GPS Tracking: A Comparison of SPOT and iPhone w/Google Latitude

I've been a long-time user of the SPOT GPS Personal Tracking service and gladly pay about $175 per year for their premium services. Not only the bread and butter of my rally blog reporting, but also an indispensable tool to keep friends and family in the loop as I ride my motorcycle down the slabs and twist byways of our continent.

Combine that pay service with my friend, Jason Jonas', free SPOTWalla and you have a one-two punch of integrated location service that just rocks. So much so that I feel compelled to donate to Jason's motorcycle-community efforts from time to time.

This is SPOT:



This is SPOT on SpotWalla:

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Any Questions?

Sometimes people confuse SPOT with SpotWalla and the best analogy I have is the actual orange SPOT device is like buying a Ford Mustang off the dealer lot. Signing up for SpotWalla is like taking it to Shelby and them tuning it into twice the car you started with...except for free or a small donation. I simply couldn't imagine running SPOT without SpotWalla.

Interestingly, last weekend I found myself without my SPOT Tracker because I loaned it to a my Japanese kayaker friend, Ryota.

Figuring I'd need to borrow somebody else's....I did a little homework and found that SpotWalla can *technically* receive GPS position reports from a variety of products more than just SPOT. Several are pale imitations of SPOT in my opinion and cost similar amounts, but the one that piqued my interest was "Google Latitude".



Coincidentally, I had already installed this as a free app on my iPhone and didn't give it much thought after trying it out. It seemed locked into it's own interface that only other people on iPhones with the same app might be able to see each other. It's kinda a half-*** social networking attempt to see a picture of yourself at one Starbucks and see if anybody else is at the other Starbucks down the street.



However, if Jason had figured out a way to intercept that message and integrate it into his own ubercool breadcrumb map via Google Maps...it could rival a SPOT Tracker and not cost me anything more.

After about 20 minutes of futzing around between my iPhone, SpotWalla, and Google Latitude I finally found the correct web page and settings to get the two to talk together. Jason's a software engineer and his explanations are terse, but understandable to a fellow software engineer. Once I found the right part of the process it all made sense and suddenly my iPhone was feeding into my SpotWalla page.

The number 1 proviso that everybody should remember is that using an iPhone for GPS location is cell phone based. That means your position is only going to be reported IF you are in range of a cell phone tower..and even then it's not quite as optimal as one might hope.

SPOT, by contrast, is satellite based and reports your position directly to satellites (yep...you're beaming a signal from the little orange thing to about 30 satellites 12,600 miles above us) and needs no cell phone connection to work. If your SPOT unit can see the sky...it will report it's position 99%+ of the time.

And, if you're in the middle of nowhere....that's really one of the big values of SPOT. Your friends and family know where you're at in the wilderness...every 10 minutes like clockwork. Plus, you can also press a little "911" button of things go bad...and blue lights and choppers should be flying in within an hour or two.

2012 Cal 24 with iPhone, Latitude, and SPOTWalla

This map shows green "OK" messages. SPOT (go back to the 2011 map) uses orange ones to show breadcrumbs from "SPOTCasting" and when you actively press the "OK"--you get a green one. I tell my watchers that a green one on SPOT is intended to show that I've just got a bonus, did something interesting, or thinking about somebody particular back home (e.g. my girlfriend).

2012 shows a big skip between Gerlach and Cedarville, CA...and that's because there are no cell phones for about 75 miles. That hour period at the beginning of the rally was probably hard for watchers because nothing appeared to happen. People watching a rally live--really thrive off that update every 10 minutes. I know I do when I'm watching others.....you can divine many things off those positions including pace, slow, fast, if they're stopping, etc.

There's also another skip as I was in the deepest darkest forest of Northern California....probably 2 hours of no reports that had to be hard for watchers....because I know it was hard on my to ride 60 miles of one lane mountain highway.

I also didn't know exactly how Latitude worked and wasn't 100% sure it automatically was reporting position when I came back into range of a cell phone tower. I found myself manually trying to find my position and frustrated it wouldn't as cell phone coverage would shift from "E" for an older level of AT&T service that I think was sort of what "2G" was before they started calling the new one 3G. Urban areas were great and I'd get lots of response from 3G. I'd later find out that about 1/2 of the reports were me manually reporting and the other half were Latitude automatically checking in. That bodes well for people that want to use this service is as their primary.

