Product Review: Don't buy a Spot Satellite Personal Tracker
On Saturday, July 18th, 2009, Kevin and I sailed my 20 foot Nacra 6.0 NA catamaran from Evanston, Illinois 62 miles across Lake Michigan to Benton Harbor, Michigan.
Without a motor we were completely at the mercy of the elements. For safety reasons we decided to purchase a Spot Satellite Personal Tracker. Spot Satellite Personal Tracker is a compact device that is marketed to most outdoor enthusiasts including boaters, campers, fishermen, hikers, hunters, pilots, snowmobilers and most relevant; sailors. Any activity that takes you out of cell phone range seems to be the perfect opportunity to use a Spot Satellite Personal Tracker.
Spot Satellite Personal Tracker works in a couple different ways. It can send an "I'm okay" text-message or email with your latitude and longitude to friends and family whenever you press the Check In button. Or, Spot Satellite Personal Tracker can automatically send your latitude and longitude to an online map every 10 minutes where friends and family can monitor your current position.
In the event of an emergency Spot Satellite Personal Tracker has two functions. You can send a "I need help" text message and email to friends or another button sends your latitude and longitude to emergency personnel.
Spot Satellite Personal Tracker is not reliable. Not reliable at all in fact. The product marketing for Spot Satellite Personal Tracker is excellent. It seems they spared no expense promoting and packaging Spot Satellite Personal Tracker but the important part, research and development, seems to be where they dropped the ball.
Like any satellite system, Spot Satellite Personal Tracker requires a "clear view of the sky". In the middle of Lake Michigan on a clear day Spot Satellite Personal Tracker was not able to maintain a satellite signal and after approximately 90 minutes of tracking, Spot Satellite Personal Tracker stopped updating our position online.
Because Spot Satellite Personal Tracker indicates its operational status with an array of blinking lights, it's next to impossible to understand what it's doing or what it's already done. Spot Satellite Personal Tracker comes with a brief operating manual and has more operating instructions on their website, but with 4 buttons and 4 blinking lights, it's extremely complex to operate. It clearly would benefit from an LCD screen.
When Spot Satellite Personal Tracker stopped working on Saturday, family members became extremely concerned and phoned the Coast Guard. Apparently the Coast Guard was 10 minutes from launching a rescue helicopter to find us when we arrived in Benton Harbor, Michigan 5 1/2 hours after leaving Evanston, Illinois.
Because the device is so difficult to operate, we had no way of knowing that the Spot Satellite Personal Tracker had stopped reporting our position.
Spot Satellite Personal Tracker should be marketed as an interesting toy, not a life safety device. Their marketing slogan is "Live to tell about it" which is quite catchy but in reality, had there been an actual emergency on Lake Michigan that day, we may not have lived to tell about it or write this review.
The bottom line is that if you need a reliable emergency communication device, avoid the Spot Satellite Personal Tracker and purchase or rent a satellite phone.
posted by Gabriel @ 6:18 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
You cannot use Spot in this way.
The automatic position reporting every 10 minutes or so is not the way to confirm your position.
1) First it is better for family not to track your position.
2) If you want to do that than use the ok button every hour or so and send an ok message (still I think not a good idea)
3) send NO messages at all and ONlY use 911 when necessary -> intended use.
So use it as an Epirb - no misunderstanding possible.
From Spot's website:
"TRACK PROGRESS: Also known as SPOTcastingSM, this feature allows friends and family to follow your progress in real time using your password, or to save waypoints so you can review your entire route at a later date."
You're saying I cannot use Spot in this way?
I have had the same poor results with Spot. Two blinking lights should mean that it has a signal and can transmit but it only sends a message about 20% of the time. The worst part is not knowing whether it's working or not.
I have had the exact same experience in that SPOT would stop tracking with no indication that it stopped doing so. But wait it gets better. Try getting in touch with a human at SPOT. They are rude and aloof at best with any concerns after waiting on hold forever. DON'T BUY SPOT. THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE IS THE WORST!!!
Amen, brothers and sisters. This dog doesn't hunt. I think if I opened the case I would find buttons connected to LEDs to make them flash as if something is happening, and that's all. It's a piece of "rhymes with wrap". Don't waste your money.
I've had exactly the opposite experience. I found excellent customer service - with the owner(?) taking time to return my phone call when I made a suggestion. Within minutes they modified the tracking message to accomodate our request. We use it continously while sailing from the east coast to Bermuda - and it worked flawlessly (every 10 minutes) the entire way over and back. I agree, it's indications could be improved, but Im sold on the system. We rented one for the trip last year, but I'm planning to buy one for the same trip this summer (2010).
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