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11-12-2007, 03:53 PM
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SPOT Satellite Tracker
Anyone had the opportunity to play around with the SPOT satellite tracker? I've been thinking about splurging for one, but wasn't sure if I could get some pros/cons about the device. This link to the SPOT on Amazon has a one star review, but they're mainly bashing the Globalstar satellite service. Would love to hear some feedback.
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11-12-2007, 03:59 PM
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I Don't have one yet, but my understanding is that it uses the GlobalStar Simplex data service, which is a one-way service that is unaffected by the problems plaguing the GlobalStar phone network. The reviewer on Amazon clearly doesn't have one and is basing his review on experience with their phones.
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11-13-2007, 09:25 AM
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It would be better to be able to talk
I do a lot of camping and hiking with Boy Scouts; personally I'd rather have a device that is a combination phone/GPS, i.e., I'd like to be able to talk on the phone while I'm in coverage, but if something happens I'd like to be able to send an alert and let someone track my location. I suppose that's what a satellite phone does, but I'd like to see something less costly. Is there such a thing as a dual band phone - with cellular/satellite, depending on coverage area? I've seen some M2M devices like that, the state of South Carolina used one for mobile road signs.
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11-13-2007, 08:56 PM
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The SPOT satellite tracker is one of the cheapest satellite solutions I've seen in the market place. I realize it would be nice to use a mobile phone for tracking, but IMO we're just not there yet. In most cases the app responsible for getting GPS data from the phone and sending it over the air is a second class citizen. An example is if a phone call comes in while transmitting GPS data, the GPRS connection will get dropped. Also, a lot of apps aren't automatically restarted when a phone is rebooted and battery life is always an issue. Most people want to "set and forget it" and the mobile phone experience is far from that. Don't get me wrong, I know we'll get there.....we're just not there yet.
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11-28-2007, 04:15 PM
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Just FYI, I found another place to pick up the SPOT Satellite Tracker:
SPOT. The World’s First Satellite Messenger.
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11-29-2007, 10:31 PM
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Quote:
Not assured for safety. No wireless thingie is. Magellan used to (still does?) make a camper's emergency handheld: has GPS + Orcomm's data satellite service for non- and emergency position reports. Orbcomm, because often when camping there's no cellular coverage (Verizon's coverage is much better than any other in the US, and they own ye ole analog cellular which has yet to be shut down - farmers and all you know).
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11-30-2007, 12:03 AM
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The one thing that frustrates me about Verizon and other carriers is the crippling of functionality on mobile phones. Verizon recently disabled GPS in the Blackberry 8830 device. I can't imaging being a 3rd party developer banking on my app running on a certain device on a certain network and then have it shut down. Yet I did recently read an article about how Verizon is planning on opening up their network, which appears to be great news for us in the M2M space. Let's see how well they can execute on it and I'm sure they're fearing what Google will be doing with Android. I grin at the thought of a carrier becoming a commodity.
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11-30-2007, 01:43 PM
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I grin at the thought of a carrier becoming a commodity...
We could only be so lucky...
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04-12-2008, 05:04 PM
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I just used mine for the first time and I am amazed at how well it worked!!! Pretty happy with it and even better is my wife loved it since she could track where I was
 She used it to make sure I was still alive and since I was far enough out I was not able to use my cell phone most of the time so it gave her at least a little peace of mind to know I was not dead. The bonus of all of this is she was able to use this in her classroom to teach the kids about map skills by playing where's Jarl today with the kids. Lots of fun 
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04-12-2008, 10:58 PM
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Did you put it in tracking mode? Just curious as I've had limited success in this mode. There have been times when reports don't even make it through. But in a critical situation you only need to get one report through
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Linear Mode
