On Dec 24, 11:33 pm, "
wrote:
[snip]
Lithium AAA batteries should last a few days in typical use, I've not
tried Alkaline, which will apparently work, obviously with much
shorter life, even if the manufacture says not to. No way to connect
to an external power source, but jury rigging power does not look too
hard. Getting the thing into track mode involves holding down a button
for a long time, but without any clear indication it has gone into
this mode vs. just going to send one message.
[snip]

Sorry that was a typo, the spot uses AA not AAA batteries. BTW there
is lots of space inside the case that they could have added four AA
batteries for very long life on Lithium or a reasonable life on
Alkaline. I suspect they went with Lithium for the long shelf life as
they see the device more as a PLB -- where as I am more interested in
it as a real-time tracking device. So things like external power would
be much more interesting for tracking, not nearly as interesting for a
PLB. External power (and ability to track without needing to reenable
this every 24 hours) might also get them into competing with more
expensive asset tracking solutions from Globalstar partners which they
probably want to avoid for business reasons.

Oh and another limitation - the SPOT messenger is incapable of
reporting altitude, the data is just not transmitted by the messenger
and their support folks have told me there is no way that this can be
changed. This is a pity as altitude could give you a clue how well
folks are doing in many situations.

Darryl