Viewing 13 posts - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
  • Spot Trackers – tell me about them
  • scotroutes
    Full Member

    Seriously thinking about getting one of these as I do lots of long solo trips. Any user experience would be welcome; battery life, signal, reliability, costs etc.

    Also – does it store a GPX track for later perusal or is something like a Garmin still necessary for this?

    Bushy
    Full Member

    The garmin edge 810 has live tracking

    “The LiveTrack feature allows your friends and family to follow your races and training activities in real time. Invite followers using email or social media, so they can view your live data on a Garmin Connect tracking page. Once they get your email invite, they can click to follow and see your stats and location on the map.”

    No personal experience though.

    bigyinn
    Free Member

    Do you mean mirrors?

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    bellefied
    Free Member

    tell me about them too – never heard of them????

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    I thought about that, but you need a mobile phone data signal. That’s often not available and, in any case I’d rather save my phone battery for emergency situations.

    Schweiz
    Free Member

    The Garmin needs a phone signal as far as I’m aware. Good for the trail behind the Nationwide in Swindon but less good for more remote locations.

    d45yth
    Free Member

    Bushy – Member

    The garmin edge 810 has live tracking

    “The LiveTrack feature allows your friends and family to follow your races and training activities in real time. Invite followers using email or social media, so they can view your live data on a Garmin Connect tracking page. Once they get your email invite, they can click to follow and see your stats and location on the map.”
    Does that not work by it linking to your phone? If so, it will be reliant on having a signal and the phone’s battery life…a waste of time if out in the wild or on multiday trips. Correct me if I’m wrong though.

    EDIT: Sorry, too slow!

    Schweiz
    Free Member

    I looked at SPOTs a while back and the reliability was what put me off. There would be nothing worse than family seeing the signal disappear and assuming the worst. I found a lot of horror stories via google

    jameso
    Full Member

    battery life, signal, reliability, costs etc

    The Spot v2 I used this summer had about 4-5 days of long day/switch off when sleeping kind of use on the Energiser Ultimates. V1 said to have less lifespan but not much.
    Signal – seemed ok and consistent if it’s positioned well on the bike.
    Reliability – dunno as I only used if for 2 1/2 weeks. Survives being dropped and was a used unit so seemed pretty tough.
    Costs – Stu on BBB has a v1 he mentioned selling a while back.

    There would be nothing worse than family seeing the signal disappear and assuming the worst.

    unless you hit the panic button they should be able to relax – that’s more a misunderstanding of what the spot’s saying or excess viewer worry than a product issue.

    d45yth
    Free Member

    Scotroutes, this should answer a lot of what you want to know: Spot Track Progress. The basic, yearly sub is 99E + another 39E for the live tracking.

    rockhopperbike
    Full Member

    Hi,
    I have one following a slight flesh wound, I have the GPS messenger version, which only needs the GPS satellites to work, £2 per week for the subscription service. battery life is very good- you only need to turn it on to “report in” – mine is still on the original batteries (I carry a spare set also). It also has a custom message button that you programme via the website- mine is set to say “no phone signal here, everything okay, will call you later on”- this can be sent to a number of recipients via email and text

    Signal reception is very good, turn on get signal and send message within a couple of mins

    the Garmin system is good, but I relies on a smartphone to do the reporting thing- not massively reliable in terms of batteries etc.

    I think there is a new version coming out- more bells and whistles, but a little cheaper

    stills8tannorm
    Free Member
    boblo
    Free Member

    I’ve had one for ~3 years. Used it both for tracking and routine reporting. Not needed the ‘send yellow taxi NOW‘ button thankfully.

    It costs €99 p/a for basic service plus the €39 above for tracking. It does this via sending sat signals so needs clear view of the sky. It does not store any GPX on board.

    You get a couple of pre configured message buttons and an emergency button that sends alert and Lat/Long to a call centre in Houston. They then call emergency services in relevant Country. Routine message config etc is via web so recipients, message content etc needs to be set up in advance. BTW, messages can be SMS and/or email. Battery life = plenty on lithiums.

    Not sure you can buy them in the UK as they’re not certified. Mine came from Singapore via eBay.

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