Imagine you are on a solo trek into the backcountry, and extended fishing trip in grizzly country or the Appalachian Trail or the John Muir Trail or the Pacific Crest Trail. Or you are out on an extended backcountry skiing tour with plans to set up a tent in the middle of the winter. Turn this thing on and it reports your position on a map that your family, friends, and all your blog readers can read. You can also send very simple text messages to just say your o.k. so those same people can stop worrying if you froze to death, broke a leg, or became grizzly lunch. And yeah, you can update Twitter and Facebook.A few years back, I took a Globalstar satellite phone on the John Muir Trail with me just so I could tell family that I was ok. That brick and some extra batteries weighed about five pounds. That combined with my other then-amateur backpacking skills put my pack weight over the top such that I wasn't able to do the whole thing.
This SPOT connect weighs 4.9 oz (with batteries!) and connects to your smartphone via bluetooth. Of course, you'll have a small solar power device for your phone, so no extra weight there.
$169.99 for the blue-tooth device.
$269.98 for the stand-alone device and a year of service.
I don't think I'd ever buy one, but if you have a fly shop, bike shop, ski shop, white water rafting shop, or any other kind of adventure shop, I'll bet there is a good market for renting these things. I'd pay a couple bucks a day to let my wife know that I'm trotting along ok in the backcountry. I'd certainly pay up to about 75% of what a satellite phone would cost if I was using this on an extended trip...probably up to $100 for a month of backcountry time.
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