I've been testing the Motorola Defy Satellite Link since it first hit general availability.
They are basically OEMing a system developed by a shop in the UK called Bullitt.
Bullitt is using an API and platform from another company which name escapes me at the moment.
The price point is not bad, around ~$150, and because it's new, they're offering their plans at a discount currently as well.
The price point for the basic paid service is currently running about $5/month (normally about $10), and there's an optional annual upsell for enhanced rescue and recovery services, but they'll still dispatch through that center even if you don't have the extra for about $40/year.
At present, the device is using the Inmarsat constellation, which means you have to have line of sight to a geosynchronous Inmarsat satellite.
Functionally, I don't see a lot of difference in terms of coverage indications than I do for some of my other devices on other satellite networks.
There are a couple of rough edges where there's room for improvement. They've acknowledged one, and I have yet to send them a note about the others.
Tracking - right now, they're apparently still working on the overall tracking functionality. I don't know if they're still working on code for the device or the back end. They have publicly stated that they plan to roll out tracking as soon as its ready.
SMS - The way it works right now is that if you send a message from the smartphone app, it will send an SMS message to your recipient. If you have them programmed in and hit the check-in, it does essentially the same thing. The message also includes a URL to point them to the app stores for downloading the app, which is REQUIRED for them to reply to you, the person with the device.
The smartphone app has a toggle for whether it uses any available Wi-FI or mobile data network, or whether it uses the satellite service. The send button turns into a little rocket icon when you have the toggle set to the satellite service. I need to double check this, but I have seen that in either case, the message received by the recipient is identical, and requests them to download the app in order to reply to you.
For a lot of reasons, I don't like this, but I can think of a number of reasons why someone at Bullitt thought that was a good idea. I suppose it's also possible that limitations in the third party communications architecture and API may make management of telephone number assignment and processing of SMS replies a little difficult for them. Nonetheless, that's by far my biggest beef with this particular approach right now.
The app pairs on its own (not with the phone's Bluetooth settings panel, and in fact advises against use of same) with your smartphone's Bluetooth via what I think is BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) functionality.
When you're in the smartphone app, there is a little status window with 4 tiny icons. If you press it, it opens a modal window that shows status of your phone's connectivity to the device, and the device's connectivity to the satellite. When you get into marginal reception areas, it will put an exclamation point surrounded by lightning bolts on this status screen, with advice to move to a clear view of the sky.
In very tiny print at the bottom is a real time textual message with information about received signal strength and the general compass orientation to the satellite. It's not a Clarke Belt location, but something derived presumably from the device's GPS location and the location of the satellite.
Price-wise, it is definitely the lowest contender in the market, but I note that immediately upon its release the Zoleo folks, who make a somewhat similar but bulkier device that uses the Iridium constellation, cut their normal ~$199 price to $149. I don't know whether that's still on sale or not, but I was thinking of buying one to test.
I currently rock an original Iridium pager, which is nice for some use cases in that it's a truly one-way device, which is very rare for any satellite user terminal. Most of the systems pretty much demand that a user terminal uplink its geographic location prior to even granting access to the network. Unfortunately, I've also just been informed that they've raised my monthly rate for unlimited paging service to almost $250, which is usurious. I think they may just be trying to get all of the legacy devices off of the Iridium network after their system upgrade to some higher bandwidth protocols.
As for the Motorola Defy Satellite Link, Motorola/Lenovo is now shipping a new Motorola Defy 2 rugged 5G Android smartphone which apparently incorporates the Bullitt satellite hardware and software.
Likes for the Motorola Defy:
Form factor: I like the form factor a LOT. It's flatter than any other option of its ilk, short of building something yourself from a module.
It comes with a little woven strap and its own D-ring, ready to clip to a carabiner on a backpack or anything else.
Price - it's currently the most inexpensive option of which I'm aware for a satellite user terminal with inbuilt GPS, a monitoring service, and the ability to message people with text messages of your own composition. It's not one of these things where you have to pre-set any messages and can only send those. With the app you can send arbitrary text messages.
Price (rescue service) - the $40/year for the enhanced service is not a bad price point. I read over their terms and they seem to be offering an interesting set of services, which may even include things like extraction from civil unrest. I don't know anything about the history of their EOC provider though. I think it's a different shop from the ones used by Garmin and Globalstar.
Connectivity - time will tell whether the Inmarsat geosynchronous constellation performs as well as Iridium's and Globalstar's LEO constellations. That having been said, Inmarsat knows how to run space segments, though I think they might have just been acquired by Viasat or something.
The ability of the app to use whatever connectivity is available is certainly a win, from the perspective of being in distress and wanting to get a message to the emergency operations center any possible way.
Dislikes:
- making correspondents have to download an all to reply is a major drag
- tracking isn't available yet, but they're clearly working on it, and say it should be available soon. I think they wanted this thing out in time for Christmas sales, so I'm not surprised they shipped when they did.
- To the best of my knowledge, there is no published API for accessing the service and writing your own client software for the device. This is also a problem with the Iridium paging service. Even the Zoleo, which I'm pretty sure is using Iridium's SBD (short burst data) service has built their own platform on top, so you don't necessarily get the ability to write to the raw satellite provider's APIs.
There are some rough takes. I've had it for a few weeks, and haven't had to use it in anger. I'm acquainted with some of the vagaries of the Inmarsat constellation, as I am a pilot and generally keep a satphone with a live SIM handy in case I ever need it after a difficult landing.
I need to look more at this company that Bullitt is using to underpin their service, as I think the whole multi-system communications architecture is something largely provided to Bullitt by a third party.
I hope that helps.