It turns out Ryota is giving my SPOT unit back...so I'll be sticking with the Cadillac at least this season. For the $175 it's peace-of-mind for me. For somebody thinking about getting into tracking who already has an iPhone or Droid...it's a good option if you want to live with the limitations and do a little homework.

Thanks for that report Iggy! Sitting here watching some of the NAFO players posting their Spotwalla pages has gotten me looking into this stuff. I already have Latitude and every once in awhile it sends me an email reminding me that it's tracking, but beyond that, I've never pursued it further. I think I'll give it a try after this read as it does make for a low cost alternative.

Matt, what about data rates in Canada? Did you have an international plan of some sort?

rickcorwn said:

Matt, what about data rates in Canada? Did you have an international plan of some sort?

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I didn't investigate data rates for international travel. Truth is if I were to go into Canada...I'd probably turn off my iPhone because of all the other data usage...not because of Google Latitude.

I did just check to see if there was any spike in my domestic data usage because of using Google Latitude the past several weeks....and didn't notice anything. I'm 0.8, 1.0, and 0.9 GB the last three months....pretty much down the middle of my 2.0 GB plan. I don't think Latitude is a bandwidth hog.

Thanks Matt, easy peasy all set up :good:

All that **** went over my head so fast I didn't even have to duck. It sounds great but way beyond what I can grasp. Good reading though.

Interesting stuff, Iggy. Thanks for posting this up - I'll keep this in mind when my SPOT service is up for renewal.

I assume you have to keep Latitude running (in the background) for this to work - any hits on battery life for your phone?

BikerGeek99 said:

I assume you have to keep Latitude running (in the background) for this to work - any hits on battery life for your phone?

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Yes, you do have to have it running with location services on...and that part is a battery hog. It wasn't a big deal to keep my iPhone plugged in during the ride.

Nice, I've been using latitude for a while. My wife watches my commute home and sometimes opens the garage door when she sees me getting close. We've used it for trips such as our every other year trip to Florida to see my family for Christmas. Mom can keep an eye on us and know when to expect us.

It also was very helpful in keeping my wife happy in knowing I was on the move on my SS1K, which consisted of all highways so I knew I'd be close to a cell tower at all times. This was much more convenient for me than a previous trip where I phoned her every gas stop with my exit number so if I didn't check in she'd have my last known location to give to authorities.

I agree, spot would be waaaaay better, especially if things go pear shaped. But for general use, latitude works out pretty well.

If you only need to share your info for a short time (less than four hours) then you should also check out glympse. Be forewarned though, it CAN give out too much data, so you might look at the settings before sending that invite. My wife called me on one one time to thank me for slowing down for that nasty curve.

Nice to know that spotwalla supports latitude. I'll have to check that out.

gixxerjasen said:

Nice, I've been using latitude for a while. My wife watches my commute home and sometimes opens the garage door when she sees me getting close. We've used it for trips such as our every other year trip to Florida to see my family for Christmas. Mom can keep an eye on us and know when to expect us.

It also was very helpful in keeping my wife happy in knowing I was on the move on my SS1K, which consisted of all highways so I knew I'd be close to a cell tower at all times. This was much more convenient for me than a previous trip where I phoned her every gas stop with my exit number so if I didn't check in she'd have my last known location to give to authorities.

I agree, spot would be waaaaay better, especially if things go pear shaped. But for general use, latitude works out pretty well.

If you only need to share your info for a short time (less than four hours) then you should also check out glympse. Be forewarned though, it CAN give out too much data, so you might look at the settings before sending that invite. My wife called me on one one time to thank me for slowing down for that nasty curve.

Nice to know that spotwalla supports latitude. I'll have to check that out.

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Glympse can work for more than 4 hours at a time but it does take a little effort - before your 4 hours expires you go in and edit the current Glympse and update the remaining time to a maximum of 4 hours, and you can do that over and over again if needed. Its not very clean but it can work..

