HeadHardHat's Review of the SCOTTEVEST - Travel Vest

SCOTTEVEST - For The Trip Of Your Life

The company Scottevest designs and manufactures a full line of clothing with a conduit system, specialized pockets and compartments, to manage and control wires of electronic devices. 

Specializing in a brand known as TEC for Technology Enabled Clothing which in laymen's terms means their clothing is made for comfortably holding a multitude of gadges and gizmos.

Basic Overview

I tried out their Travel Vest for over a month and in the following review will give a good overview of the product itself and it's usability for a geocacher. So let's start with the basics.
The travel vest comes in three basic colors Black, Khaki and Navy. I personally chose the Khaki to be more visible out on the trails. Their sizes go from Small to 3x which I found to be very nice. Not many specialty stores carry clothes for larger folk like myself. The vest when you pick it up is very light weight. I wore it everywhere for a month and found it to be warm enough with a polo shirt underneith during the cool fall days and yet not too warm when the temps were in the low to mid 70's(F). 

Made For Carrying Stuff

One of the main staples of a geocacher is his or her geocaching pack. Inside is all sorts of needed tools of the trade. For example a flashlight, multi-tool, GPSr, Smartphone, retrieving tools, pens, and the like. The pack can be from the size of a small bag to a full sized backpack. It is necessary because of all the different situations a geocacher faces when out geocaching. The pack in question can be a bit of a pain carrying around. The SCOTTEVEST can simplify a geocacher's predicament by allowing them to carry all of their electronic devices and many of their geocaching tools all in one easy to access spot. I truly believe this travel vest will help many geocachers when dealing with simple park and grabs to several hours out on the trail. So lets take a closer look at this  Technology Enabled Clothing.

HeadHardHat Just Before Heading Out Geocaching

Pockets Galore

If you are like me when geocaching you may have a device or two that you use. There is my iPad, Smartphone, GPSr unit just for starts. The Travel Vest has a dedicated pocket for your each of this plus your iPod, eyeglasses, car keys, digital camera plus SD card, passport, bluetooth earpiece, earbuds and change just to name some of them. Some of the cool niceties was an elastic band with a softcloth for cleaning your glasses, elastic band and clip for your car keys, an entire networked system to invisibly integrate your iPod earpod wires directly into the vest. a clear touch pocket so you can keep your phone safe and still see and touch the screen from inside the vest.

So How Did It Actually Do?

If you have read other reviews that I have done with products you know that I shoot from the hip and tell it exactly how I had used it. This will be no different.

Here are my results after continual using the Travel Vest for a month.

Because the vest is so light my first thoughts were I thought the vest would not do well with wear and tear. After a month of use including while out geocaching I did not see any wear except I feel the Velcro that keeps the Clear Touch Pocket that I kept my smart phone in may not last to the three month mark. It warped into a 'U' shape after a while and I would suspect it giving over time. 

When it comes to weight distribution with all the "stuff" inside. Scottevest boasts a "Weight Management System" which with such a light weight piece of clothing there is not much to really work with. When I had my iPad2  in the left pocket and my smartphone and GPSr unit in the pockets on the right side of the vest there was a lot of noticeable weight on the back of my neck near the collar. Not enough to be a show stopper but common sense will dictate that all that weight has to go somewhere and if you were going on all day hike, this may be a factor for you. On the flip side if you didn't have a heavy tablet like the iPad2 on such a hike and had the smartphone on one side and the GPSr on the other it would not even be a factor. In fact when I go to lunch being able to keep my iPad hidden in my vest is a very nice feature. 

Out in the field I found having 50% of my pack items in the vest was a good fit. Not too much weight and yet all of my most used tools had easy access and I did not have to go digging through my pack searching for particular items. Everything had its own place and more importantly to me, the outside of the vest was not all bulked out and looking like I was carrying a lot of stuff. I found this to be very handy.

Dislikes:

There only a couple of things that basically annoyed me about the Travel Vest. They are not show-stoppers but worth noting.

