This last July, I took a 5200 mile solo motorcycle trip from Michigan which took me through Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, Kansas, and Missouri. My BMW R1200GS has a Garmin Zumo GPS mounted on it and it works well doing what a GPS does. However, I chose to use my phone and Google Maps to do most of my navigation due to its much more intuitive to use and takes a whole lot less time to enter a desired location into it than the Garmin but the Garmin will work when I have no cell service.
All this to say that I didn't need another GPS. What I was looking for was a means of communication with my wife while I was in areas of poor or no cell service. Also, since I was planning on going into off road locations in sparsely populated areas and being solo I wanted some way to contact help should an issue arise.
What I chose was a Zoleo Satellite Communicator. It doesn't function as a GPS but as a means of connecting your phone with the Iridium satellite network. The Zoleo requires a Bluetooth connection with your smartphone through a free Zoleo phone app. All texting is done through your phone on the Zoleo app. I only used it when I didn't have cell service. When I had cell service I would call or text my wife over my normal cell service.
Another nice feature is the ability to provide my wife with pings showing my location at intervals of my choosing. I set up mine to ping her every hour. She had to also download the free Zoleo app to her phone to receive my texts through the Zoleo and also to receive my pings. Each ping would give her an "I'm okay" message and provide her with my exact latitude and longitude coordinates. If she clicked on the coordinates, it would pull up a map showing her exactly where I was at. It went a long way to alleviate her fears of me being out there by myself.
The Zoleo also has an SOS button to activate Global Rescue, the same service used by Garmin. Little did I know, on the third day of my trip I had to activate the SOS feature, not for myself but for someone else in distress.
I was travelling through the Beartooth Pass somewhere between Montana and Wyoming when a frantic lady flagged me down. Her and her husband happened upon a woman who was unconscious and unresponsive. No one could get any cell service to call for help. The fear was that if she didn't receive help soon, whatever her issue was, could possibly cause her to die without help. I activated my SOS button and was soon in contact with Global Rescue. They asked me questions via text and I gave them information as best I could. They assured me that Search & Rescue were on their way but due to the remote location it would take between a half hour to an hour to reach us. Once I was off the phone, I started flagging down every vehicle that passed by looking for anyone that might have some medical background. The first car I stopped was an EMT (the lady in purple in the photo below) travelling with her son! A couple of vehicles later I stopped a couple on a Harley-Davidson who were both RN's! They really took over treating the woman. About a half hour after first contact, Emergency Services showed up in a pickup truck. They were EMT's. I was told that an ambulance would take another hour to arrive so a helicopter was dispatched. When I left, I was told that the helicopter was about 15 minutes out.
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I wore my Zoleo attached to my riding jacket so in the event of a crash, the Zoleo would be within reach even if my phone wasn't. Even without the use of my phone, just depressing the SOS button would activate Search & Rescue and provide them with my location.
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The Zoleo is probably the least expensive of the units out there, if you don't need a communicator in conjunction with a GPS. They list for $199 but if you shop around you can usually find them in the $150 range. Subscription options are reasonably priced too. Anyway, That's my experience with the Zoleo and I can highly recommend it. Oh, and the trip? It was awesome!!
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