Telespial TrackStick - GPS tracking logger - 1 MB

This is a basic low to medium end GPS tracker at around $150. It is not intended for real time reporting, but rather after the fact review, which is what I was interested in. More advanced models are available for bigger $$$I purchased the TrackStick to help record some remote trips I took where I wanted to be able to look back, see where I had been and tie my travels back to other items like photos, events, activities.The TrackStick seemed to do a good job of this, although there were several areas for suggested improvement:PROS- Good GPS & Time record of where you were- Excellent auto-interface to Google Earth for visual recreation of your route- Fairly simple On/Off operation- Accompanying software is fairly straightforward and functional- Documentation fair, could use some better examplesCONS- Quality of body construction poor, injection molded plastic seems crude- On/Off switch stiff and doesn't give a positive feeling of- Limited memory - comes with 1 MegaByte which is tiny and cheap by today's standards- Limited battery life- Inability to configure unit (e.g., extend interval between data collection points)- Support and documentation OK, but could be betterMy intended use was for trips where I'd be out for 4 - 7 days at a time. Changing batteries on such trips is problematic (weight and annoyance of having to change batteries daily) as was having to download and erase the unit's data before it filled up (have to carry a laptop to unload and erase data). I would have liked to have simply turned the unit on and forgotten about it, then downloaded and analyzed the data after my trip. Because of the relatively short battery life (2 - 3 days max under best conditions) and small memory size (ran out of recording memory after a day and a half), it was not as good a fit as I'd like. In my pre-trip experiments, I discovered the shortcomings and decided the best way I could deal with these were to turn the unit on for short periods of time and then turn it off. Not ideal, but OK. Documentation hints at ways to deal with limits, but apparently misleading. I contacted their support which was poor to fair, ultimately didn't "fix" my issues and seemed to confirm my findings.All said, unit does what it is advertised to do, but beware of limitations if they would affect your usage model.

This device does track where you go and shows up quite nicely on Google maps, but 2 AAA batteries only last 12 hours. It's too expensive to be putting batteries in this every day. I can see using it occasionally or on vacation, but it you want to track your own (or a teenager's) whereabouts, it's not that good. It has to be out in the open to find a satellite.

Works great!!!

I have bought TrackStick to use for it Google maps. Although the description says it can directly export to Google maps, it actually can't. It only exports CSV (comma separated file) that could be further processed by some external program (does not exist yet).Trackstick takes quite long to map itself after turning on (15+ minutes ), so it unsuitable for short trips. It however works for longer trips. It does not work inside buildings or under any roof/lots of trees/between high buildings.It is nice device for tracking your position, but if you need it for short trips, unusable.

I put batteries in and plugged into my computer like instructed. Supposedly everything was downloaded. I turned it on and put it outside so it could find location. I pplaced it where it couldn't be seen near rear windshield. Green light was blinking. When I plugged it back into computer, not only did it NOT have any information about where car had been, the computer said the device wasn't detected!!!!. Tried to contact mfr help, but didn't get any satisfaction. If I hadn't already thrown away packing slip(spouse almost saw it!....he's the reason I got it), I would have sent it back.

Got this little gaget a few weeks ago, thought I'd write some nice words about it today. I got the Trackstick because a friend who suspected infidelity of his wife suggested it. My daughter had been staying out too late and I wanted to see where she had been so I hid it in between the bac seat of her car before she went out and I got the information I wanted perfectly.

I love it! A Trackstick is just useful to have, especially on vacation! I took it with me diving in Belize and kept it on the diveboat the whole time. Every day I'd plug it into my laptop so I could see the areas I missed or still needed to go. Granted, I couldn't take it in the water, but that didn't stop me from using the geotag feature to tag all the pictures I took with my underwater camera and sync them to the areas where Trackstick was recording. I can literally see all the spots I dove in, and with Google Earth I can put little pins on the red Trackstick route to my favorite (and secret!) spots.I have to agree with with the review mentioning rechargeable batteries, definitely a good idea to have, especially when traveling, but from what you get out of a Trackstick, they are more than worth it and always come in handy for other things.

Unless you get your batteries for free, this device will cost you $100+ a month in just batteries. The unit will only function for 24 hours (or less) on a brand new set of Duracell Batteries, so if you are not available to change the batteries EVERYDAY, you can forget about tracking your subject. Plus, one day it went 24 hours and never tracked the subject, because it never synchronized to the GPS satellites. I lost the tracking, plus wasted another set of batteries. I feel that this device is a complete waste of money!