SPOT 3 now reporting altitude?

On Monday, May 8, 2017 at 10:14:45 PM UTC-7, Peter Deane wrote:
My flight on Saturday looked the same but only on the GPAero site. My SPOT traking page reports no altitude info.

Some reasonably accurate altitudes except when the altitude doesnt show up.

2T

same experience for me.

When I renewed my SPOT data for another year they left the price the same as i asked, and they told me that they are coming out with a new device that will be cheaper than the Garmin InReach and have more functionality, which is why the data plan pricing is changing. I have no idea if the above is a sales pitch or the truth but I drank the cool-aid for another year.

On Tuesday, May 9, 2017 at 6:23:26 AM UTC-7, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
On Monday, May 8, 2017 at 10:14:45 PM UTC-7, Peter Deane wrote:
My flight on Saturday looked the same but only on the GPAero site. My SPOT traking page reports no altitude info.

Some reasonably accurate altitudes except when the altitude doesnt show up.

2T

same experience for me.

Lol!

I can confirm that both the XML and JSON feeds from SPOT now contain a (new) altitude field. It reports in meters. I have test flown and verified that it is the accurate GPS altitude.

So far, I see this data filled in only in tracking messages. In messages sent in response to a button push, the field appears to be zero.

I also note quite a few instances of drop-outs -- perhaps as many as 20% or 30% of all messages. I speculate that these may be related to instances where the rapid acquisition GPS engine in the SPOT fails to get enough satellites for a 3D solution. In these cases altitude is reported as zero or negative.

On Monday, May 15, 2017 at 12:07:39 AM UTC-5, 2KA wrote:
I can confirm that both the XML and JSON feeds from SPOT now contain a (new) altitude field. It reports in meters. I have test flown and verified that it is the accurate GPS altitude.

So far, I see this data filled in only in tracking messages. In messages sent in response to a button push, the field appears to be zero.

I also note quite a few instances of drop-outs -- perhaps as many as 20% or 30% of all messages. I speculate that these may be related to instances where the rapid acquisition GPS engine in the SPOT fails to get enough satellites for a 3D solution. In these cases altitude is reported as zero or negative.

Darryl Ramm

May 7

I think you'll find the data you are looking at is the height of the ground where you flew, which Spot has had inits Web UI forever, maybe you never noticed it before. No spot system transmits altitude data, and the current message format used does not have space for such data.

Darryl Ramm? What's your take on that?

Tom BravoMike

On Monday, May 15, 2017 at 8:17:43 AM UTC-7, Tom BravoMike wrote:
On Monday, May 15, 2017 at 12:07:39 AM UTC-5, 2KA wrote:
I can confirm that both the XML and JSON feeds from SPOT now contain a (new) altitude field. It reports in meters. I have test flown and verified that it is the accurate GPS altitude.

So far, I see this data filled in only in tracking messages. In messages sent in response to a button push, the field appears to be zero.

I also note quite a few instances of drop-outs -- perhaps as many as 20% or 30% of all messages. I speculate that these may be related to instances where the rapid acquisition GPS engine in the SPOT fails to get enough satellites for a 3D solution. In these cases altitude is reported as zero or negative.

Darryl Ramm

May 7

I think you'll find the data you are looking at is the height of the ground where you flew, which Spot has had inits Web UI forever, maybe you never noticed it before. No spot system transmits altitude data, and the current message format used does not have space for such data.

Darryl Ramm? What's your take on that?

Tom BravoMike

If they have added this it is an impressive deployment of updating (and supporting now two) over the air data message formats. it will be interesting to see if this feature was hidden in the original Spot 3 or added in a firmware update.

Now looks like they need to solve some performance options. I don't have a Spot 3 so I can't test.

There was indeed a recent firmware update. I didn't test before installing the update, so I can't say for sure if it was added then -- but it seems likely.

Lynn

On Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 7:35:00 AM UTC-7, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
I noticed my trace from spot 3 yesterday had altitude included. When did that start happening?

Matt

no reponse from Spot to my inquiry about addition of altitude...

On Friday, May 19, 2017 at 4:42:12 PM UTC-5, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
On Sunday, May 7, 2017 at 7:35:00 AM UTC-7, Matt Herron Jr. wrote:
I noticed my trace from spot 3 yesterday had altitude included. When did that start happening?

Matt

no reponse from Spot to my inquiry about addition of altitude...

Back in January this year, if you remember, I posted this response from them:

"Our SPOT devices are currently not capable of measuring the altitude of a location. We have not released any information on new devices or whether or not this feature will become available in the future. We apologize for the inconvenience."

I commented then that I thought it sounded ambiguous and mysterious to me, as if they were working on something.

I checked few tracking fixes on my SPOT3 earlier today and yes, the elevation of my house (about correct) was there, but I could only see it on the glideport.aero site and not on the original SPOT map site. And I didn't have to do any system software upgrade on my device. I hope to test it in flight next week, just to be positive it's the altitude of the glider and not the ground elevation.