New Spot satcom messenger

[Pedestrian]

Thread drift…….please ignore if you don’t care about phone spamming….

You don’t need to provide your number to anybody for your phone to receive spam calls and texts. With the advent of “free unlimited calls and texts” and very sophisticated auto dialing and texting software there is almost zero cost to the spammers to hit very large numbers of phone numbers. Just having an active number puts you at risk for spam.

Google (like some other providers) has been doing a very effective job identifying and filtering spammers. That’s part of the reason you see much lower spam traffic on Google voice numbers. The calls can be filtered by forcing the caller to identify themselves but it’s not effective against texts…..

[Mike In Socal]

Example 2: 25+89.7+209.7=324.4; unless an annual subscription is changed to a more expensive plan. Their 2016 Terms and Conditions didn’t allow any change. Section 4.3 of their 2017 Terms and Conditions allowed a change if it was to a more expensive option. I can’t find any Terms and Conditions for 2018. Assuming 2017 is the most recent version, you can’t go back to the lower cost plan without paying a “change plan fee”. They don’t specify what that fee charge is. Do you know?

Hi Richard,
I think your calculation is based on the Freedom plan which allows you to switch or suspend service and that would be correct under that plan. My understanding is that under the Annual/contract plan you need to maintain continuous service but can still switch between plans. Under the Annual/Contract plan, the monthly prices for each level of service are cheaper than under the Freedom Plan: $11.95/mo (vs $14.95/mo) for the Safety level and $24.95/mo (vs $$34.95) for the Recreation level. As you said, you can switch to a more expensive plan without charge but switching to a cheaper plan would incur a fee. In my example, I assumed I would be switching down once per year for $25 and switching back up for no fee. That’s how I arrived at the numbers I used in my calculation.

Mike

[Kyle Meyer]

For some (like me) this would be a serious misfeature! Imagine getting texts from folks that have your number who feel like they need to reach out to you just to say hi!

While I totally understand the sentiment of not wanting to be connected, I have the opposite problem quite a bit—I spend a lot of time backpacking or hunting out of cell service where solitude is not my primary ambition. In those cases, being in touch with my partner or close friends and having them be able to reach me easily is a big-time feature that will help me integrate my wilderness hobby into a modern life.

[Rex Sanders]

A few more tidbits from browsing the Spot X user guide:

• You can create up to 14 predefined messages, so you don’t need to type each one
• You can create one check-in message with a Google Maps link, sent to up to 10 recipients at no additional cost
• You can blacklist or whitelist numbers and addresses to block spammers, bill collectors, government agents, angry exes, etc.

— Rex

[Kyle Meyer]

I have one of these in hand as of yesterday. Some thoughts:

• It’s a pain in the butt to set up. I had to call customer service to get a proper activation code. You have to update the firmware and that failed numerous times before inexplicably working. Trying to buy service on their website broke a couple times before inexplicably working.
• It works seemingly very slowly. In my backyard and on the 4th floor balcony of my office building, I’m seeing message send times of 10-20 minutes, which is very different than the few seconds an InReach is supposed to send messages in. I cannot tell if the satellite coverage in Portland, OR is terrible, if my device is broken, or what. But I signed up for unlimited messaging and it feels like a terrible decision if messaging is this slow.

I’m yet to take this into the woods. I’m hopeful that message send times will come way down as this product actually gets rolled out and perhaps the firmware gets fixed, but if it doesn’t, I’m taking this thing back to REI and getting an InReach Mini. Who cares about the difference in cost if the cheaper one is almost unusably slow at sending messages comparatively?

[Rex Sanders]

I’ve used an inReach SE for almost five years and message send times are variable. Most go through quickly, and I get a message-went-through sound from the device in a minute or two. But sometimes it takes much longer, depending on terrain, trees, etc.

Spot X uses Globalstar satellites, inReach uses Iridium, and those systems have some important differences. With Iridium, if you can see any satellite for a few seconds, your message should go through. With Globalstar – it’s complicated.

For more than you really wanted to know about satellite systems like these:

https://backpackinglight.com/satellite_communications_sotmr_part1/

Setting up my inReach SE was relatively easy, once I moved from my backyard forest in a canyon to a large parking lot. The printed instructions had some problems that I worked around. Growing pains for new devices, hope Spot can sort out their problems soon.

