SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger unit, Silver/Black
SPOT Satellite GPS Messenger unit, Silver/Black
- Faster GPS acquisition for quicker 911 response
- Sends check in message, capable of tracking, sends help assistance message, alert SOS for emergency assistance
- More satellite detection than any competitive product on the market
- Operates under the harshest environments, temperature, altitude, humidity, corrosion, vibration, waterproof, and buoyant
- New smaller size, lighter weight
SPOT 2 comes with adventure kit which includes flotation case, micro LED flashlight, lanyard, carabiner key chain, safety whistle, safety tips band, and a 15% service discount code. SPOT 2 satellite tracker uses a network of global satellite to track the user. It’s different from other. Satellite beacons because you can press 3 different buttons to summon help. There is a 911 button that contact national Rescue center that is manned 24 hours a day who will contact the proper rescue officials in your area. Help button that you can register on their website with up to 10 personal contacts for friends and family via phone or text messaging and an OK button that a user with web access can use to track progress and location of the person with th
List Price: $ 199.95
Price: $ 136.29
Garmin Forerunner 210 with Heart Rate Monitor (Teal)
- Easy-to-use, button operated
- Records position, speed/pace, distance and calorie data
- Automatic Time zone
Forerunner 210 gives you the freedom to train indoors or out, while tracking every minute and every mile. This GPS-enabled sport watch accurately records how far, how fast and how hard you worked. Available in a sleek black model or dark gray with teal accents. Easy to Use The Forerunner 210 is simple to use so you can focus on your workout. Out of the box, you’ll charge it, take it outside to find GPS satellites and answer a few setup questions. Then just press start and take off. Once you’re done, press stop. It really is that easy. Take it Further For runners who want more training capabilities, Forerunner 210 lets you create customized interval sessions and see your pace for each interval. If you’re using the 210 with
List Price: $ 249.99
Price: $ 249.00
More GPS with Customer Reviews
G. Davis
February 3, 2012Wow! A user-friendly Garmin sports watch! What a concept!,
My first Garmin GPS sports watch was a Forerunner 305. Worked OK but I was not too fond of carrying a canary cage around on my wrist. And I found most of the menu choices and options irrelevant to what I really needed, which was just to know my pace, distance and elapsed time. I eventually sold it on EBay and “upgraded” to a Forerunner 405. That I found to be a very frustrating piece of equipment: non-intuitive, complicated menus plus a very cranky touch-bezel input method. In a year or so of using that watch, I never got anywhere near comfortable with it. The touch-bezel seemed to have an evil life of its own; I really never could make it work right. And the battery had to be re-charged constantly. Finally, in a fit of frustration, one day I jerked it off my wrist, stomped it to death and threw it in a trashcan. No more Garmin for me for the last year or so.
But, finally, I could no longer deal with not knowing my current pace and started checking out sports watches again. Liked the reviews for the 210 and decided to try one, albeit with great misgivings. Now, after two racewalks using the watch, I can say that I highly recommend it. (Caveat: of course, at this point, I have no idea about long-term dependability.)
I had read that Garmin moved their headquarters and, in the process, got rid of a bunch of their programmers. If that is the case, then perhaps this Garmin 210 is the happy result. Best thing, the irritating touch-bezel is gone! Hooray! Here we have 4 physical buttons. The complicated, hard-to-use menu system is gone, replaced by something easy enough to learn in just a try or two. (Alternatively, you could break down and read the instructions.) The screen does not divide up into slices and offer you choices of what to put into each slice. It just shows you distance at the top (set for miles for kilometers), elapsed time in the middle and pace (set for current or average) at the bottom. Period. Which is all I ever want to see on the watch face, anyway. Fancy stuff like a “virtual runner” is not there. But it saves your history and you can upload runs to Garmin Connect if you want. And it does a few other things that probably some, but not most, users ever actually use. Bottom line is that it’s user-friendly, simple and straight-forward — everything the Forerunner 405, in my opinion, is not. And the battery, unlike the 405, seems to go for a while — they say at least a week or more, depending on use, of course — without having to re-charge.
I give it 4 stars instead of 5 only because of the cable USB connector which ends in a 4-prong clip that has to be aligned with 4 connectors on the back of the watch. Takes some attention to clip it in right and looks to me like an area that might develop trouble. I notice that Garmin makes a big deal out of telling you to clean those connections, which probably means they tend to get unclean very quickly and not work right. Would be great if there was just a simple mini-USB plug to go into the watch, like a camera uses, instead of that bulky clip. But, for now, the clip works fine for me and may never give any trouble, for all I know. Also, I have no idea how the watch will hold up over time.
For anyone who mostly needs just the basic information about their run or other activity and especially for anyone who has become frustrated with one of the touch-bezel models or with other Garmin watch operating systems, this watch could be just what you are looking for. BTW, there is also a Forerunner 110 that is very similar and $50 less but my understanding is that it only shows average pace, not current. That would not work for me.
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|IHA
February 3, 2012Great GPS Watch – Excellent size for Woman’s Wrist,
Bought this watch as a gift for my wife. I’ve had the Garmin Forerunner 205 for 2.5 years and my wife had been interested in getting her own for some time. The thing that was holding her back was the size of the 205. It just didn’t fit comfortably on her wrist. The 210 solves that problem with it’s compact size and actually offers more features than the 205 (heart rate monitor and interval support). The 210 is so small I would actually consider is reasonable to wear around as a regular men’s sport watch (unlike the 205 it is easy to display time as the primary screen rather than buried in a sub menu).
