Apisphere Geomate Jr. Handheld Geocaching GPS

by Apisphere

Product Details

User's Guide [2.39mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 10.8 x 5 x 1.2 inches ; 4.2 ounces
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B002MZZX9E
• Item model number: 30-152-32
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (67 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,749 in Electronics (See Top 100 in Electronics)

Product Description

Amazon.com Product Description

The easiest and quickest way to get in on the geocaching fun, the Geomate.jr is an incredibly affordable and amazingly easy to use geocaching GPS--just switch it on anywhere in the U.S., and be directed to your closest geocache. It's really that easy! With over 250,000 pre-loaded geocache locations covering all 50 U.S. states, it's an outdoor adventure just waiting to happen anywhere, anytime, straight out of the box! No downloads, internet connection, or typing in coordinates necessary.

An affordable and easy to use geocaching GPS.

Perfect for that spontaneous outdoor adventure with friends or the family.

Based on high-sensitivity SiRFstarIII GPS technology, the Geomate.jr delivers excellent GPS performance and accuracy.

Discover Geocaching

An exciting outdoor adventure for the whole family, geocaching is a high-tech GPS-based treasure hunt. Hidden all over the U.S.--behind bushes, inside logs, under park benches, practically anywhere--are "geocaches," containers of various size (some can be a small as a quarter piece, while others as large as a bucket) with a log book and trinkets that you can trade stashed inside. Your mission as a Geocacher is to find them.

About the Geomate.jr

Loaded With Geocaches
Unlike any other GPS on the market, the Geomate.jr comes preloaded with approximately 250,000 geocache locations covering all 50 U.S. states.

A Breeze to Use
Simply go outside, turn it on and follow the arrow and distance to your closest geocache. Hit the "Next" button and the Geomate.jr will take you to the next closest geocache. To make the hunt a little easier, along with the geocache location, you also get information like terrain, difficulty, size of the geocache, and the geocache code. You can also set a "home" waypoint so you can always navigate back to where you started--a bit of a "get lost proof" feature.

After a good find, the "found geocache" log allows you to mark geocaches as found and review them later.

Solid Technology
The Geomate.jr includes core GPS functionality like latitude, longitude, height, heading, and GPS tracking information. Based on high-sensitivity SiRFstarIII GPS technology, the Geomate.jr delivers excellent GPS performance and accuracy.

The Geomate.jr gets more than 12 hours of operation out of a couple AAA batteries (not included).

Loads of Fun
Whether you are taking a road trip, visiting the relatives, camping, or just taking a stroll through the local park, the Geomate.jr is always ready to go and is perfect for that spontaneous outdoor adventure with friends or the family.

Add an Udpate Kit
With new geocaches being added every day, an optional Geomate.jr Update Kit allows you to add all the newest geocaches for the U.S., get geocaches for other countries, or even give your Geomate.jr a nickname!

What's in the Box

Apisphere Geomate jr. Handheld GPS Geocacher, Quick Start Guide

Product Description

The easiest and quickest way to get in on the geocaching fun, the Geomate.Jr is an incredibly affordable and amazingly easy-to-use geocaching GPSjust switch it on anywhere in the United States and be directed to your closest geocache. Its really that easy. With over 250,000 pre-loaded geocache locations covering all 50 U.S. states, its an outdoor adventure just waiting to happen anywhere, anytime, straight out of the box. No downloads, Internet connection or typing in coordinates necessary.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

159 of 163 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic supplemental geocaching tool, October 18, 2009

By 

AlexCartermom - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Apisphere Geomate Jr. Handheld Geocaching GPS (Electronics)

I purchased two of these, one for my kids and one for a friend.

THE GOOD
For my kids, this is the perfect unit. We use the geocaching app on my Iphone as our main geocaching tool to get us into the vicinity and then the kids use their Geomate Jr to get them to the cache. My 6 year old can run into trees with it, fall on it, etc and it takes a licking and keeps on ticking (much better than him doing that with my iphone!) Because we have already been geocaching, we were able to understand how to use this tool after a few button pushes. We did a side-by-side test with my iphone and the Geomate jr and the Geomate updated faster than my iphone and was more accurate under heavy tree cover conditions. Under normal conditions, both the Iphone and Geomate Jr updated at similar times and had readings within 2 feet of each other.

