Off on a quick bike camping trip next week, and let my Gen 3 SPOT subscription expire a year or so ago. I can’t tell for sure from the SPOT website, but I’m assuming it isn’t possible to use the SPOT tracker’s emergency function without a subscription? I’m not needing the other tracking/messaging functions, but would love to bring my SPOT for a bit more piece of mind – but don’t really want to fork out another £100 when for the rest of the year it will just sit in a drawer.

Alternatively if you did have an accident and your tracker wasn’t working then £100 would have been well spent

Have a look at Emergency SMS. You need to register for it but it might be of use

It’s a matter of mitigating risk vs cost. The SPOT subscription is great if you need continuous tracking and the message sending functions (and I’ve used mine for such in the past), but >£100 is a bit hard to justify for an unlikely case of “what if there’s a dire emergency _and_ I’m in an area with no phone signal” for a one-off ride.

I don’t see the advantage of the Emergency SMS service linked, as it still requires phone signal.

Anyone else know about using SPOT emergency button without subscription?

I have a Spot device. Nothing will happen if you press sos without a subscription. That’s for certain.

Rachel

not quite true – it does require a signal but you’re not tied to the provider you’re normally with and there may not be enough signal for you to get visibility on your phone but it may still send

the point is you can make use of what minimal signal there actually is just for emergencies

its still better than nothing and doesnt cost anything to use

tmb467 – I was replying to the OP query about using a SPOT device without a subscription. They do not use the gsm network and they definitely do not work at all without a subscription.

I just want to be clear in case anyone mistakenly thinks they can use one in an emergency based on the above. They cannot.

Rachel