For Tyson Lang, a dedicated Nocpix user from the United States, innovation begins with a real-world challenge. A network engineer by profession who also works in predator control, Tyson knows how difficult it can be to relocate an animal after a shot, especially when navigating wooded terrain at night or recovering multiple animals during a time-sensitive hunting tournament. These experiences sparked a simple yet powerful idea: What if his thermal riflescope could mark a target’s location on a map and guide him directly to it?
What began as an idea in the field became a new feature concept, embraced by the Nocpix product team and brought to life as the Tracking feature in ACE 2. In this interview, Tyson shares the experiences that inspired his idea, what it meant to have his voice heard, and how his journey with Nocpix shows that the next innovation can begin with the people who use our products every day.
Q1: How long have you been using the Nocpix ACE H50R?
The ACE I got in January 2025
Q2: Do you remember the moment when you first thought, “What if my scope could mark the target’s location on a map after the shot?” Was there a particular hunt or experience that sparked the idea?
There have been a couple of times. Like when you walk through a wooded bottom, and you just angle off in the wrong direction at night. Times when you have multiple animals down. I would use that map that you have a picture of to help me walk in the direction I needed to go. We also use a green light laser, which can help.
Q3: How difficult can it be to relocate or recover an animal after a shot, especially at night or over longer distances? What difference would an automatically marked location make in the field? So there are a lot of tournaments over here we do, and time is everything. You can’t spend an hour looking for a downed animal; you’re better off just leaving it and going to find another one. Keep in mind these are predators we’re hunting, not game animals. But recovery of your animal, no matter what you’re taking, is big.
Q4: When you realised your idea hadn’t simply stopped at a social media message, but had been passed on for serious discussion with the product team, what did that mean to you?
I was pretty excited, to be honest. Not a lot of people listen to the end user; they just do what they think is right. I also realize, for me being a network engineer, that it does take a lot of time and money to complete that and make it work. Sure, it sounds simple, but there’s a lot to it.
Q5: Would you like to continue this journey forward with Nocpix? And as we celebrate our second anniversary, is there anything from your heart that you’d like to share with us?
Yes, I would love to continue the journey and continue working with you guys. It’s been a great pleasure so far.
Stay innovative! Stay passionate! With those two things in mind, you will continue to grow. There are two companies over here in the US that didn’t wanna listen to what their customers were saying, and now nobody buys it.
Q6: You mentioned tournaments. We’d love to know a little more about your professional background. How helpful is the Nocpix product for your actual work?
My full-time job during the day I am a network engineer. But Kyle calling tournaments have been a big part of hunting out here for a long time. Now, with this thermal stuff taking off, they have way more tournaments often times the winning kid profits thousands of dollars. I know the prize pool on that one last year was 13,000.
As another side business, I do predator control. So I absolutely have to have something that works and something that looks good because these people trust me to take care of their problems
Sometimes, the next innovation begins with a hunter’s idea.