Leon Turnbull Photography

If you are like me, you are watching the weather forecasts with great anticipation. It has been a long winter so far with essentially zero precipitation. Now finally, it is so nice to see the little raindrops on my long range forecast well into the foreseeable future. The latest report, however, looks like we will not see as much rain/snow as hoped for in northern California. Through Sunday, it looks like only about 3 feet of snow in the Tahoe area (more if you live further north, much less for southern CA). These predictions are changing daily, but definitely I was hoping for (and we need) a lot more than this. The good news, though, is that there are more storms throughout next week.

As for my ankle, it is not broken (confirmed by X-ray), but it also has not gotten any better. I do not think I will be able to hike anytime soon, and with waterfall season starting this is BAD, BAD, BAD. Not only this, but we are planning a trip to Disneyland in a few weeks. Disneyland, of course, involves much walking around. I was also hoping to hit up a few waterfalls down there in SoCal. How I am going to manage all this will be a mystery. Maybe my wife can scoot me around in a wheelchair all day (to the waterfalls also!).

I had a request to give a review on my SPOT Connect device. When I first got the device I gave some initial thoughts on it, but now that I have used it for awhile, I can give some more details. I got the SPOT Connect to replace my old SPOT 1 device. SPOT 1 was the company’s first foray into the Emergency beacon world, and although the device worked, it did have its problems. I expected these problems to be resolved with SPOT Connect, but not really. The Connect uses a Bluetooth connection to your iPhone, and a iPhone App controls the device. I did not have any troubles syncing the device with the iPhone via Bluetooth, and the App works perfectly fine. The very first time I attempted to sync the device, it seemed to require a reboot or two of the phone, but since then it works perfect. Sometimes the App will not connect immediately, but all you need to do is close and re-open the App and then it will connect. No issues with that.

The nice thing about SPOT Connect is you can send specific typed messages to your contacts when you are out on the trail (with the old SPOT 1 you can just send a “OK” message). You can either type a message into the App (41 characters), or you can setup pre-defined messages beforehand (of more than 41 characters). It costs extra money to type a message out in the field, so I always try to pre-define them before I go out in the field. It would be nice if you could do this with the app, but you have to do it on your PC at home instead, which is not as convenient. I have set up generic messages for everything I can think of to tell my wife when I will be out on the trails (such as: “OK. I have arrived at waterfall!”). The type-a-message idea I would use for an emergency type situation or when I need to tell my wife something very specific. You can also post the messages to Facebook or Twitter, and you may have seen me do this on my Facebook site. This is a very nice feature.

I think the only real bad thing with the device is that the messages do not always get sent. The SPOT 1 had the same issue but the difference is that the Connect indicates that the message was sent successfully even though it was not (and there is no way to know if it really was sent or not). This is really bad if you are trying to send an important or emergency message. However, this only happens about 10-15 percent of the time so if you send many messages (or the same one multiple times) then most of them will get through.

The other thing about the device is that it will chew up your iPhone battery quickly if you leave it connected. This is obviously a big issue if you are on an extended hike but not so much if you are on a shorter day hike. I always disconnect after sending a message then re-connect when I want to send a second one later. Another thing I have found is that my phone does not work at all when it is extremely cold. It will be important to keep your phone warm if you are hiking in extreme conditions. You can always send an emergency signal directly from the device (without the phone app) but it is nice to be able to send regular OK messages as well.

All in all, I definitely do recommend the device. It is a great peace of mind for myself (hiking alone), and also for my wife (worrying about me, back at home).