Good find Ignacio, thanks! I just created a Spotwalla account and set it up with Latitude. It only took a few minutes. I'll take a "trip" tomorrow and see how it works.

Howdy:

Reading this, decided to investigate Latitude. The reviews for the current/latest release are universally negative: it doesn't work/update properly anymore it appears.

Can anyone here validate that behavior? Incidentally, I'd be using an iPhone; should it differ from 'droid devices.

?

Great post and some good information. I have been using SPOT for some time now and its not perfect but its pretty close. Nice to see the side by side data.

JT Pedersen said:

Howdy:

Reading this, decided to investigate Latitude. The reviews for the current/latest release are universally negative: it doesn't work/update properly anymore it appears.

Can anyone here validate that behavior? Incidentally, I'd be using an iPhone; should it differ from 'droid devices.

?

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It's ok. I never have my GPS on unless there's a good reason for it. It gets darn close using cell towers only. Occasionally there's some wierdness but it usually works pretty well.

What's scary is to go back and look at your history. 8 hours spent at a business address a day and it figures out that's your work address. You stay overnight on a regular basis at a residential address and it figures out that's your home. Then it'll chart all that stuff. Of course, only you and the almighty google have access to that info, but still, scary.

Thanks for this great write up Ignacio,

Nice to know there's an option for those of us who are a couple of years behind the cutting edge of technology.

All the best,

Shane

I use Glympse on my NAFO trip but I had the roaming data turned off so not to get charged for international data, I changed to the Canada/US calling plan but was unsure if data was included in the plan. My wife also use Glympse when she runs so I can see her tracks incase something happens on her run.

If you're using Spotwalla, do you also have to use the $49/year tracking service upgrade from Spot? Or, do the tracking messages get put into the XML stream that Spotwalla gets?

Anyone try APRS instead? I've used it in my vehicles and it works pretty well... as long as there's an APRS digipeater in range. I have the gear for APRS and am thinking about using it instead of Spot.

obijohn said:

If you're using Spotwalla, do you also have to use the $49/year tracking service upgrade from Spot? Or, do the tracking messages get put into the XML stream that Spotwalla gets?

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Have to? No. Want to? Yes. Without the upgrade you just have to press OK every time you want something to show up in SpotWalla data stream. It's well worth the extra 50 bucks IMO.

obijohn said:

Anyone try APRS instead?

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I'd suggest a different thread for that as this thread is about a comparison of SPOT and iPhone w/Google Latitude.

Spot and Spotwalla seem like a good system together. This was a good writeup that pushed me over into the 'buy' column... along with the recent stories I've read about Donald Masterson's disappearance in Idaho last September and within the past week the story of the rider who crashed here in northwest Washington and lay paralyzed off the side of a forest road and unable to summon help for three days... and no one had any clue as to where he was. That he was found when he was found was luck, and he probably wouldn't have survived another day.

I've purchased a Spot Satellite GPS Messenger (the latest gen), avoiding the Spot Connect because it has limited functionality without a Bluetooth-connected Android/iPhone. I went with the tracking option and the $12.95 GEOS rescue option at signup. I've also hooked up my various APRS devices through Spotwalla, because when riding with my son I often put an APRS h/t 'tracker' in his backpack so I can locate him with my APRS h/t without the need for an Internet connection, and now my wife will be able to track both of us on the Spotwalla website. My wife will most likely go with a Latitude account, and will take the Spot on occasions where she goes hiking with friends. With all of these devices using Spotwalla as the nexus, it should be pretty easy to see where everyone in the family is, at all times.

I see the Spot as a last-ditch device, used mostly for long-distance and back country motorcycling or hiking where cell phones and APRS may be unreliable. Latitude is okay in areas with cell coverage. APRS is a better two-way system where the infrastructure (digipeaters) exist, and certainly better for groups traveling in the back country as they can locate each other using just their equipment even if they can't hit a digipeater. The Spot system is expensive compared to the other, free alternatives, but I look at $150/year as cheap insurance in a worst-case scenario where either you summon help or you can be found by the 'breadcrumb' trail you leave. Here's hoping that the money I've spent is an incredible waste!