September
11, 2002
GADGETS
Hand-Held Homing Devices:
GPS Hits Household Gadgets
By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Staff Reporter of THE
The
In a test of just how much money consumers have to throw around these days,
companies are pitching golfers, hikers and other hobbyists on new hand-held
location devices. Watches that beam a child's whereabouts to
anxious parents will hit stores this month. The newest "fish
finders," which tell anglers where to cast a line, are small enough to fit
inside a shirt pocket. Another watch now on the market clocks speed and distance
for runners, horseback riders and mountain bikers.
These gadgets don't come cheap. LinksPoint Inc. charges $249 for its "golf
assistant," which tells a player how far the ball is from the pin, and from
a hook in the course or a sand trap. (Higher-end models let you pre-order hot
dogs from the clubhouse snack bar.) Wherify Wireless
Corp. sells the child watch for $400 (not including monthly usage charges). One
problem: If the child is inside a steel or concrete building, the watch won't
find him -- satellite signals still can't penetrate those materials.
Since the thawing of the Cold War, various companies have discovered commercial
applications for the Global Positioning System, a constellation of 24 satellites
that can pinpoint the location of people or objects with ground receivers.
Today, the technology does everything from helping ships and planes get from one
point to another to measuring the movement of glaciers. Auto makers offer GPS in
their new cars as an upgrade, for a couple thousand dollars. (So far, they
haven't had a lot of takers.)
Gadget makers, too, are trying to package the technology. They were helped by
the military's decision two years ago to stop distorting the satellite signals
-- the government cited an easing of security concerns. That improved the range
of accuracy from the length of a football field to that of a tennis court.
The most significant advances, though, are still to come. Mobile-phone carriers
will soon have to comply with a federal rule that says anyone who calls 911 can
be located through GPS. The rule, which takes effect gradually through the end
of 2005, is forcing the GPS industry to address the technology's most glaring shortcoming:
Satellite signals are too weak to penetrate indoors and spaces near trees and
tall buildings.
The new gadgets can vary widely in ease of use. Some golfing assistants, for
example, show only a few lines of text directing you to the hole, while others
have fancy color maps.
Batteries on some backpacker GPS devices last about 10 hours -- half what
experts recommend. Other devices work only with software produced by the maker
of the device. For instance, Garmin
Ltd.'s GPS walkie-talkie, which is aimed at hikers,
ski patrols and families, doesn't run National Geographic's trail map.
How much will people be willing to pay for hand-held GPS devices? Not that much,
says Tom Starnes, an analyst at market-researcher Gartner Inc. Mr. Starnes
recently bought a portable GPS locator -- the kind popular with some backpackers
-- and quickly got bored. "You tool around with it for awhile, it's
fun, and then you put it away," he says.
Here are a few of the new GPS products:
Now, hand-held versions are turning up on store shelves. SkyHawke
Technologies LLC is releasing one this month for $300, while LinksPoint launched
one in May for $249; detailed maps of about 3,000 of the 17,000
Blewett Gardner, a 61-year-old retired oil-equipment
salesman in
Fish finders: Since the 1950s,
fish finders have used sonar to locate schools of fish. By adding a GPS
receiver, anglers can now mark the spot electronically and return to it later.
These devices can be pricey, though. Lowrance
Electronics Inc., which claims 50% of the fish-finder market, charges
at least $600 for combined GPS and sonar models. In February, it introduced a
GPS fish finder, sans sonar, that fits inside a shirt pocket and sells for about
$200.
Steve Holland, a 49-year-old tournament fisherman in Grapevine,
People locators: With growing
concerns about child safety following a spate of abductions around the country, Wherify's
timing is good. The
When a parent calls or clicks a Web icon asking a Wherify
operator to find a child, the operator sends a text message on Sprint's
cellphone network, activating a GPS receiver inside
the child's watch. The location is relayed back to the operator, who guides the
parent to the child over the phone.
Operators are on duty 24 hours a day. The watch, which includes a
tamper-resistant lock, has a panic button that enables children to relay
locations to the operator. But the device has some serious limitations: It
doesn't reach indoor spaces, and doesn't work outside Sprint's network. (The
company advertises that the watch works in "most wood frame
buildings," but not through steel or concrete.)
This month, Garmin plans to introduce walkie-talkies
with built-in GPS receivers starting at $211 a pair. Screens on the radios show
where both people are, as long as they're within within
two miles of each other. Once they stray outside that range, the walkie-talkie
can only determine the location of the person holding it.
Timex Corp. introduced two GPS watches in April for $200 and $225 that tell
runners their speed and distance traveled. A GPS receiver the size of a mobile
phone, which can be strapped around an arm or waist, transmits information to
the watch. One drawback: It doesn't tell you where you are; a spokesman says
that feature would make the screen too big for a watch.