— Rex

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

I don’t know what the InReach plans are in the USA, but in Canada they are super reasonable.

I can suspend my service anytime via $3/mth standby. When I’m going on a trip, I switch to a plan which are $0.70 to $2 per day (from basic SOS to unlimited). I don’t use the InReach on mellow trips, so I’m probably only using 10 – 30 days per day. So for a typical year of intermittent use I probably pay around $40 – $80 CAD ($30 – 60 USD).

This talk of $300 – $600 sounds crazy to me.

[Lori P]

Any gadget is unreliable – it’s been my contention for years, based on direct observation. Have had texts sent to me that took long hours to get through, from InReach. Have used a sat phone, and had the same issue. No message/failure, or long delays. And having been SAR,  I know about the misfires and people found with functional devices that didn’t help them at all….

Regardless of what you use, leave an itinerary with someone always. Don’t let this or any device lull you into thinking you don’t have to. Reconn.org is a great template to use.

I have an ACR locator beacon – and while I have not had issues since I have yet to push that button I had an interesting experience with NOAA and some search organization in Chile — my device ID number was mistakenly affiliated with an organization somehow in the database that led to me getting an email asking where I was and had I activated my beacon. Several days later I had spoken to NOAA and then to someone in an office affiliated with the Air Force about the issue. I hope whoever actually activated that beacon near Easter Island got the help they needed while people were asking me questions about the not-activated beacon sitting in my house in California.

Then there was the panicked young woman whose dad had a SPOT that he left in a campsite on the High Sierra Trail. She was upset when the breadcrumbs stopped moving, and again when someone found it and started playing with it. Dad eventually figured it out, turned around, actually found the guy who gave the device back to him, but the non backpacking family members were convinced someone whacked dad and stole his stuff.

Don’t assume anything when it comes to this stuff. They are helpful but they aren’t going to replace that good old fashioned practice of leaving an itinerary with someone.

I may get the InReach Mini, but I’m still using reconn.org and occasionally the high band radio when out with trail crew. The high band radio isn’t reliable in spite of the towers all over the backcountry. When dealing with volunteers I am approaching the matter of safety with redundancies.

[J R]

For on-off service in the USA it’s $25/year subscription fee and the ability to turn it on in monthly increments. For $15/month you get bare-bones service that includes 10 messages and pay extra for tracking points, and for $35/month (the level I use) you get 40 messages and unlimited tracking points, overage messages are 50¢ each. Then they have $65 and $100 levels above that.

You can also subscribe for a whole year to the same levels, the monthly cost is lower and there’s no annual subscription fee, but you’re committing to pay for the whole year.

[Jenny A]

Lori P., thank you for the reminders and your comments!  Leaving an itinerary with someone back at home is essential no matter how reliable you think your PLB or SEND or cell phone might be.  It is we humans who operate them, and we are not perfect as your stories reveal.  I teach introductory backpacking classes, and I see peoples’ eyes light up when I show them my InReach, and those same eyes glaze over when I hand out sample itinerary forms.  None of us ever think that Bad Things will happen to us!

[Kyle Meyer]

I’ll try to keep this brief: I returned my SPOT X and cancelled my service. The device is dangerously unreliable and I’d highly recommend not buying it until they resolve issues with the device and their service.

Tuesday night, I did a quick solo overnight into an alpine area of the Cascades in Oregon. At 8pm, I got to camp and texted my girlfriend that I was at camp, a-ok, and that I loved her. I “fetched new messages” on the device around 9:30pm to see if she had written back before going to sleep.

When I set the device down in my ditty bag and did a little rearranging under my tarp, I accidentally tripped the SPOT X’s software SOS button. Yep, there’s two ways to trigger SOS on the device—the hardware button under a heavy plastic cover that’s impossible to accidentally press, and then a casual software option that’s casually mixed in with other features like fetching messages. It’s absolutely ridiculous. At 10pm, GEOS started messaging me asking the nature of my emergency, but I was asleep.

At 5:30am, I woke up, started making coffee, checked the SPOT, and freaked out. I immediately clicked cancel on the SOS and could see I had three messages waiting for me, but could not access them or use messaging until the SOS successfully cancelled, about 20 minutes later.

