Customer Reviews

Apisphere Geomate Jr. Geocaching GPS Update Kit

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you get the geomate jr... you need this as well.

The geomate comes with something like 250,000 preloaded caches, however cache's are a very dynamic thing.... many come, some go away the updates are important. Even with the best updates you will occasionally go to a place where there "should" be a cache it is gone, current data is important.

The Other up-side is that with the updates, you can get specific regions, as well as additional cache's that are not included with the pre-installed database.

The downside, for what it is, this cable is expensive.... I wish the geomate simply had a standard usb interface, and did not require a special cable, but even with that, I would put this as a necessary part of the unit and well worth getting.

This is an update to my first review, below...Apisphere responded to my email concern, same day, and on a Saturday at that. Using the update kit required us to turn off Norton Utilities to run the update. It worked and we were off and running. It's been muddy in our area so we have simply stopped by a place that we know there are caches and tested out our new Geomate Jr. Worked like a charm. Gave us cache size, terrain, distance, and pointed us in the right direction. We can't wait to put it to field use.
Original post: We received our Geomate Jr and update kit from Amazon quickly. No problem there. The Geomate Jr looks like it would be perfect for us to use with our children for geocaching, however, not being able to update with the current geocache inventory could be disappointing. We "successfully" uploaded the software on three of our PCs, two with Windows 7 and one with Vista. When connecting the Geomate Jr to the the computer with the update cable, Windows STOPS WORKING. So essentially this purchase does not work for us. We are waiting for a response from Apisphere's Help Desk. Depending on the response, I will either update my post or return the products. This could have been avoided had the versions of Windows been disclosed...they tell you up front that it doesn't work with Apple.

I agree that this is a necessary accessory for the Geomate Jr. The Geomate Jr. works fine without it, but it can be kind of annoying if you know there is a cache nearby, but you can't find it because it's not included on the original product.

The best thing about this update kit is that you can update as often as you want with no limits. One thing that should be noted is that you cannot load "all" of the caches in the U.S. onto the geomate jr at once. You have to select a region (roughly 1/2 of the U.S.) and it will load all "traditional" caches up to a difficulty level of 4. Considering that this gps is designed for kids, that should be more than enough!

I am also thankful to the previous reviewer who noted that Norton had to be turned off to install the update. That happened to be the case for me, too, and I knew what to do because I had read the review.

I bought the Geomate Jr. first and then ordered the update kit a few days later. If you're considering the Geomate Jr., you might as well buy both at once, because once you try it you will want it. :)

Awesome product..A MUST have for a Geomate Jr.
I beleive this cable should come with the unit. You can't update your unit without it.

I received the update cable for my Geomate JR. as a Christmas gift. The cable itself is sturdy and well made and has a little red light that lights up when you have a good connection between the GPS and your computer. But the functionality is all in the connection.

First I created a login account at apisphere.com. Then configured and installed the MAC (beta) version of the software which requires a Firefox browser re-configuration and a small software download and install. You end up with two Firefox extensions. After a reboot I logged into the account, connected the update cable and Geomate Jr., turned on the GPS and the Geomate Jr was "flashed" with the latest firmware. After that I selected the generic geocache update (there are regional specific upates as well) and my Geomate Jr. was updated from 6/9/10 to 1/6/11. The process was easy and straight forward for my system which is: Mac OS X Version 10.6.5 and Firefox 3.6.13. (Note: I tried the same on a Mac with OS 10.5.x / Firefox 3.6.13 and the update process DOES NOT WORK, as another reviewer stated.)

I tried the working update (Mac OS 10.6.5) at work and these changes to the Firefox browser on the Mac throw red flags for some network security scanning programs. Network security scanning programs may think there is a password stealer on your system. If you trust Apisphere, then have at it, but I don't know what else you are opening yourself up to. I have since un-installed the Geomate Firefox extensions on the Mac and reverted back to my original browser settings. I ended up having to dig deep into the browser extension configurations (Library/Application Support/FireFox/Profiles/extensions/etc...) to completely remove the Geomate extensions from my Mac system.

Although I got the Geomate Mac (beta) version to work on my Mac system, I hope in the future Apisphere can come up with extensions for Firefox or some other application entirely for the Mac, that doesn't behave suspiciously according to security guidelines.

I also tried the updater on Windows 7/Internet Explorer as well (I have a VM running on my Mac). It was a simpler process and worked flawlessly. However, again I was notified by the IT security guys of "suspicious" activity. I was told that I have a password stealer on my system and that I should clean my system. The warnings came every time, like clockwork, after I made an update on my GPS. Regardless it was a somewhat easier process to make updates on Windows 7 than on Mac OS.

Once you have an account and with your Geomate Jr connected to your computer with the update cable, you can either choose to update the existing nation-wide geocaches on the GPS, or select either a Western or Eastern US area and get more specific geocaches, or select specific caches from geocaching dot com and enter them into an update list manually. These manually entered caches can be any size or difficulty level and are tacked on to whatever update type you select. However, if you select the UPDATE from just the manually entered update page, it will ONLY put those specific caches on the GPS. I had about 6 manually entered caches and when I did the update from that page I was surprised to find ONLY those 6 on the GPS when I turned it on again. (I guess this would be a nice feature if you had a special event for Scouts or something where you wanted to flash your GPS(s) with only a handful of specific caches). For my final selection, I chose the Western US update and plugged in a few manual caches that I knew existed in my area but were not showing up on my GeoMate Jr. I should be good to go for many more treasure hunts now!

The update cable works great and the online updates allow adding more geocaches to the GeoMate Jr. (5 stars minus 2 stars for spotty Mac support and suspiciously behaving software in general).

Worked just as promised! I was able to update all my grandchildren's geocache jr.'s

Not much to say other than it works great. Gives some options on which caches to load which is very nice. The database is updated daily so one can update daily. More caches loaded than one person can do in an outing.

I can't really rate this - it doesn't work with my computer. Wish I knew that before getting the Geomate Jr! The proprietary update kit could at least mention the fact that it doesn't speak Mac.

Cable works fine after you do a software download, but why in the world wasn't this included with the Geomate Jr. in the first place???? I feel like a sucker having to go back and spend $25 more on this "kids" GPS. The plug split open when I attached it to the unit, but I squeezed it back together and it is working (so far.)

So excited to try the Geomate Jr. Got the update started and when I went to pull the plug, the attachment cracked and came apart. We got the update, but now will not be able to sync inputed geocaches. A litte bummed that we have to pay extra for it, then it is so flimsy.