Update on the SPOT GPS device:
The good:
1. The device works and is very very precise. When using in the car, you can literally see what lane you are driving in.
2. You do not need any SIM card or any mobile phone coverage, it uses satellites only.
The bad:
1. When in town riding between +4 story buildings the device will not function properly. The walls are too tall and will cover the satellites.
2. The device will not work if you put your hand on it, however it will work if you put clothes above it.
3. The worst part: You family will only be able to see 7 days of tracking. The system is simply only able to show 7 days of tracking. When you reach the 8th day, the 1st day tracks are automatically erased. If you ride across USA your family will not be able to see the entire track from start but only as "a number of dots in the middle of somewhere".
4. To circumvent the limitations with 7 days tracking, the company "invented" Spotadventures.com. You can export your 7 day tracks to spotadventures where all data is saved forever and is never lost. The problem however is, that the data points need to be exported MANUALLY to spotadventures and it needs to be done every 7 days!!! In spotadventures the data can be merged: That way the entire route from start to the present point can be shown. If you want to show the entire track, YOU need to find Internet hotspots along the route every 7 days (or less) and manually export the data points to spotadventures. If you cannot do it, you need to have somebody else (family member etc) do it by giving them your login details.
5. As an alternative to spotadventures.com, the data points can also be exported as various other GPS data, like kml-files which can be used in google maps. However this also needs to be done manually and every 7 days (or less).
Final comment:
When you want to show your tour to family/friends, they need to use 2 links:
1. A findmespot link
2. A spotadventures link
and these 2 services do not communicate with each other, except when you alone export data.
If I had known about the 7day issue I would not have bought the device. The information about the 7 days on the findmespot.com webpage cannot be found - at least by me. However, maybe if you download the online manual (before buying the device) and read all the details with the small letters you will be able to pick up the 7 day issue. Maybe you don't care about the 7 days, but I do :-).
Lucas
