zlacker

Yeah. Don't do that.

This is not a replacement for a SPOT device. It's a backup. You might need to move around reportedly, point it very carefully to find a satellite, coverage isn't great, even minimal tree cover is a problem, etc. Plenty of cases where a SPOT device would be a life saver and where this would not.

I too would like to ditch mine. But I'd rather be alive in a real emergency than die because I broke my leg and can't walk around in a circle pointing the phone right.

>>light_+(OP)
My SPOT has a pretty significant failure rate at getting tracking messages out (~20% of my tracking dots are unsuccessful), and has no feedback mechanism to indicate whether it was successfully sent. Unless emergency messages are sent using a different technique than tracking messages I’m not sure I trust the spot much either.