Review on Enhanced Bad Elf GPS Pro+ for Improved Searchability by Jesse Stewart

I bought the Bad Elf Pro+ in March and have been using it for about 7 months. My goals were (1) the smallest device possible, (2) tracking my daily trips, and (3) pairing via Bluetooth with Android navigation apps. Another big plus was the (4) LCD display on the unit showing tracklog status, current position, etc. UPDATED SUMMARY: Scroll down for a summary of the pros and cons. This is a potentially great device with a lot of issues. Many of these are software related and I will be happy to update this review if/when the Bad Elf team resolves the issues. I recently rode Bad Elf along with my Samsung Android device in a "face to face competition" for 10 days in the Alps. I objectively compared the tracks of each day. Every day the Android track (Samsung Note 8 with AlpineQuest) got better. Well, right now, Bad Elf is almost useless to me, other than its size. This is by far the biggest "waste of money" I've ever spent. So I'm reducing the rating to 2 stars. DETAILS: I knew it was designed for iOS but some users managed to pair it with Android. My first support request about this received a quick and helpful answer, so I bought the device. As a USB data logger with a computer it didn't work out of the box but the support team helped me again and sent me a link and instructions on how to update the firmware. I tried to pair it with 3 Android devices using the information from the tips page. Link from customer support email. On a dying Samsung Galaxy Player 4.2 (Android OS is outdated, crashes often, etc.), Bad Elf worked fine, at least for a while. On Samsung Note 8 it was initially paired but later stopped working. On our newest/best device, the Nexus 7, I've tried multiple times but never paired. (It was a real shame because I bought the Nexus 7 along with my wife's expensive Sygic app as a GPS device; the Nexus' own GPS turned out to be very poor, so I was really hoping to make the day by pairing with Saving Bad Elf. ) So I've resigned myself to using it as a data logger. Aside from a few serious flaws (see below), it essentially works as a data logger. If you have a friend/spouse with a relatively new iOS device, you can use the setup app. I used the "Walk" filter, which resets the points if you're not moving at least at walking speed (other filters are for various higher speeds). To further reduce the file size, I've also set a 10 second logging interval (which only applies while driving), which is basically great for tracking which roads I've driven, where I've eaten, etc. EDIT: Typical tracklogs with this setting take up 100-300 KB and I can go for weeks without filling up the device (which happens with about "80% remaining memory", see below). On a positive note, the Bad Elf establishes positions quickly and never stops locating outdoors, which is an issue I've had with Android's built-in GPS from time to time (e.g. during a snowstorm). EDIT: When flying commercial planes I sometimes get a very impressive route from Bad Elf where Android GPS never worked. To my surprise, however, Bad Elf is worse(!) than the native Android GPS in one respect - here I mainly compare it to the MyTracks Android app. When I'm indoors, MyTracks records a "starburst" of random locations roughly centered on the building I'm in. The later track is easy to interpret without considering the star-forming region. But Bad Elf tries to "invent" actual motion from the noise in the data. So I have a lot of tracks where, when I was in a restaurant, Bad Elf came up with a completely imaginary, significant branch line, a kind of free loop, a few blocks (!) around the Kiez. This has happened many times before and is the Bad Elf's biggest drawback in terms of basic GPS functionality. I have to seriously puzzle over that when I read my tracks later. You can expect a $190 device to be slightly more accurate than the cheap GPS antenna built into an Android device. This may very well be the case (at least outdoors), although I haven't seen any conclusive evidence of this (EDIT: A recent trip to the Alps shows that this is not the case! Android GPS is just as good.). I was surprised to find that most of my evil elf footprints run fairly smoothly on the streets I travel, often paralleling them half a block away. So, in my experience, it's about as accurate as Android when used outdoors and much worse when used indoors (see above). (Note: just so you know, I always carry my devices in my pocket as they are intended to be used as data loggers anywhere, not as decoration.) I tried marking POIs with the button on the device but was disappointed you see that POI are not exported with GPX files via USB. I assume this only works as intended when streaming tracks using the iOS app. This is a very big minus. The Bad Elf team did not think through what is meant by the "power" of the device. I bought the Pro+ partly because of the extra storage over the Pro so I don't have to worry about running out of storage when I'm away from computers, friends with iPhones, etc. Well, the bad news is: (1) The remaining