You are right Captain; I have made passing comment in a few posts about the lack of waterproofing on the Satmap Active 10+ but have not written a more comprehensive review. So to rectify this:
I first got my hands on a very early Satmap 10 back in October 2007. 42 Commando had some on trial and we were using them on a navigation exercise on Dartmoor. It was not an auspicious start, with 3 of the 5 units failing because of software glitches which caused the screen to freeze and of the remaining 2 which did function, the USB connector at the base of the unit snapped when we were connecting it to a laptop to update the software. I later learned that pressure from the venture capitalists (
creatures that swim in the Pacific Ocean and have a grey triangular dorsal fin) who had invested in the business led to the introduction of the unit too early in its development.
Satmap had been started by three individuals, an ex SAS guy, RAF Jaguar pilot and a financial backing entrepreneur; A British company, ex-military personnel, a really good combination if you are going to build a satnav to compete with the market giants, Garmin.
I contacted Satmap and offered to help them develop their unit free of charge. Through this got to know the MD, Richard Calthrop-Owen (the ex-RAF pilot) quite well, a really descent guy. They worked hard to get their units into Mountain Rescue so they could use this as a product endorsement and I demonstrated the A10+s, along with the Garmin 60Csx, to the teams I was instructing (
I had and still do not have any commercial links with either of these firms).
Development from the A10 to the A10+ was slow and software continued to be an issue, both in functionality and bugs, the file system did not use the gpx convention, battery life, but by far the biggest problem with the unit was it
was not waterproof. The firm’s market blurb about battery life and waterproofness was frankly misleading; the stated 50hrs use in reality was 8-10hrs at best, the blurb about it being waterproof was simply incorrect. To rectify these problems the firm changed the blurb about battery life and introduced the Boot, a big rubber container into which you put your satnav, this boot made the unit very clumsy to use with gloves on.
I took the unit with me when I was working with the Swiss Mountain Rescue teams and discovered another problem, the screen was not visible in the very bright condition of snow and clear skies with sunshine – something I had not experienced in Scotland -
quelle surprise The might of Garmin in R&D was leaving the A10+ behind, sales were falling for them and I understand that the company came close to going under, shedding staff, including Richard, his Brother-in-Law, Howard, took over the running of the firm. I decided to stop demonstrating the units to MRT not only because of the ongoing waterproof issue but also because if the firm went bust the units would have no backup.
As a firm they were really great people to deal with and a British business, just their product was poor, in contrast to Garmin who are an arrogant firm to deal with yet manufacture some really good handheld satnavs.
I think it is sad that they didn’t come out on top.
The posts I referred to are:
http://micronavigation.com/forum/index.php?topic=508.msg3610#msg3610 http://micronavigation.com/forum/index.php?topic=310.msg2696#msg2696 http://micronavigation.com/forum/index.php?topic=138.msg776#msg776