New smaller spot!

[RocKrawler]

Cant believe someone else hasnt posted this yet... just received my Spot newsletter & they have a new smaller unit coming out in a few months with better performance. A lot of us suspected this as the many recent "free Spot" promotions in the past 6 months or so was leading up to something. Cant wait for more details & they are saying there will be an upgrade program for current users. Here's the part of their newsletter about the smaller unit:

:victory:

 

[IntrepidXJ]

http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29700

 

[RocKrawler]

http://expeditionportal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=29700

I knew someone would beat me to it... but not by that far! I just got the notification this afternoon.

 

[bugnout]

Kind of weak for a redesign IMHO.
Too bad they didn't add a simple utm readout during the redesign. That would have been sweet. Broadcast location via bluetooth or similar, would have been golden. Integrated into a handheld mapping GPSr, priceless. Without knowing the technical specifications, this revision just looks like a minor restyle. Keep wishing for more from these guys....

I agree. GPS functionality would make this a no-brainer. A little more on the satellite comm end would be nice as well. I'm not expecting a full keyboard for SMS (Yet), but the ability to send one of 8 or 16 predefined messages would be nice. its just one or two bytes, would make it very useful for confirming or calling off resupply, calling in plan b or hundreds of other uses that I can think of.

 

[cruisertoy]

I had it in my hands at the OR show and talked for an hour or so with the guy that said he did the redesign on it. It is a lot smaller and with the case solve the crappy clip issue with the original. He kind of hohummed about adding a screen to it and User GPS info. It would be a no brainer to me to pay a little more and have the option of only taking the SPOT if I only had to carry one piece of equipment.

The little rubber covers they put over the Help and 911 buttons flopped around a lot while I held the unit. Hopefully the actual product is a little more robust. He claimed the GPS antena was more powerful, but as we pulled my last trip up from Alaska this summer for me to show him where we lost tracking and satalite reception, he said the new antena would not have helped us. It was mainly for getting through trees and such. Unless they have a killer current customer deal, I'll stick with my old unit.

 

[bmonday]

I think they did a great job of listening to their customers, and designing a rock-solid v2 of their product.

All that other stuff you want.... well, that should be a separate product, IMHO. Feature bloat has killed far too many great point-products.

 

[cruisertoy]

When your packing light for extended foot travel or for a 100mile float trip with a 200 mile Beaver plane drop, packing all the extra gizmos adds weight. This last trip we even threw out most of the guns and ammo as we headed into bear country for 10 days as we were over the limit. Every little item adds up. I totally agree with product creep destroying certian products, but since the unit already does the basic function of GPS locating I would think that would still be with in reason. I am not sold on the need for a keyboard or a bunch more message functions because If I want that then I'll bring a Sat phone. I think the basic functionality is great, just wish I didn't need to carry a seperate GPS 90% of the time. As it stand the 4 of us on these trips take 4 Rhino GPS, a Personal Locator beacon(expensive if used but works anywhere, Spot has been unusable for days in Alaska and worthless in the Pacific), and a Satalite phone. The phone is because we have one guy that needs to be in contact with his Doctor once or twice a trip to adjust his meds. We haven't used the spot until last year, but like the tracking application for our families to were where we are at.

 

[02TahoeMD]

I think there are some great ideas being posted here. Perhaps Spot could develop a separate platform that would combine the Spot with a typical hiking GPS, and having the ability to select one of several messages to send out. Then, Spot would have an entrance level product in the Spot.V.2 and then an upper end product Spot/GPS. I still like my Spot.V.1 and will probably be keeping it unless they give me a V.2 for nada.


And, IF they develop a Spot/GPS combo I would definitely be interested.....