Rugged satellite messaging phone Bullitt fired out ahead of MWC Ruggedized handset maker Bullitt Group has lifted the lid on its first smartphone with satellite messaging ahead of MWC next week, as well as a Bluetooth dongle from Motorola that provides the same capability for any iOS or Android phone. The Cat S75 is an addition to the company’s ruggedized range and is an Android smartphone …
That is one feature I wish would go mass market - I'm sure they could bring the price down to a few bucks per phone if they were shipping tens or hundreds of millions per year if e.g. Apple decided to make it a standard feature. I don't know how often I would use it, but it would come in handy the few times a year I might.
If memory serves, the special chips used were in fact military surplus that had failed the strict testing, so rather than destroying them they reprogrammed them and sold on to CAT so they could integrate into their phones. Explains a few things.
Some of the FLIR Lepton modules use a very similar if not identical part, but are typically downgraded because some of the pixels are bad.
If you have the "Knowledge" (tm) its possible to un-downgrade them and run a remapping tool to work around the defects.
Interesting, did not know that. In addition to this, the refresh rate is limited to 9 Hz because otherwise it would fall under ITAR restrictions.
It would be great if a company like Apple or Samsung would integrate it into their phones. One use case is finding heat leaks around the house so that you can get maximum benefit from insulation efforts. It also shows me where my gas BBQ heats unevenly :)
Yes the FLIR around the house for air leaks is indeed where I'd use it. That's why I thought I wouldn't use it much though. Once you've plugged all the leaks, other than maybe a yearly spot check to make sure some new leak hasn't appeared you probably won't be doing that again...
....satellite SOS has been a feature on iPhone 14 models since last September, right? https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426
And presumably, some of the recent models using That Other Phone OS do so as well, because everyone imitates everyone else, everywhere, all at once, right?
Not everyone runs off to Apple the minute a new phone is out, you know... Some of us are still on iPhone 6s-es...
The Defy dongle makes satellite SOS available to those who don't have £1400 to just bandy about for a new phone every year, or those who are sensible and who use their old 6s until it is truly dead and gone.
Indeed. I don't want to replace my phone. And I don't know offhand whether any Android phones have built-in NTN support, and I probably wouldn't want the models that do, and I don't spend the sort of money required for the latest models on something as fragile as a phone anyway.
The Bluetooth dongle is interesting; $60/year isn't bad for a bit of insurance when hiking and camping, or just for the long drives I have to do through rural (and partly mountainous) areas where there isn't always conventional service. While I see the advantages of a rugged phone, in practice I find keeping mine in a Ziplock bag has sufficed for water-proofing thus far. (The touch screen works fine through the bag, and it doesn't even interfere significantly with taking photos, unless I really care about the image quality.)
Yes. We know.
I like Apple stuff myself, but this guy does other things too. Plus it is ruggedised and suitable for use in harsh environments. I’d consider something like this if I were going out bush/going somewhere remote. My iPhone would be rather shiny and also rather useless in such an environment.
I liked the sliders myself, but yes. I wish I could find decent physical-keyboard Android phones. I really liked my Symbian slider. I had a couple of Android sliders after the Symbian phone stopped holding a charge and the screen started to go on it (could have replaced the battery but it seemed likely further failures would be coming along soon), but neither of them lasted very long, and they were pretty low-spec.
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