Spot X with Bluetooth 2-Way Satellite Messenger

New review:Well guys I've had a year now to test it out and besides a small radius around my house, it actually works really well. I went on vacation and work trips and used it with no problems. I was able to send and receive. I highly recommend this device especially if you go off the grid or want that extra net of safety that if you push that button, you WILL be saved. I highly recommend the overwatch protection thing they offer as well. For $29 a year not only will you be saved, but you won't have to pay for the rescue!Old review:I will do a more in depth review later but I had to come on here and worn you all before you buy it.This thing is able to send messages all day but it absolutely will not receive them in any location that has cell network 5G. The 5G interferes with the signal. The only place this is mentioned on their website is deep in the FAQ. No where on the sales page. I see they’ve updated the website to say the spot x is specifically for when you’re “off the grid and out of cellphone range.” There is no way for customers to know that that means it absolutely won’t work when one is in cellphone range.If you are ok with just being able to send your friends, family, and search and rescue messages but not revive any info back the. This is the one for you. If however, you’d like to be able to have a conversation, this ain’t it chief.Since it can’t receive confirmation from the satellites that the message was delivered. It just keeps trying to send them until it gives up. This uses much more battery.Additionally, no other messages will send while it is attempting to send the first one. The only work around is to send it and then wait until you think it sent, the. Cancel the message. This allows the next message to be sent.Attached you’ll see a photo of me testing the SOS feature. BAD NEWS. It works but the only way to cancel it after testing is for the satellite to beam back that it received the cancellation. this is impossible in a 5G area. You have an hour to test the SOS feature before it turns off and actually calls search and rescue. I was on hold for 30 minutes trying to get a hold of customer service to see if force restarting it would properly cancel the SOS. Time became to close for comfort and they still hadn’t answered so I had to decide between the time running out and rescue being wrongfully sent, or taking the risk of doing a force reset and them coming anyway. Luckily the force reset did work. I didn’t know that though until many minutes later when customer service answered and was able to check for me. The cool thing though is that at least customer service is 24/7.The website says that they’ll never ask for your secret account pin via voice and you’ll just input it on the phones keypad. This isn’t true as they asked for it via voice. The next day it was sent to customer service over the chat feature as well. I came to find that customer service literally knows everything about you. Name, home address, exact location if you have the device. Made me wonder if they can pull this information at anytime or only when a customer calls.

Used this device recently in the backcountry on a quick 3 day hunt. I was able to send and recieve texts no problem average send time was 3 minutes. Most of the time I was in a small gap in thick pines on the side of a mountain. Something to understand about the device is that it was meant for backcountry, where there isnt alot of radio signal interference. It will have a hard time functioning in the city or when there is a cellphone with connectivity near it. The set up was a bit aggravating because of the terrible response time and glitchyness of thier website. Overall im very happy with the purchase and plan options.

Others have said this, I’m also saying it. Don't say you weren't warned. I have been a satisfied Spot customer through two previous generations of Spot devices. The SpotX is not like any of them, and is NOT user friendly in the least. I am not a satisfied SpotX customer. In fact, I’ve gotten rid of my SpotX and, for now, am reverting back to the use of my Spot Gen3. In the winter I spend a lot of time solo kayaking the Everglades, Big Cypress and the 10,000 Islands area of the FL Gulf. My wife puts up with this because she can follow my tracks. I got the SpotX for the added benefit of free form texting back and forth. I started last winter with my SpotX and a heart full of hope. On my 1st outing, a test, so, I had cell service, my wife called me while I was on the water. She was seeing no tracks. I called Spot on returning to shore and after a couple of conversations I learned that my device went into “pause” mode. The reason it did is that SpotX has a battery saving “feature”. A built in accelerometer, and if it senses no physical movement of the device, like the shaking it might experience while walking, it decides that you aren’t moving and it goes into pause mode almost immediately, and will not drop any more tracks until it decides you started moving again. You can’t get around this. Kayaking, the device is basically resting on the deck. So, you just can’t track kayaking. I’d bet you can’t track road biking. So, for the rest of the winter I reverted back to my Gen3 Spot device. On returning home to MI in the late spring I hoped to be able to use the SpotX for hiking and backpacking. First, let me say, unlike previous Spot devices the SpotX demands to be kept horizontal. Even the slightest angle, and you’ll receive warning messages that things may not go well unless you get the device horizontal. It is MUCH more sensitive to it’s positioning and the need for open sky. On my 1st hike I dropped zero tracks. I had the device on a carabiner hanging from my belt at my side. I guess it didn’t have a clear enough view of the sky, my body got in the way. You are supposed to get confirmation of sent messages. A check next to the message if it got through. A “?” If they can’t determine if it got sent, and an ”X” if for sure it didn’t get sent. I sent messages where that tiny status character wasn’t totally displayed. So, you have no idea if your message got sent. On one test hike I started SpotX, turned tracking on, and mounted it high on the back of my backpack. On finishing my hike I found the device had turned itself off. No tracks were dropped for the entire hike. The device itself, has a tiny keypad that, irritatingly, sometimes the key you hit doesn’t take. So, you have to re-enter it. You need to focus on every letter you key in. I cannot overstate how tiny the text of messages are, the status indicators as well, maybe more so. You better have 20/20 vision to use this. To sum it all up, after very thorough testing and numerous conversations with all levels of Spot technical support; this device is very finicky, unreliable and requires a lot of your attention. I ask myself, why am I out there? To focus all my attention and energy on making certain the device I am relying on for emergency communication, is in fact, functioning, and functioning as it should. I’ll stay with Spot Gen3 for now. Perhaps when the pain of this experience is a faded memory next winter I may take a look at Garmin InReach Mini. I hear that’s much better.