new spot connect for sat txt messages

[troyboy162]

dont know much about this but the price is right. of course you have to already have a smart phone to use it, but looks like a good set up. your cell phone now becomes part of your emergency gear, so that kinda changes things. i soppose in remote area travel your phone should be treated as such anyhow.
http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=116

-custom txt messages and emails to predefined recipients
-cheaper then the spot with gps package

[Okie81]

Great tool for the majority of us, but I hope it doesn't promote further misuse of such technology in emergency situations.
http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2009/09/spot-%E2%80%93-good-bad-and-silly-uses-those-high-tech-communicators4573

[slosurfer]

I wonder how much the service plans are? I like it! I've held off on getting a Spot because I wanted one that I could send a text with in a nonemergency help situation. I know on the Spot, that you can send for nonemergency help, but lets say I sent that to my wife, she'd have to guess what kind of help I needed. With this, I could tell her what I need.

Additional charges apply for Type & Send and Track Progress service plans.

[troyboy162]

as i read it looks like its a $.50 pay as you go, or something like $30.00 for 100 txt prepaid. thats pretty dang good, but im worried there might be a gotcha somewhere in the fine print

[Okie81]

even at $0.50 a text that's not bad, especially if it saves you a $200 tow in the middle of nowhere or worse, an unwanted overnight stay.

[slosurfer]

Yeah, that's not bad for the texts, but I wonder how much they charge for the tracking service? It might be the same as the original spot

[troyboy162]

i read the tracking service is pretty inaccurate. i saw the plots of spot tracker layed over top of the guys GPS path and spot was too infrequent to determine his true route. still not bad if you have people that want to see where you are.

bummer with this is i think i want to wait till april to get a new phone

[slosurfer]

Yeah, I think it pings every 5 minutes or something like that while tracking, so not enough pings to determine a route. I was just thinking more so that my wife could see where I was, if I was on a trip without her and then I wouldn't have to remember to manually send out the "I'm here and ok" ping all the time. :)

I'm definately going to look into this more, as I think it has potential. Has anyone at expeditionportal tested them out yet?

[troyboy162]

http://www.gpsbusinessnews.com/CES-SPOT-Connect-Demo_a2713.html

i like it quite a bit! just need a phone to go along with it now

[slosurfer]

I wonder if my old school blackberry I use is "smart" enough? :laugh:

[Crinale]

if there is a blackberry app for it, then it probably is..

[slosurfer]

I would think that it would just have to be able to text and hook up by bluetooth and then the Spot does the rest?

I don't have internet hooked up on my phone, just texts.... My blackberry is just a glorified phone at this point. :)

[DHC6twinotter]

Looks pretty cool! Has anybody seen how much it costs?

[Crinale]

Looks pretty cool! Has anybody seen how much it costs?

for the device itself or the service? cuz i think the service costs were already mentioned.. no clue on the device

[DHC6twinotter]

for the device itself or the service? cuz i think the service costs were already mentioned.. no clue on the device


I was mainly wondering about the service costs. It sounds like there is a .50 charge per text, but is there a monthly fee on top of that? Sounds like the device costs 150.