It's a great story but kind of gross the way Garmin slides in an ad for its products being supposedly easy to use even for people who haven't used them before
At least they link to the original article which, after a quick scan, seems much better written.
https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/inspire/life/how-a-fisherman...
Compare and contrast the story to the local TV station writeup:
https://www.wistv.com/2021/07/07/father-son-rescue-missing-b...
Two fishermen see a boat with nobody piloting it, alert the coast guard, follow the breadcrumb trail on the GPS unit, and find the boat's owner. Owner is OK.
This story is why you wear the safety disconnect cord, or purchase a cable-less shutoff system that uses an radio-beacon fob you wear. Or, you don't go deep-water solo...
That said, I don’t think captivating writing is outside the bounds of true journalism. Some might argue that’s what journalism is supposed to be. I.e., “here’s an interesting event and here’s why it’s interesting.”
This line made me look at the URL and realize I was reading an advertisement.
Got me
> Andrew Sherman has since upgraded his tech on his own boat.
> “I bought a Garmin unit because I was so impressed with Sascha’s,” he said.
Definitely written to remind us all that Garmin GPS are easy to use. Oh yeah, someone's life was saved, but don't lose track on the shiny touchscreen GPS haha.
Gross? So we have a company that is in business to make money and employs people and spends money at other companies (that employ and give people jobs). And they can't do obvious marketing. And take advantage of a good opportunity to plug their product? Everybody and every company just has to be for the common good? Be humble no bragging and the world will be a path to your door?
“The features of our GPS allowed a passerby to save an overboard boater. Really any generic GPS unit from Walmart would have done the same though.”
A less hamfisted approach would, for instance, remove the quotes from the guy which were clearly prompted by the PR folks at Garmin.
Wayfinding is like one of the most basic of features on these units.
Upon returning to civilization and entering their story in the corporate bug tracker, their feature request was denied, as better history retention is in the +Pro model.
Would a random passerby potentially fuck things up? Maybe, but realistically probably not. Would the guy that just jumped from moving boat to moving boat? No, they have obviously seen and used one of these before.
> Upon returning to civilization and entering their story in the corporate bug tracker, their feature request was denied, as better history retention is in the +Pro model.
Garmin, like practically every company out there, is well known to hide features behind premium models. Not sure exactly what point it is you’re trying to make but Garmin isn’t a magical snowflake who doesn’t partake in this practice.
It’s a GPS unit. It’s not some magical device that pinpointed the person’s exact position overboard and led them right to it. They would have been able to do the exact same thing on literally any other unit out there.
As I said in another comment, Garmin is certainly entitled to post it but people are equally entitled to point out the ridiculous and hamfisted advertising.
The Apple "safety" features have cost more lives than they've saved due to first responders wasting time on fake iAlerts that keep them away from real emergencies.
Also, please point to hard data and all the lives this has actually cost.
As for the satellite SOS, actual search and rescue people I've talked to have been of the opinion that they'd rather someone who is in trouble or thinks they're in trouble reach out for help sooner rather than later. It doesn't mean a full-scale rescue needs to be mounted. Someone can often be talked through what their problem is. It's also not like people didn't already have this capability so long as they were in cell phone coverage.