Albin Owners Group

A buddy of mine uses this great device when he goes offshore. I purchased one and it has tremendous capabilities. The Spot tracks your movement, has an SOS feature and will record your movements through your pc or I-pad. Since the yacht is on the hard, I have been using it in my vehicle. The device will work world wide and is a lot cheaper than a EPIRB. However, there is a $150 service charge per year.

I have a SPOT 2 and have had it for about 6 years.

If all you are looking for is an SOS device or something which will tell people you are moving with a beginning location, then the SPOT will/should work for you.

When I purchased it there was the ability to have the unit send a location 'ping' every so often, I think 10min interval. Since my wife didn't come on the trip to move our new, to us, boat from CT to PA she was able to 'watch' our progress as we moved the boat. I would push 3 buttons on the unit when we started out each day and she would get a notice via email with a link which when clicked on took her to a map where she would 'see' the boat move on the map.

In SPOT's infinite wisdom they decided to change this procedure.

Now you need to have an adventure page in order to 'share' your trip. That in and of itself isn't an issue. What is the issue is that you need to remake this adventure page every 7 days and after that time if you haven't downloaded the track, it is gone. My discussion with SPOT, due to the fact that we are starting our Loop this coming spring and I wanted to be sure the SPOT would work on that trip so that family and friends could be notified when we move and 'follow' us on the trip, was quite unsetting as there are often times when WiFi for access to the web location to make the adventure page, just isn't available.

That doesn't seem to bother them. They have little concern that the mechanics of making their system work isn't for people who are on extended travel with potentially limited online access. It just doesn't work if you are traveling as WiFi access isn't always available and who wants to have to remember to remake this page every 7 days anyway?

Fortunately there is an alternative. DeLorme inReach has the ability to do what the SPOT does on the SOS side (with a better system and more coverage) AND also has the ability to send, once setup, a 'track' of your travels, without ever losing them (NO 7 DAY WINDOW). I just got my inReach on an Active Captain special with Defender Marine. If you don't know, this is a weekly special that was worked out with Active Captain (activecaptain.com) and Defender Marine (defender.net). Sign up for Active Captain weekly newsletter and you'll get the specials, they are really great.

I also got another surprise from SPOT. My yearly subscription starts in June. After I found out the limitation of SPOT I asked that my service be stopped, in November, and the balance refunded. I was informed that my service would terminate in June and that there was no refund after 30 days. DeLorme has a program where you pay for what you use. Yes, there is a subscription fee. If you don't use your boat for 6 mo out of the year, you only pay for 6 mo of use though.

Now, family and friends will be able to watch our progress, on a map, without me having to remember to remake a page or worry about WiFi access.. DeLorme also has other advantages, text messages from your unit for 1. SPOT can't do that.

IF you haven't purchased a SPOT I'd suggest you investigate their practices before you buy.

Excellent write up Charles. Appreciate the info. I had been casually looking at both, will now have to do a bit more investigation of the services.