By that time, I had packed up camp and was hiking uphill to the ridge above camp where I know there’s cell service. By 6:30am, I found out what had been happening.

My partner had never gotten my text that said I was fine. She hadn’t heard from me all day until that SOS. She didn’t sleep all night and was constantly in contact with SPOT and the county police department. The  police department had gathered a search and rescue team and had started hiking in at 4am from a trailhead about 6 miles away. They had debated using a helicopter or hiking in at night, but were nervous about night time creek crossings and snow fields. They were on track to reach my campsite at 8am.

 

So to recap: I sent an okay message over an hour and a half before accidentally tripping SOS that never made it. The SPOT X makes it dangerously easy to trigger SOS via a software option that can happen just by bumping into stuff in your backpack or a bag.  It’s satellite messaging service sucks and is completely unreliable—if my message had been sent successfully, it would have fundamentally changed the nature of the response from police and my emergency contacts.

Ugh. Happy 4th of July. 🇺🇸

Edit: this just showed up in my email 30 minutes ago
https://www.findmespot.com/firmware/docs/SPOT-X-Firmware-Release-Notes-07-03-2018.pdf

[Matthew / BPL]

Wow.

That’s a great story. I’m truly sorry for your girlfriend’s experience. That must have been really scary.

[Rex Sanders]

I’m glad no one was physically hurt as a result of poor product design. Emotional trauma …

It’s sad to see device and app manufacturers botch simple stuff like unguarded SOS buttons. Especially since it seems to happen over and over again across the industry. Don’t they learn from each other’s mistakes?

Looks like SPOT will need another firmware update to make the too-easy-to-activate SOS button OFF by default; I’m predicting lots of people won’t change that setting:

Added ability to disable S.O.S. menu item to prevent accidentally initiating an S.O.S. …

With the other “duh – really?” fixes in that firmware update, looks like standard high-tech practice of “push it out before it’s fully tested and ready”.

SPOT X users are unpaid beta testers, whether they know it or not.

— Rex

[Hikin’ Jim]

Yeah, that’s a little scary that so little thought went into the GUI side of the SPOT X interface.  I mean, they could have bought a couple of InReaches, taken them out for a few weeks, and put together a focus group thereafter, right?

I’ve had some frustration with my InReach.  Once, and admittedly this was in the bottom of a fairly steep walled rock-bound canyon, it took me nearly 24 hours to get out a message.  I had camped in a pretty wide spot in the canyon, at a confluence, and could get nothing out the first day but a message went out in seconds on the following day.  Quite vexing.

More recently, I was at Guitar Lake in the High Sierra, 11,500′.  Yes, it’s ringed by a bowl of high rocky mountains (most prominent is Mt. Whitney at 14,500′, some 3000′ higher), but I was quite surprised when it took multiple hours to get a message out.

I have however discovered the trick that sometimes turning the InReach off and then back on again a few minutes later will occasionally cause a message to go through that was having trouble getting out.  Not sure what that’s about although perhaps the unit goes through a more thorough satellite search on power up?

I have an ACR Res-Q-Fix PLB, 4.6 oz/130 g.  I hate the idea of having to carry both it and my InReach.  Ugh.  I was hoping my InReach would replace both my eTrex 20 GPS and my PLB in one fell swoop.

HJ

 

[Rex Sanders]

HJ,

I don’t think we have good stats on how quickly PLB SOS signals are received. They too are subject to blocking by mountains, trees, etc. though less so (in theory) than inReach / Iridium.

PLB design goal is for SAR to get an SOS message with a good position within 24 hours of activation. By that standard, your inReach was doing OK, even though you hadn’t activated an SOS.

A thread on PLB vs inReach / SPOT signal reliability is running here: https://backpackinglight.com/forums/topic/acr-plb-vs-inreach/

— Rex

[Kendall Clement]

Holy crap! Kyle Meyer! Thanks for sharing that story. I decided just this week that that because of some upcoming solo trips I’ve got planned that I was going to get a PLB. I really liked the features of the Spot X, I was debating as to whether or not it was worth the weight. I’d read some bad reviews, but BPL’s review, and your horrible experience made my mind up for me! Think I’m definitely going for the inReach Mini.

[Author]

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