Questions about Spot X & similar options

Hi,

I am a fairly long time user of SPOT. I started with the originally SPOT, then the SPOT X, and now I have the SPOT X Blue tooth.

Briefly - I am not happy with the SPOT X and if I were to do it over, I would buy a Garmin InReach product.

Longer version.
For TRACKING, SPOT X is fine. Some of the pings will miss, enough will make it so anyone following your progress will be able to see that you are making progress. For COMMUNICATING, I am very unhappy with the SPOT X. Messages are dropped, there is no notification that the message was sent.

The original SPOT tracker was fine, but the one way communication is that that useful for ME (someone who wants to receive information from the outside world). I upgraded to a SPOT X. First usage was an Around Long Island Regatta - a 200nm distance race in the atlantic ocean and Long island Sound. I set the SPOT X to send a track every 10 minutes and I connected my phone to it so I could send / receive messages when in the ocean and out of cell range. The SPOT X was attached to the mast so it had a clear, unobstructed view of the sky. Tracking was fine, most messages were sent / received (only a few were sent). A few hours before the race finish the SPOT X stopped working. After the race was complete, I brought the SPOT inside the cabin to charge the battery (thinking that was the reason it stopped working). I found that water was inside the unit and it was ruined. I was careful to have the power door closed, and it's gasketed to prevent water intruision. Anyway the SPOT was ruined. I contacted support and they sent me a new one, AND told me to leave it inside the cabin, and it will work just fine through fiberglass. The replacement unit was mounted inside, above a cabinet, safe and dry. This worked better (not failures) but on long trips too many messages are dropped. Last year I used on a trip home from Bermuda to NY and also on a trip from NY to Maine. A signiticant amount of messages are not delivered. On the Maine trip a friend of mine had his Garmin INreach unit. Every track and every message from that device was transmitted and received.

So my next device will be an inreach. I'll probably get the GPSMAP86 so I can retire my old Garmin 78SC.

The tracking stuff is easy to setup and use. it's very easy to create a share site and share with friends and family.

The differences between the various subscriptions are in how many messages you can send before you get charged. I have the lowest level plans because I'm not usually out of cell phone range for very long.

I'm doing a long distance race next weekend and my SPOT tracker will be on. I'll include the link before the race incase anyone wants to see it.

Barry

Thank you for all the replies.

I ended up getting the spot X. There were a few reasons for me doing that, despite people here & elsewhere telling me that the In Reach is the better unit.

One reason was that with the Spot X, I only need that one device to send & receive messages, as well as share my tracking. I prefer not to carry a cell phone when going offshore. Another reason was that some of the races in my area require a Spot tracker to be on board. I have no idea why they chose Spot, but that is their standard, so this opens some racing options for me.

I learned a few things when setting it up & starting to use it. First of all, if you want it to track for more than 24 hours straight without resetting the unit, that requires a more expensive subscription.

Second, text message latency has been about 5-10 minutes on average, each way. Position tracking seems to mostly be on time. If you want tracking more often than every 10 minutes, that requires a more expensive service plan. The fastest time interval available is 2.5 minutes. Faster times reduce battery life.

You can program how often it checks for waiting messages. Intervals are the same as above, or you can check them manually, by pushing a button. So far, no messages have been lost, but I haven't sent that many yet & I'm in a well populated area of the US mainland.

It came with a comm/charging cord that has some ferrite chokes on it. Some chargers will charge it from a standard cord. Others will not. I haven't tried the bad chargers with the factory cord yet. The connection is micro USB.

The set up on the website was not intuitive for me, but they had phone support people who were willing to walk me through it. With a little help, things came together pretty quickly. The tracking software seems to be set up more for tracking fleets of trucks, than boats, but it can work for us too.

My biggest gripe was not knowing about needing the more expensive service before I bought it. I'll know better for next time. It's still not that expensive. It costs less than the other options that are out there, both in hardware cost & subscription fees.

I plan to field test it on a delivery in a few weeks.

Hi Bill.... you are in Israel.