I had never hear of this device prior to a few days ago. A couple we met told me they had something called “The Spot”. It sends predetermined text to a satellite to let folks know where you are and if you need help when your are in places without cell signal. (many hundreds of miles on are trip thru Canada to Alaska, and many miles of highway in Alaska too.
It has a few buttons that allow you to send messages to your family (or anyone) One button is setup to say they are OK and includes their current GPS coordinates. One is to get emergency help to your current location and the third can be setup to say you need other type, non emergency help. Like towing or roadside assistance etc. It currently costs around $131 on Amazon and $99 a year for the satellite service. After talking to this couple I ran into another person that got it recently as their brother in law (who is an Alaskan Bush Pilot) recommended it to them. He was going to loan them one of his, but they bought one instead and said they just push the notification button when at a place without cell service. Which is fairly often out here in Alaska and most places in Canada too. Here is a link to the device on Amazon which is the cheapest place I could find it during a web search. https://amzn.to/2YGeG9K
I am in Alaska right now, but am going to see if I can get one of these shipped to us before we head back into Canada on the way home. We will be taking the Cassier Highway and based on the coverage maps from ATT, Verizon and T-mobile we will have no signal for almost all the way back till we get near the larger city’s in the south. (there were at least 100 miles of the Alcan that had no service either.
JFYI I just pulled the trigger and Amazon is shipping it to an RV park we will be staying at the night of August 7th, its “Guaranteed” to be delivered on the 7th. HAHA.
I will review it once I’ve traveled with it and used it a few times for checkins.