NEW Spotwalla

[m a u r a]

In the past, there has been incessant whining in various forums over the SPOT billing policies (one year only, no month by month) . Then, SPOTWALLA comes in with a system that is not one year set fee, but a pay-per-use that allows you to reduce payments to almost zero , or go on a Spotwalla spendapalooza with multiple devices pinging like crazy and still pay less than $100 per year. Long sigh. You can't please everybody. I am thinking about all the money I have saved since spotwallapaloozing since 2008

 

[Stephen!]

You want a flat rate? Drop $50 into your account. Set a notification (right below your balance on your account dashboard) to alert you if you drop below $10. Set a calendar event to remind you to reassess your $50 drop a year from now. Forgetaboutit.

I have four devices. If every device drops a mark every day (they will not because of how Bubbler will not report if it has not moved) I did the math and figure the $60 I added to the initial $5 will last me more than a year. I will receive an alert when it drops to $10. Giving me about two months to get off my ass and refill my balance. Certainly a bargain.

The one little niggle I have is that I must have missed the notification of a 2.x% fee for using a credit card and the full $60 did not make it into my account. Still plenty enough, though.

 

[Firstpeke]

I still consider that Spotwalla is a bargain.....

Can see how it would be better in many ways to charge a flat rate per device per year, but then some would complain that they don't use it all year around, which entirely misses the point that whilst this is true, if you use a device such as Spot, then the main advantage is that you can summon help if you have had a misadventure...... tracking for me is great, but that was not the main reason I went the Spot route....

Spotwalla for IBA is a great advantage as are I am sure, the many other options for a device to connect to their system......

So a bit of a reality check may be required for some given the price of tyres and all the other "stuff" we fit to make the bike ours.... the cost of tracking using Spotwalla is not onerous, even if it was just for ONE IBA ride, I still think that if it makes my route clear and unambiguous, then it has achieved what I wanted it to do....

So, yes if you want to use it and often, stick $25-50 in there and as has been said, set an alert for when it gets down to $5 or so and put some more in......

Frankly if folks in the USA were paying what we pay for our fuel in Europe, maybe Spotwalla wouldn't be getting so much grief over what is, compared to other things, a very low cost solution.


/rant mode

 

[kerrizor]

Well, we also like to complain around here, and we're all completely uninterested in debating oil and tires right now...

 

[Shawn K]

we're all completely uninterested in debating oil and tires right now...

Speak for yourself. I, for one, will gladly espouse the many reasons why Rotella T6 is the best oil in the world.

(Albeit unavailable at the moment, but that's another story...)

 

[kerrizor]

Speak for yourself. I, for one, will gladly espouse the many reasons why Rotella T6 is the best oil in the world.

Well lah-tee-dah, look at the fancy man with his Rotella!

 

[Stephen!]

...and now we can upload pictures directly to our Spotwalla points instead of having to find a host (or using Bubbler's built-in option)???

THANK YOU @Jason Jonas!!!!!!

 

[LeMaitre]

More goodies for Premier member/SpotWalla users


IBA Premier Plus
The Iron Butt Association and SpotWalla have strengthened their relationship this past weekend when the IBA announced the new Premier Plus program in Jacksonville, Florida. Premier members who renew their membership as a Premier Plus member will receive a coupon that can be redeemed for one year of SpotWalla. The coupon covers all storage/map fees as well as device activity fees for up to two devices.

So if you're an IBA member and use SpotWalla, do yourself a favor and join/upgrade to a Premier Plus membership. You will save over 70%. This is based on year-round storage/map fees and year-round device activity fees for two devices.

 

[LeMaitre]

For those that putt money in your SpotWalla account last month. I am going to cross post a response from Howard in Q&A.

The monies in your spotwalla account belong to you - you can ask for a refund at any time (less a small $5 administrative fee). We don't have any mechanism to convert current Premier memberships to Premier+ memberships. Current Premier members should continue to pay for Spotwalla as they are now doing, and, at Premier renewal time, sign up for Premier+.

What this means for me, is that I will wait to upgrade to Premier + till my Spotwalla falls below $5.00.

-Mark

 

[Russ Black]

What this means for me, is that I will wait to upgrade to Premier + till my Spotwalla falls below $5.00.

