The activation course of is fast—you flip it on, cost it, and obtain the HMD OffGrid app in your cellphone. As soon as related, the app walks you thru the settings. I charged it for about an hour to get it to 100%, and the battery lasted from Monday via Thursday and bought to about 35 p.c. Nevertheless, none of our out of doors excursions lasted longer than 4 hours, so the OffGrid most likely does not have sufficient battery life to live-track a weekend backpacking journey. (Then once more, your cellphone does not both.)
The OffGrid has just a few completely different capabilities, together with the aforementioned SOS service and stay monitoring. You may textual content through satellite tv for pc messaging and examine in on the HMD OffGrid app. Within the Washington Cascades, it took about eight minutes to hook up with satellites underneath tree cowl, nevertheless it was quite a bit faster from a lakeshore underneath clear skies.
Screenshot courtesy of Adrienne So
It is IP68-rated and has been examined to navy specs, which implies you possibly can deal with it with an inexpensive quantity of abuse. I did kick it round out and in of luggage and dropped it in an alpine lake, and it continued working.
The machine makes use of the identical L-band frequencies that every one GPS techniques use to triangulate your place as you crawl in regards to the floor of planet Earth. However whereas Garmin makes use of the Iridium satellite tv for pc community for telecommunications, HMD has partnered with Skylo and Viasat, which does make me somewhat nervous. Most satellite tv for pc messengers I’ve examined use Iridium, and Skylo and Viasat appear much less dependable. Nevertheless, my texts to my dad and placement monitoring with my husband went backwards and forwards with affordable promptness.
One among Many
For a very long time, in case you needed to go off-grid, your decisions have been Garmin or nothing. Now choices are ample, even inside this particular area of interest—somebody who recreates within the backcountry continuously however isn’t actually that removed from an outlet or an influence financial institution to maintain their cellphone and the machine charged.
The OffGrid is way out of your solely selection. The Motorola Defy is cheaper, nevertheless it’s much less hardy and doesn’t have Overwatch X Rescue. If you would like higher battery life for a complete week or weekend, stick to a Garmin. Or get a private locator beacon ($380), which does not require a subscription and has a battery that can final 5 years or till it’s important to use it.
