Anyone using the Spot 2?

essjay

essjay

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Just looking around and as I have a birthday coming up I might just drop a few hints.....

So anyone using the Spot 2? Any teething issues with the new unit over the older one?

Pricewise it seems to be around €179 here in Ireland, £162 in the UK (eBay) or £98 + £10 shipping from the USA. Any reason why a Spot 2 purchased from the USA would give me trouble when I go to activate it over here?

Many accessories out for it yet (I.E. Some sort of RAM mount)?
 
Never had a spot 1 but am using the spot 2. No issues what so ever.

RAM mounts are now available for them and it doesnrt matter where you buy the spot you can activate it anwhere.
 
essjay said:
Just looking around and as I have a birthday coming up I might just drop a few hints.....

So anyone using the Spot 2? Any teething issues with the new unit over the older one?

Pricewise it seems to be around €179 here in Ireland, £162 in the UK (eBay) or £98 + £10 shipping from the USA. Any reason why a Spot 2 purchased from the USA would give me trouble when I go to activate it over here?

Many accessories out for it yet (I.E. Some sort of RAM mount)?
Click to expand...

You realise you pay a subscription for its services. Where you get it doesn't matter bud.

:beerjug:

You will have read up on the device, I'm sure & seen the web-site. It should have been with me on my first europe trip. Still fuming inside really,..but nothing i can do other than flame-email the company. Still will keep using it now i have my new one/they lost my original one.
 
Thanks for that lads.... I'm thinking this can't be a bad investment as I'll use it on my bike and my dad can borrow it for when he goes hunding up the mountains etc....

The only concern I have of the Spot 2 vs the older model is the batteries. As far as I'm aware the older unit was able to take rechargable AA batteries whereas the new unit must have AAA lithiums which are pretty expensive.

How do you guys find the running costs (the the subscription costs) and do you have to change the batteries often?
 
essjay said:
The only concern I have of the Spot 2 vs the older model is the batteries. As far as I'm aware the older unit was able to take rechargable AA batteries whereas the new unit must have AAA lithiums which are pretty expensive.

How do you guys find the running costs (the the subscription costs) and do you have to change the batteries often?
Click to expand...

Not so on the battery front, the original Spot unit uses AA lithium batteries and anything else is not recommended.

I got one for the Gambia trip and it was on for most of the 5 weeks of the trip on a single set of batteries, not used it much since but just turned it on and not getting any low battery warnings and thats still on the original batteries.

Had mine on a Ram mount which made it easy to access (glad to say the 911 function was not necessary) and it handled all conditions from minus 17 degrees in France when the lithium batteries in mobile phones and cameras were packing up to 45 degrees in the Gambia.

The tracking is pretty impressive, you can be tracked in "real time" either publicly or with a password, publish your trips on Spot Adventures (this is a link to The Gambia trip) and even download them as a Google Earth map which I've attached if your really bored. :D

Good bit of kit IMPO.
 

Attachments

Anyone wanting to know anything - and a how to waste a heck of a lot of time too - should check out The Great Big Spot Debate over at ADV Rider...

Here

There's 139 pages to ingest...
 
srace7 said:
Anyone wanting to know anything - and a how to waste a heck of a lot of time too - should check out The Great Big Spot Debate over at ADV Rider...

Here

There's 139 pages to ingest...
Click to expand...

:eek lot's of talk about 'spots' there.

Just read the last few pages and it appears that there have been some failed units. Of course, like anything you are bound to read more of the bad stuff on web forums but for a safety related device like this, the last thing you need is to be sitting at the side of the road with broken leg only to discover that your 'get out of jail' 'come and help me' gadget is broken?

If it's not dependable then it's safety functions are useless and it's just a glorified tracking device that lets other people know where you are (if it's working) and it can't tell you where you are so you'll still need another gps...

Having read this, I'd be more inclined to take a proper 406 MHz PLB if I wanted dependable 'I'm in the sh*t come and get me' functionality and do without the shared tracking feature.
 
I had one on Calum's Road trip as well. First set of batteries lasted about one month of continuous use. I was away for a second month as I rode back from Gambia. I tried rechargeable batteries and they were only lasting one day. Fortunately, I had loads of rechareable batteries and a lead to recharge another set whilst riding. As soon as I got back to Europe I bought another set of Lithium and they have been perfect.

Next time I'll take spare set of Lithium batteries. NB shop around for them as price varies greatly even for same make.
 
I was reading somewhere that the battery life is as follows:

Spot 1: 14 days x 24 hours
Spot 2: 4.3 days x 24 hours

That's some difference!

If I had the money for a proper PLB I'd get one but this will do and as far as I'm concerned it's better than nothing.
 
it's like everything... it's neither here nor there.

yes it gives a degree of comfort to the armchair passenger, who's keeping at watchful eye on your progress from the comfort of the living room at home.

it's a bit like a GPS can pin point your location but neither have the ability to save your bacon if not used in combination with common sense.

anything that takes batteries is a liability after a while. Is it a good idea? I guess so. We used to use something similar to attach to mobile assets, we could see if the stuff was moving, and work out if it should be or not from our rosta. However it never really gave the answer how we're suppose to get it back without the goon squad...

This spot thing is much the same, you've stuffed in, bit pranged up, push the handy help me button! who's gonna turn up and how long is that gonna take? seems abit vague unless you've already got that plan sorted before hand.

Plus it's more crap to carry about and look after, buy batteries for and worry about loosing...

just my 2p

my work here is done
 
For anyone who is interested I bought from a guy that has a vendor thread on ADVRider. We've exchanged a few PM's over the last few days and he's always responded very promptly. Great service so far and he's even thrown in a RAM mount/cradle. I paid £107/€128 and the cheapest I could find on eBay UK was £162 not including the extra for a RAM cradle or shipping.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=590841

Perhaps I could have got it a couple of quid cheaper (without the cradle) but I think it's worth the extra for the far superior service you tend to get from people on the forums, whether these or ADVRider. People seem to go the extra mile etc.....

Anyways, let you know how it goes.
 
Try to make this short.

Bought US unit Nov09, firmware update/voluntary recall around April-may. Decided to send my unit back as it kept on missing beacon points.

(Either I was travelling to fast or not using correct battery's..? Or indeed there was a software problem.)

May came & went. Left it 3 weeks before asking were/when would I get my unit back as I was travelling around Europe & wanted too live-track & then create a nice easy journey page of my route.

Emailed back..we sent it too you 2 weeks ago. I have less than 2 week before leaving..'not impressed'. Spot couldn't provide me with location of my unit. Time had finally ran out.I left for europe, back of my mind I was really pissed off.

Got home one week later. Sitting there is a package from Spot. A new unit has arrived, scanned webby's for swapping my paid up cover plus tracking & GEOS Member Rescue Benefit. No joy..phoned america, some 15minutes later. The chap from spot said he would create a ticket as I was using an American unit in the UK. Plus swap over my subscription.

So..don't buy it from outside of UK is my vague warning. Spot-people need to be informed if you use a unit from america in uk.

I now have crossed fingers over the next day or so, that this will be sorted out. :type
 
Just to let you all know my Spot 2 arrived safe and sound from the seller mentioned above. No VAT either!!!!
 
Nippy Normans supply Touratech, Wunderlich, Desert Fox and many other makes of accessories.
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