SPOT Messenger

From 4LPH41337.com

Reviewing the SPOT Messenger, a satellite tracking device and emergency beacon.

Josh's Take

Because we're tech nerds, Joanna brought her SPOT Messenger to the 2008 Checkpoint Zero Adventure Race. For those adventure racers not familiar, the SPOT Messenger is a transmitter, and does not show us our location, but rather transmits our location via satellite to Internet fans and emergency assistance if things take a turn for the worse. These characteristics made it possible for Joanna's mom to rest at ease with her running around in the woods in sub-freezing temperatures.

Up until the race it wasn't working at all and Joanna was on the phone with the company attempting to get the device online. It finally started working morning of the race. During the race, the tracker seemed to degrade from 1/10 minutes to 1/20 minutes after about 3 hours of use, then stopped sending our position completely. A reset would get it functioning again, but it is advertised as only needing a reset after 24 hours. I'd say the device needs a little work in the arena of transmission degradation recovery if this is the normal experience.

To illustrate this point, Jack was nice enough to compile all the points and load them up on the web for viewing:

SPOT Messenger tracks in Google Maps|Google Earth

Note he loaded both the CPs from CP0 race and our SPOT tracker points. When viewing via Google Maps, you can take away some of the points and/or paths by un-checking the corresponding boxes on the left.

For a good showing of it's reliability, look at the timestamps on all the SPOT points. Note that we manually reset the device a couple of times during the race upon learning of the problem, though I cannot remember when. I have to assume at 15:38 (~2 hours of no tracker transmissions) and 7:28 (~6 hours of no tracker transmissions).

SPOT tracker is advertised to update every 10 minutes. You'll see from the points when it was working it was updating every ~10-30 minutes. During this race, we were in some dense forests, so I would not expect crystal-clear coverage. SPOT's website says that it has coverage throughout North America.

Positives:

Kosher device for adventure races, since it does not display position to the competitors, an attribute that makes traditional GPSs illegal.
Distress (Help) button for viewers allows for loved ones or race directors to know that you need help.
9-1-1 functionality is EXTREMELY useful for emergency situations, since it gives emergency dispatchers your exact location.
At a little over 7 ounces, the device is relatively light. This makes it ideal for carrying around on long races.
Did I mention it can be submerged and floats in water?
The tracking functionality reports location live to SPOT's web service, email list, and cellphone's SMS networks. SPOT's web service hook into the Google Maps API, so that your position can be easily overlaid on maps.
Tracks are exportable into standard GPS formats, which are importable into many 3rd-party tools (i.e. Google Earth), for post-adventure analysis.

Improvements:

Would benefit from a hardy clip to allow it to be 'binered on to the outside of the backpack.
10 minute transmission interval could be shortened.
Degradation of the tracker functionality requiring a manual reset is frustrating.
The SPOT web service for tracking progress doesn't separate permissions for guests tracking your progress. A shared guest account would allow for folks to view your progress without being able to edit your profile or know your password.

Summary:

It takes a lot for me to get excited about new technology. But if SPOT plays their cards right and fixes their tracker reliability issues, the SPOT Messenger could become a household name in AR. The reason I believe this is because there are two major use cases for the SPOT adoption in AR, and both of them fit the product like a glove.

Competitors' families who want peace of mind.
Race Directors wanting to track teams.

Yes, yes. I know most adventure racers could care less about a safety blanket while they are going at it mono e mono with Mother Nature. However, having a transmitter feeding their positional data to their less brazen loved ones has its merits. And let's face it, even the most brazen adventurers know in the back of their mind that anything can happen in the wild, and if you are training alone or racing solo, it helps to have a way to call for help when you've got no teammates to save you. I won't conjure the life-or-death situations that are obvious, because I'm not into fear mongering. However, it would be nice to have one of these when you've broken your ankle/leg 10 miles into a wilderness hike and while you could get yourself out of it, it would be a more pleasant experience to have your mates or EMS pick you up. Okay, I'm a killjoy. But carrying one doesn't mean you have to use it. If you want to make a splint out of forest wood and vines and hobble back out to tell the tail to your grandchildren later, you can.

As it stands today, the distress and 9-1-1 buttons on the SPOT Messenger make it an appealing offering to Race Directors in the very least as safety equipment. In small- to medium-sized races today, cell phones are the only connection teams and emergency help. Cell phone coverage is limited in the wilderness, and so teams often must rely on getting themselves out of a bad situation. So the SPOT Messenger scores points in the realm of race safety. Add to that the ability to track teams' progress and you have a hit. Further, because it doesn't show the teams their position, it's street legal. Taking it a step forward, races that have live leaderboards over the Internet, such as those participating in the Checkpoint Tracker Adventure Racing Series, could step the live coverage up a notch by providing exact location of teams as the race progresses. I could envision SPOT offering an API, Web Service, or RSS feed for race directors to integrate into their live race coverage. Lastly, being designed primarily as a rugged outdoor device also helps, as RDs have to worry less about their race investment being damaged.

[edit]

Jack's Take

In reference to the signal degradation over time, I'm guessing since the product technology is relatively new, they are experiencing growing pains and still working on getting servers up to snuff.

It's cool to see where the team went compared to where the CPs were. A more frequent bread trail would have been cool, so you could see teams circling CPs for 3 hrs before finding it.

It did help me (as support crew of a race) for determining when the team was going to come into a transition area--when it was working properly. Unfortunately, when it wasn't working right, the stew I'd prepared ended up getting warmed for 3 hrs....as I kept expecting the team in at any moment. Later I learned about several issues that delayed the team after the SPOT signal died out. When it was working, and they were paddling on the lake, I was able to see that they had made it to the first paddling check point and on the way to the second, when they got turned back by race management. This let me know to start getting food ready for the next leg, as they'd be coming in earlier than expected. I was monitoring their progress via a broadband cell adapter, and there were times when the broadband cell adaptor couldn't get a signal, but my sister back in civilization, would call in the coordinates to me she saw on the SPOT tracker because the cell phone voice service was working.

I do think viewers at home would love to see this stuff during the race, if SPOT devices become the norm for all teams. AR needs a better way for spectators to follow along. Let's face it, it's pretty boring waiting for the brief glimps of the teams as they go through transition areas (if, as support, you even get to hang out at a TA). This would allow them to follow along live.