Tuesday, May 13. 2008

SPOT Beacon Used Successfully; Interesting Message Sent

The Herald (UK) tells the story of a senior walking in Scotland. He got sick and used his SPOT beacon, a satellite communications device that sends the location and asks for help. The plea was heard in Houston, TX and help was sent. The walker is in the hospital and doing well. Great story and use of technology.

The interesting part for me is the text of the message sent: "Help message. I'm immobilised but okay and cannot reach you by phone. Find GEOS on Google map and send help."

I did what it said - tried to find GEOS on Google maps - but found nothing relevant. Hmmm.

A bit of research shows that GEOS, actually the GEOS Alliance, is the name of the response company that receives the alert messages from SPOT. It's in Houston. Without searching on GEOS 911 or GEOS Alliance, I'd never have found it. The help messages sent from SPOT, like the one above, are sent to GEOS who in turn contact those people you've asked to be contacted with the message. In this case, the idea would be to confirm there is an emergency (that the person is indeed in the wild and subject to using the device, I guess). So, I guess the "find GEOS on Google maps" is redundant. BTW, if there's no answer from the contacts "at home" the service will contact emergency response personnel.

Comments

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I believe this is the same kind of SPOT device used by a solo biker in the recent Alaska Ididisport event. He used it to allow a friend to post his progress and whereabouts on a blog during the event.

#1 larry camp on 2008-05-14 07:30 (Reply)

The concept is nice -emergency call with location included- yet the service completely sucks! I have never been able to make my SPOT work, as in send an email and text msg of location with ok message. Their customer support group is totally out of touch and has no ability to investigate connectivity issues.

For an emergency device you shouldn't rely on it!

#2 chuck ray on 2008-07-07 12:39 (Reply)

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In reply to	[ Top level ]#1: larry camp on 2008-05-14 07:30 #2: chuck ray on 2008-07-07 12:39
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