SPOT Satellite Messenger reviewed (Verdict: easy-to-use lifesaver)
Alan Henry carried around the SPOT Satellite Messenger device with him for several months, a $170 device (plus $100-a-year subscription) that allows you to beam updates or a "Help!" message if you're too far to get your phone working.The SPOT device is only half of the equation. The other half is your SPOT profile, which you can manage from any computer with Web access. You get an ID number with your SPOT, and with it you can go to the company's Web site, log in, register your device, and configure your alerts. The SPOT can send three different types of messages: check-in messages, help requests, and emergency/911 messages. Each message is sent with information to help find your location, including your latitude and longitude, your device number, the nearest town to your location and how far away it is, and a link to a Google Map with your position indicated on the map.The device is also endorsed by Les Stroud, the ballsy survivalist who hauls his own camera gear into the wilderness to film his show, Survivorman.
Hands-On: The SPOT Satellite Messenger [Gearlog]
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That's just about the coolest camping/travel gadget I've ever seen. I might get one so I can keep my ever-worrying mother calm when I'm traveling in some 3rd world country.
Please tell me how this is better than a real PLB? Admittedly, it is cheaper up-front, but the break-even point is in about 4 years, after which the PLB is cheaper.
A real PLB is also a LOT more reliable. Yes, this thing does have some cool features, but the only real feature that matters is: will is save your live when TSHTF.
Check out reviews from an expert in survival here:
http://www.equipped.org/SPOT_ORSummer2007.htm
Update here:
http://www.equipped.org/blog/?p=73
Look at the coverage on this thing, pitiful!
You get zero coverage in India, all of sub-equatorial Africa and nothing going around Cape Horn. Where exactly am I supposed to use this? When I am distressingly lost in Manhattan?
@Jamesatsea: I was thinking the device would have been useful in situations like when James Kim was trapped in a snowstorm with his wife and child with no cellular signal, or when the hikers who went up Mount Hood got trapped for days.
There are wild places in our backyard, you know, and plenty of places in America that still don't have cellular signal. That's why I felt the SPOT was so useful, and that's why I wrote the article.
@HARRKEV: Let me quote from the article you linked:
"I tend to be somewhat conservative when it comes to lifesaving devices. So, first off, until we get a unit in hand to test, I'm not about to endorse SPOT. I also want to test a production version when they become available, just to confirm whatever results we initially obtain.
If SPOT performs as promised and it proves reliable and robustly constructed, I think it might provide a viable alternative to a more expensive PLB for many users. Over the short term it will save some money, but whether it's a good long term investment is another issue. However, the lower initial outlay will definitely encourage more folks to buy and carry one of these on their adventures and all other things being equal the statistics suggest that will save lives—if it works, etc., etc."
I don't dispute any of that, but maybe you should? The author plainly states that if it works as promised - and everything in both articles you linked leads one to believe that it does - then the device is definitely better than a PLB. What's the problem there?
The one item I'm concerned with is the financial stability of the GlobalStar network, on which SPOT operates. It was brought to my attention after the post went live that the network needs funding and is danger of going under, which could leave a lot of SPOT owners high and dry.