NEEDS IMPROVEMENT
This tool is billed as the Grab and Go geocaching tool, so easy that it will encourage everyone to get in the game. Well, not quite. If you aren't already very familiar with geocaching, trying to figure out what these buttons mean will just be confusing. You will need to read a book or go on the [...] website before you'll understand what a GC code is or have any clue what those coordinates mean. After you do make a find, you can only mark 20 caches as found. You need the update kit to mark up to 99 caches as found (though they represent that it will eventually be up to 1000 found). However, these issues are not a big deal because after you buy the update kit and do some reading, you're as good as gold.

NO MAPPING
But perhaps the biggest feature that is lacking that truly prevents this unit from being a true Grab and Go unit is the the lack of a mapping capability. For this reason, this is best as a supplemental unit. Mapping is important in geocaching because trying to find a geocache by going 3.6 miles NNE is about impossible to drive to. Roads generally don't travel in the direction that your compass happens to be pointing. And by the time you take a road in that general direction, the compass will be pointing .6 miles West. You could drive around like this all day. The Iphone app shows the map of the area and where the geocache is located on the map so that you can drive to the general vicinity and then get out and hunt. The work around for this lack of a mapping feature on the Geomate Jr. is to go to the geocaching.com website and print out the maps to the geocaches you want to seek. Of course this relegates you to only planned geocaching trips instead of geocaching on the go because you happen to have a few extra minutes like you can do with the Iphone.

SUMMARY
This is a great supplemental unit and a must have for kids in a family of geocachers. However, unless and until they provide a mapping capability on the Geomate Jr., this is not a true Grab and go unit and may not be the best choice as a stand alone unit.

34 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Didn't work AT ALL for us!, July 4, 2010

By 

Kristin Tosello "Ryans Mom" (Santa Cruz, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Apisphere Geomate Jr. Handheld Geocaching GPS (Electronics)

I read an article in a kid's magazine about Geocaching and thought my daughter would be into it. The magazine suggestions the Geomate Jr as a good starter. We were so excited when it arrived in the mail! We got it out of the box, read the directions (which is really just a tiny piece of paper with 3 steps on it) and set out on an adventure! What I found is that it is completely unreliable. It would get us in the general location (within 100 feet) and then go haywire. It would say 18 feet in one direction, you would walk that way, and then all of a sudden, it would say to go 25 feet behind you. We thought maybe it was the location we were at (which had some tree cover) and decided to try the next cache. The next one was over a mile away, which sucks when you're doing this with a 5 year old and the first one produced no results. So we walked on to the next one. The same thing happened. It claimed we needed to go 85 feet in a direction, that lead right through someone's backyard, so we walked around the box. Once we got there, it said we needed to go over 100 feet in the opposite direction. We tried the 3rd cache, and had the same problem. When we got home I went to [...] and checked to see if maybe they are no longer there. They're still there! They had all been found in less than a week! We literally walked over two of them and had no idea, because the Geomate told us we had another 50 feet to go!

The Geomate jr is a great concept. It seems unintimidating for newcomers. It was perfect for my daughter to hold, I didn't worry that she would break it. It was easy for her to read and see where we were going. On our way to the first cache she LOVED it and I thought we had a new hobby. The problem is that it is just not reliable.

I would NOT recommend buying this. It seems like a lot of people have had success, but if it fails to work like ours did, it is going to be hard to get your kids out to try again.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect for spontaneous adventures!, October 28, 2009

By 

Skippy Jay "SkippyJ" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Apisphere Geomate Jr. Handheld Geocaching GPS (Electronics)

This is the perfect device for on-the-fly geocaching.
I travel alot with work, and I used to find myself wishing I could go geocaching but I didn't have the time or the means to upload caches. With the Geomate.jr, I can just pull it out, turn it on and go. It travels everywhere with me, in fact it has a permanent place in my bag. I would be more upset if I left it behind, than my cell phone!

I have found over 100 caches with the geomate.jr, it is a shame it doesn't give the description of the cache, but with the "found' list, I just log online and read about interesting caches after I have been there. The information it does provide, such as cache size and difficultly is very helpful. I still shy away from small caches! Sometimes I am just not up for the challenge!

I found the navigation to be very accurate, I have never been mis-directed, even in the woods where you would expect coverage to be spotty.

I really would recommend this product to anyone who wants to start geocaching, anyone who has kids and to any seasoned geocachers for the moments when you haven't planned. It is light weight, small, inexpensive and so easy to use! This would make a fantastic gift for young and old!