I'm with you on this one. I have over $50 in my Spotwalla account. I know, I know... I didn't want to deal with worrying about it. I have all my other bills on auto pay for the same reason. I'll forget at renewal time and I'll be that guy... The only "Premier" member in a sea of "Premier Plus".

To all to folks that are doing their parts in bettering our sport... My hat is off!

 

[Stephen!]

...and now we can upload pictures directly to our Spotwalla points instead of having to find a host (or using Bubbler's built-in option)???

THANK YOU @Jason Jonas!!!!!!

...and just like that... It is SO much easier now.

 

[Russ Black]

I understand your excitement and welcome to the party. iOS users have had that capability since as far back as '16 or '17. My friends all seemed to be very happy using Bubbler until one of them lost their phone. Enjoy your new found functionality.

 

[Stephen!]

I understand your excitement and welcome to the party. iOS users have had that capability since as far back as '16 or '17. My friends all seemed to be very happy using Bubbler until one of them lost their phone. Enjoy your new found functionality.

Really? So you, using an ios device, were able to upload pictures directly from your device to the Spotwalla site days after the picture was taken? Interesting....

 

[Russ Black]

days after the picture was taken

That I never tried. I have always done it in real time. In '17 I was using SWConnect (Forefather to SWTracker). When you'd send a message you could also take a photo. It would give you the option to use it or retake it. It did not save it to your phones library. SWTracker lets you do the same but now you can upload a photo from your phones library. I don't know if it will save it to the phone as I have never tried that. I now take the photo first and then immediately send it to Spotwalla using SWTracker. Here is a link to a BBS/SS that I did back in '17. The whole tracking thing was still new to me and I only uploaded photos of my bike and the gas station. I took the photos of my DBR and odometer with the phone only.

 

[Stephen!]

That I never tried. I have always done it in real time. In '17 I was using SWConnect (Forefather to SWTracker). When you'd send a message you could also take a photo. It would give you the option to use it or retake it. It did not save it to your phones library. SWTracker lets you do the same but now you can upload a photo from your phones library. I don't know if it will save it to the phone as I have never tried that. I now take the photo first and then immediately send it to Spotwalla using SWTracker. Here is a link to a BBS/SS that I did back in '17. The whole tracking thing was still new to me and I only uploaded photos of my bike and the gas station. I took the photos of my DBR and odometer with the phone only.

Bubbler works the same way. You can take a pic through the app that is automatically tied to a point on your track at Spotwalla. Another option would be to have the picture hosted elsewhere and later you could edit the point to include a link to that hosted photo. It worked the same regardless of which platform you used,

What has changed is that if you do not upload the picture in-the-moment with either Bubbler or SWTracker, you no longer have to find a third-party host and link to the picture. You can actually upload the picture directly from your device (or laptop if taken on a non-connected device) and attach it to any location on your track. You can do this hours, days, or even years after you took the picture.

THAT is something nobody has been able to do in the past.

 

[Russ Black]

The friends I rode with back then used Bubbler and they couldn't upload a photo at all. Or at least none of us could figure it out. I'm glad the current version does because it gives you another backup. One of my Bubbler friends didn't worry about keeping track of his DBR's because he had a photo of them until he lost his phone. No DBR's and no photos equal no ride. I keep my DBR's in a zip lock bag in the same velcroed shut pocket of my riding jacket. My phone is tethered to the bike and the photos are also upload in Spotwalla. I guess I could also e-mail them to myself... Note to self: Add emailing to my DBR ritual.

I have a ride to eat in the morning that I'm going to use to test loading the photos to Spotwalla days later. I'm curious to see how it works and if I'm going to incorperate it into my riding routine.

 

[Stephen!]

The friends I rode with back then used Bubbler and they couldn't upload a photo at all. Or at least none of us could figure it out. I'm glad the current version does because it gives you another backup.

If you were using the free "trial" version, then it did not. The Pro version always has.

 

[Russ Black]

Knowing them... it was probably the free version.

 

[Stephen!]

Knowing them... it was probably the free version.

The good news is only the latest rendition has only one version, and it is free and fully functional:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.bubblergps.bubbler.dev

 

[m a u r a]

Got photos in bubbler routes in spotwalla going back to 2013. At that time, most cameras did not geotag photos, so only phone photos could be readily attached to a map. The fabulous new functionality is *later* upload of photos to any existing trip, as Stephen! has described. I like taking photos with a real camera, not the phone, so this feature is really useful to me.