Reviews > Navigation and Map Gear > GPS > Geomate Jr. > Test Report by David Wilkes

Test series by David Wilkes

Apisphere geomate.jr Initial Report - Oct 9 '09 Field Report - Due Dec '09 Long Term Report - Due Feb '10 Tester Information Name: David Wilkes E-Mail: amatbrewer@yahoo.net Age: 42 Location: Yakima Washington USA Gender: M Height: 5'11" (1.80 m) Weight: 197 lb (89.40 kg) Biography: I started backpacking in 1995 when I moved to Washington State. Since then, I have backpacked in all seasons and conditions. I am currently getting into condition to summit some of the higher peaks in Washington, Oregon, and California. I prefer trips on rugged trails with plenty of elevation gain. While I continuously strive to lighten my load, comfort and safety are most important to me. My current pack is around 30 lbs (14 kg), not including consumables. Product Information Manufacturer: Apisphere Inc Year of Manufacture: 2009 Manufacturer’s Website: www.mygeomate.com MSRP: Not listed on manufacturer's web site Measured Weight: 3.3 oz / 92 g Measured Dimensions: 5" X 2" X  1" / 13 cm X  5 cm X  2.5 cm Images courtesy of Apisphere Inc Product Description: The geomate.jr is a GPS specifically designed for kids to use for Geocaching. The unit is designed to be simple to use (only 3 buttons), kid friendly colors (yellow and blue), and sized to fit into small hands. It arrives loaded with around 250,000 ‘traditional’ caches (all in the US). I was surprised to note that the cache nearest our home has only been active a few months but was already loaded in the device! There is an optional update kit (arrived separately) which can be used to update the geocaches. Initial Report For those unfamiliar with Geocaching I will explain the basics. There are many types of geocaches but the ‘traditional’ type (the only ones the geomate.jr uses) is a container of some sort containing at the least some sort of log. These can be as small as a pill container (with a rolled up strip of paper as a log) or as big as a bucket. Geocachers sign up on www.geocaching.com (basic membership is free). Once enrolled they can use the site to locate a geocache in their area. The key piece of information for a cache is the Latitude and Longitude of the cache, but there is also a description of the cache (some are more useful than others) as well as other information. The cacher then uses the lat/lon to locate the area the cache is hidden and then looks for it (some are very well hidden while some can be quite obvious). The difficulty to find the cache and the terrain are each given a 1-5 star rating with 1 being easy and 5 being difficult. When the cache is found the cacher signs the log, returns the cache to the place/condition it was discovered and returns home, to log their find on www.geocaching.com. Often geocaches include small trinkets that cachers use to trade (take something & leave something, preferably of equal or greater value). NOTE: The above describes only the most basic information about Geocaching. I invite anyone who is interested to visit www.geocaching.com, or look Geocaching up on the internet or at their local library (I believe there is even a “Geocaching for Dummies” book available). When the geomate.jr arrived I gave the entire package to my 12 year old daughter (and future gear tester) Susan. While she had no trouble figuring out how to attach the lanyard to the device, she was stumped by where to put the batteries. She looked at the included instruction booklet (“Quick Start Guide”) but there were no instructions on changing the battery. I showed her how to open the back panel and she was able to figure out the rest by herself. Immediately after installing the batteries she turned the device on and was greeted by a cheery “Hello” followed by a message to “find clear sky”. We went out into the yard and within 1 min the device got its first GPS fix. On the way out the door she commented “this is a friendly GPS”.  At this point she was excited but it was not clear to her what to do next. She pressed the buttons a few times, figured out how to mark our house as the “Home” location (press and hold the ‘home’ button for a few seconds), and finally announced she needed to read the instructions. We went inside and she spent a few minutes skimming over the Quick Start Guide and she had a basic idea of what most of the icons and characters were for, but still not sure how to locate the first cache. Having used a standard GPS to locate caches, she assumed that she needed to look the caches up on the internet and somehow enter them into the device. I explained that they were already loaded and showed her how to cycle through the closest 20 caches (the unit automatically selects the 20 closest ‘Traditional’ caches). She then chose the first cache. The device uses a GPS fix to calculate the distance and bearing between the device and the selected geocache (or “home”). Since the device does not have a build in compass it is necessary to be moving in order to get a heading indication. The distance to the cache is listed in miles until the device is within 0.5 mi of the cache, when it measures the distance in feet. When the device has a GPS lock, it is indicated by a clear and easy to recognize symbol of a satellite with lines below it. When it does not have a lock this is also easy to recognize, and after a short time the device will display the message “find clear sky”. The direction to the cache is indicate by an arrow pointing in the direction of the cache (but only when the device is in motion since as noted above the device does not have a compass and relies on the motion of travel to determine its heading). After Susan and I were comfortable that we had figured out the basic operation of the device I decided to let my 8 year old (Grace) give it a try. I turned the unit on, selected the closest cache (0.8 mi from my house), handed it to Grace and asked her to guide us to the cache. Within a few seconds I realized I needed to set some ground rules. The first being; “no walking into the street while staring down at the geomate.jr”! Grace had no trouble identifying that the arrows were pointing her to the cache, but I did have to remind her a few times that the direction indicator only works when moving. She was able to direct us to within about 30’ of the cache (we then spent the next 10 min searching the area before Susan located it). After we signed the log and exchanged some goodies, I showed Grace how to select the “Home” location and asked her to lead us home (since we have walked to this park many times she had no trouble finding the way home using our normal route). Something I noticed while reading the instructions is that the device does not give you the cache description or the optional HINT that is available on the Geocaching web site. While these are not necessary, there have been a few caches where I was unable to locate it until I referred to this information. It will be interesting to see how this affects our caching.  Upon locating our first cache we then needed to log our find on the web site. However we found the text used to display the geocach identification to be very difficult to read. At the time of writing this the optional update kit has not arrived. I am surprised that this is considered an Optional accessory. New caches are constantly being created and old ones are removed or sometimes temporarily taken out of service. While it is true that I will probably not find all of the caches that are preloaded into the unit in my lifetime. Most of my caching is limited to my home area and the few states I normally travel to, so it is likely that as time goes by more and more of the caches would be deactivated and therefore I may end up looking for caches that simply are not there (or have been removed due to danger or being on private land). One feature I really like is that it automatically locates the 20 nearest caches. I have attempted to do some Geocaching while traveling, but sometimes find it difficult to locate the caches near my location (need to know the local Zip code, or get a lat/lon and enter it on the web site). Once located the caches must be down loaded and entered into my GPS. With the geomate.jr I should be able to simply turn it on and go. Likes: Simple display Minimal buttons Easy to understand graphics/icons Caches preloaded (no need to locate and load them) Automatically locates 20 nearest caches Shows cache Difficulty & Terrain rating Dislikes: Does not show cache descriptions or hints Text indicating cache identification can be difficult to read No compass so direction indicator only works while in motion Update cable sold separately Field Report Field Report - Due two months after the Initial Report Long Term Report Long Term Report - Due two months after the Field Report This concludes my Field Report. I would like to thank the folks at Apisphere Inc and BackpackGearTest.org for the opportunity to test this product and invite you to check back in two months when I will be appending the results of my long term-testing to this report.

Reviews > Navigation and Map Gear > GPS > Geomate Jr. > Test Report by David Wilkes