The only reason I didn’t give 5 stars is the USB connector / recharging cable. The watch has 5 points on the back used for downloading data and charging and to connect it to the computer or power plug you have to use an odd proprietary clip that clamps down on the front and back of the watch. You have to be very careful to line up all 5 of the contact points otherwise charing won’t work. I’m guessing they didn’t use a standard mini-USB for reasons of water resistance, but the clip is not easy to connect to the device and it can slip off of the watch easily. My 205 has a cradle that the watch sits in, I’m not sure why Garmin went away from this approach, but the cradle is clearly preferable to the clip.
If you can get over the clip for charging I highly recommend this watch.
As a side note we also considered the Garmin 110, but did not purchase that because it doesn’t offer real-time pace information. That was a deal breaker for me. If you are considering the 110 spend the few extra dollars for the 210. You won’t be sorry.
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|R. Brooks "22Tango"
February 3, 2012Could be a 5 Star Product but LOUSY Website and MANUAL !!!!,
(NOTE MY UPDATE AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS REVIEW BEFORE BUYING)
I bought a Spot GPS Messenger 2 in May 2010, mainly to use when I travel in my airplane (if you go to my Flickr account, “SouthwestUSA” or Google “Flickr, SouthwestUSA Spot GPS Messenger” you’ll see my Spot resting on top of the panel in my airplane over New Mexico where it always managed to send a message) or RV. This product has received more than it’s fair-share of less than favorable reviews, and I too had earlier given this product a 1 star review here on Amazon, about 7 days after I received it. I was so frustrated and mad at one point, I was close to cutting the Spot in half on a band-saw and posting a video of the severing on YouTube. I wasn’t a “happy camper” the first week I owned this little jewel.
Here is the “meat” of some issues that need to be considered before you order this product.
#1. (Like most people advise) It is not a substitute for a full-fledged ELB.
A “full-fledged Emergency Locator Beacon does not require an annual contract, the Spot Messenger does. So, A ELB might be a cheaper alternative to the Spot if you need such a device for 5 years or longer.
#2. The website, where you must activate the Spot and purchase a service plan is complicated and convoluted. It is difficult to navigate and understand. It took me more than a week to finally get their BIZARRE website figured out in order to get my Spot GPS Messenger 2 set up and working as I need it. The manual that came with my Spot 2 is TERRIBLE. I should cut the manual in half, and post a video of that on YouTube. These folks need to produce a better manual. IT’S TERRIBLE!
#3. If you buy this little jewel, you’ll have a boatload of questions once you open the package. Rest assured, if you go to the “Follow Me Spot” website and look at the “FAQs” be advised that 90% of your questions will NOT be addressed on the website’s FAQs.
#4. If you call their customer support people, be prepared to wait for up to 20 or 30 minutes for a real human-being who you can actually talk to. I only have a cell phone and it was annoying wasting my “minutes” while on-hold.
#5. Don’t even think of sending a question to these people VIA e-mail… You MIGHT be lucky if you get an answer in 7 to 10 days by e-mail.
#6. The tiny buttons on the Spot provide NO TACTILE FEEDBACK (click) and it’s somewhat difficult to determine if your button (“I’m OK” or “Send Help”) was actually activated and worked… The button you push for the specific message eventually lights-up and blinks when they have been “activated and sent” however when viewing these very tiny buttons in sunlight, they hard to see and determine if the message was indeed “SENT.” If you are 6 years old, your little finger can get to the small buttons. If you are a Baby-Boomer like me, your fat, old fingers might have trouble pressing these little buttons in order to send a message. I have to use the fingernail on my “pinky” or a ballpoint pen in order to press the button to make it engage the electronic contacts. I suspect if I fell down a cliff or were injured in some way, I might not be able to get the tiny buttons to work because they are so small and awkward to access with my fat and stubby fingers.
Once I FINALLY got my account established and my emergency contacts set up, I’m having more confidence in my Spot as a device that can contact my wife when I am in a remote area not having cell service. My iPhone has a couple of WONDERFUL apps where I can press one button and ask for 9-1-1 assistance and another app that I can press, to send my wife (or anyone having an e-mail account) a message showing my GPS location on Google Maps… but the iPhone doesn’t work everywhere, and I love going into remote areas to tour ghost towns and old mining camps where there is NO CELL SERVICE FOR MILES. (You’ll see on my Flickr account my Spot GPS Messenger in a few Ghost Towns.)
The SPOT GPS MESSENGER can easily beam your pre-determined message to a satellite, when my iPhone can’t work. And so far (after learning the pain-in-the @$$ website for SPOT, I now am confident I can go nearly anywhere and be able to get my pre-programed message to my contact list. PLEASE NOTE… You can not create “tailor-made” messages with the spot while out in the boonies. You have to get on-line with your computer, go into your “Follow Me Spot” account in advance and create a pre-determined message. You get a choice of 3 messages with the 3 different buttons on the Spot. Below are examples I programmed into my “Follow Me Spot” account. You will probably want something entirely different.
There are three options for sending messages… #1. (Which goes to my wife) is “I am safe, here is where I am.” She is able to then click a link and it takes her to Google Maps and shows her my location. Each time, the accuracy of this seems to be around 150 feet, which is accurate…
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