going to keep you in check with your weights.
Another feature is it'll give you bow performance and shooting performance. So when you're actually in practice mode or target mode, it'll let you know if you're torquing after each shot. It'll tell you how many degrees you torqued that bow. So it will help improve your practice ability. It'll also give you feedback on how much that bow's vibrating, so you can kind of tweak your stabilizers, and some of your absorbers and things like that to improve the vibration of your bow, and you'll be able to see that change as you're shooting.
One other unique thing about this sight is it will not give you a pin beyond what you practice. We've heard some things saying, "Well, this thin can range out to 100 yards. It's going to ... " You might have some weekend warrior that's going to now try a 100-yard shot. If you've never practiced a shot beyond a certain yardage, you will never get that pin. So it's going to force you to kind of extend your practice, really get proficient and comfortable with certain yardages so you can use those yardages in the field.
Again, this is the A1i, and we have the A1 by itself, which you lose color LEDs, and the ability to do the GPS tracking, the arrow profiles. $799, $999 price points. I think it's really going to change the industry. We're bringing new technology in. And we're really excited to show this off this year. We're actually legal in 43 states right now. Some of the western states, unfortunately, at this time we are not legal. We hope some of that will change in the future as they see the upside of this sight. But we will have a list of what states we're currently legal in. But we recommend you check this before you put it on your own bow.