Somewear Global Hotspot – any users?

Yes I’m a happy user. Was an initial kickstarter backer before mini was announced. Have seen no reason to switch to mini, as somewhere has performed great for me. Noting that I only use it for messaging not tracking, so have no experience with the latter.

Thanks Michael –

Any issues getting it to link with your phone? I was wondering how easy it is to get the phone linked up (I have an iPhone, not sure what you have). I doubt I’d have it linked all the time, in order to save the iPhone battery, but link it only when I need to report back to home or if I get into a major problem. Is the connectivity hookup easy and reliable?

Never had trouble linking. And I do also have an inReach non-mini. So am familiar with both. Somewhere seems to be a little better getting satellite signal, but that is just based on anecdotal experience.

TLDR: I do not recommend Somewear.

Return Policy: You are unable to return the device after it has been activated and are stuck with it. In this day and age a product without a money back guarantee should have been a red flag. Another red flag: it is only sold directly from the company, not through a major retailer, like REI, which stands behind the products they sell. REI does sell the Garmin InReach/2, the ACR Electronics Bivy Stick, the Zoleo and devices from Spot.

Experience: Over 1 year of use. Worked as advertised at first. At some point, weather reports stopped loading and map functionally through the phone’s GPS stopped working without updating the phone’s GPS location in another app first. Messages and–presumably–SOS continued to work.

Customer Service: Terrible. Only via email. Wait time for a response was typically between 5 and 23 (not a typo) days. They do not address your concerns, which is especially frustrating when you’ve waited 23 days for a response to a carefully written email. Even worse, they provided patronizing directions on how to use the basic functions of a cell phone, despite clear and technical descriptions of problems.

Technical Assistance: Only available relayed through customer service emails. Unable to solve technical problems. Eventually received an email from Alan Besquin, Co-founder & CTO that didn’t acknowledge my technical problems, didn’t offer solutions, didn’t offer a direct means of contact, didn’t offer a refund, didn’t offer to try a new device; only offered to reset the device for transfer to another party.