memory LCD display is very high, and (2) if you hit the limit, you will lose even the tracks that were successfully recorded earlier. Yesterday the LCD read "83% left" as I set out on a 3 hour drive. When I came back I noticed that about 1100 points had been recorded. Plugging in a device to transfer tracks via USB results in an empty folder meaning I not only lost yesterday's track but also several other tracks created earlier this week. EDIT: The files are not lost as long as you have access to the iOS device (I was able to email them to myself). This also happened a few weeks earlier when he hit "80% memory left"; It took me a while to figure out that "80%" means "0%" in the language of the evil elves. I got lazy and let the tracks accumulate because without iOS there is no way to erase the device. Support helped after I filled the device shortly after purchase (the default setting with 1 second intervals gives you huge files, several MB each) by saying the magic spell to me: you need to start your spouse's iDevice. , go to the Bad Elf app, click the Customize button and rename your Bad Elf to 11ERASEALLLOGS11. (And sometimes it takes another try.) Note that if you're an iOS user, you can delete tracks one by one with the app, but even iOS users can't delete all tracks at once without the aforementioned voodoo. This seems like an extraordinary omission in "it just works!". Apple ecosystem. All in all, I'm really blown away by how rough this product is. But I know that Team Bad Elf has a heart in the right place and all of these things are high on the to-do list, right? The battery indicator is just as insidious. The device is energy efficient, and turning it on at night every day or two was enough for me. However, I went for a walk one morning starting with the battery gauge at 3/4 and it ran out of power in the middle of the day which was a big surprise. The resulting track was saved anyway (good), although the GPX file was abruptly truncated without the usual finite elements (bad). iOS app email transfer - EDIT: It failed when I first tried this, but recently succeeded. The difference may be due to file size (huge 6MB files didn't work, 100-300KB files worked). A very interesting aspect of Bad Elf is the customization. Overall this is a big plus and works well once you figure it out. But it took me a while to find where to do that in the app. There are places where it seems like you can select and change options, but then it doesn't work. So Bad Elf has a lot to do to make working with the GUI easier. A more serious issue is that the user manual is tiny and doesn't cover the details of what the different LCD screens mean or (as I'm sure you can guess) any of the small details I discussed about using the device, its limitations, etc. For For example, there are two different altimeters (with different readings) - which one is based on GPS and which one is based on a barometer? Remember those $10 Casio wrist watches and how they come with a little booklet that tells you how to set a double alarm and what's wrong? That's what Bad Elf needs to do for their devices and they've just been too busy I guess. SORECARDGOOD: - Excellent customer support - Excellent customizability - e.g. bypass filter to eliminate redundant points; The 10 second recording interval is a good compromise for decent tracking and a small file size (my typical tracklog for a day is 100-300 KB). LCD screens show you data from the device itself in real time. Fairly compact, looks well built. - USB mass storage mode (GPX transfer via computer) works great considering "80% capacity" means "0% capacity" - Fast and reliable outdoor location tracking - better than native Android in this regard- GPS - Sometimes records are great flying commercial planes. Energy efficient, easily work for a few days (on occasional use) without recharging. Android device (Note 8) although it seems to pair well with an older Android device (Galaxy Player 4.2) - Android does not work as advertised immediately after installation (have to email customer support to get a firmware update update) - Indoors, attempts to interpret bad data too aggressively and generate completely bogus cop track segments that you will find difficult to ignore or interpret - a fatal mistake if you ever enter the terrain during a trip since you later will not be able to distinguish false segments from the real time spent outdoors. Cheaper built-in Android GPS POIs, recorded with one touch, are not written to a GPX file transferred via USB - the actual amount of data is much less than what the device displays. fills up at around 80-83% without warning - If you reach capacity, you'll lose the ability to access even your previously recorded tracks - Even for iOS users, there's no quick way to clear all tracks - Battery gauge isn't accurate ; "75% charge" is actually much closer to zero. - Transferring tracks via the app (via email) didn't work for me - EDIT: Works at least with small files. - The user manual does not provide details on most aspects of the device (e.g. LCD screens) and the app takes some time to figure it out