• If you do try using a water bottle in the vest pocket that is cold, there is nothing waterproof enough to guard against water condensation.
• In the collar there is a flap to hold the earbud wires in place. This flap is held down by two strips of Velcro. The flap needs to protect the neck better at where the Velcro resides which scratches the back of the neck at times.
• The top front flaps of the collar never really set right when unzipped. Not a big thing but somewhat annoying.

Likes:

Here is a list of things I liked most about the SCOTTEVEST Travel Vest:

• Lightweight and breathable feel when wearing in varied Fall time temps.
• Comfortable fit even when many of the pockets had items within them.
• There is a pocket for just about every need including holding a bottle of water.
• Handy elastic band with clip for car keys.
• Nice integration for iPod and earbuds.
• Pockets in Pockets for specialty items.
• I knew where everything was and did not have to fumble to find needed items when geocaching.

Summary

So there you are. I found the Scottevest - Travel Vest to be a very comfortable and useful item when it comes to geocaching. It is far less bulky than a fishing vest and created to house our electronics devices. I recommend you check out this and many of the other clothes items from SCOTTEVEST by going to their website at http://www.scottevest.com. There you can see all their special offers engineered for men and woman.

If you have a product, application or device you would like for me to review. Please send an email to headhardhat@gmail.com

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Need A Little More Stable Platform When Taking That Outdoor Shot? Try The Targus

HeadHardHat Likes Using A Monopod When Shooting Video

When geocaching there are many different types of gadgets and gizmos we use every time we go out. I'm not talking in this case the smart phones, GPSrs, PDAs, tablets, etc. No in this case I am talking about our love of photography. Taking shots of our favorite hides or points of interest around a geocache hide is almost as much fun as the actual find itself. Geocachers will say time and time again how many times they would have never visited or experienced a visual site if not for going for that particular geocache.

So when you want to get that nice crisp shot what do you need? Sure for many and depending on how much you are into photography there are all sorts of cameras and tripods. All of which have their purpose but you are looking for something that is low cost and you don't have to lug everywhere.  Ever consider a Monopod?

There are many times when I am attending geocaching events or out looking for geocaches and have my digital camera or small camcorder. We have all seen the difference when taking a photo or video and you are hand holding the camera yourself compared to when it is up on a tripod. Especially when doing video.

A really nice compromise you might want to consider is the lightness and functionality of a monopod. A monopod is just like having a walking stick around. Except you can attach your camera to the top of it. It is a single pole that can be adjusted to all lengths from almost 21 inches to up to 67 or more. The beauty of it is it gives you a solid base for your camera which keeps it steady. You can pan or swipe easily and not jiggle as you do so. I have also found it very useful to have that extra reach above you when you are in a crowd or trying to catch a shot higher up. Did I mention it is not a bad hiking stick as well?

Now there are all types of monopods out there from the inexpensive and up. The one that I just recently tried out was the Targus TG-MP6710 Maximum Extension 67-Inch Monopod. It cost me a whopping $15.00USD and I was pleased with how well it was built. In fact the only complaint I had was the wrist strap was too small so I replaced it with a better one. Other than that it was a great choice.

Monopod with my FS11 on top

One final note for this particular monopod. This piece of equipment is super light when carrying. It folds up to about 21 inches and can go anywhere. So if you are looking for an inexpensive way of taking more stable shots whether it is a photo or video. I highly recommend you check this piece of equipment out.


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HeadHardHat's Garmin Mobile for Blackberry Review

Not too long ago some viewers wrote in and asked if I had tried out the Garmin Mobile application for Blackberry phones. Hmmm, did not even know that Garmin had a mobile app out so I was intrigued.


Taking Garmin Mobile For A Spin
First I loaded Garmin Mobile onto my Blackberry 8310 without a hitch. Not unexpected yet to me always a good start. Then I cranked it up and the familiar Garmin Trademark peered through a background of black. If you are interested in trying the GM out for yourself there is currently a seven day trial period. Since I was just giving a good once over that is what I started out with and you are greeted with the number of days you have left in your trial and the option to purchase on the spot.


I clicked continue and was immediately greeted with the WARNING about not trying to operate this application while driving. “Why No – Never”, says I as I click the OK button. Then something quite startling happened. The screen displayed looked exactly to the interface I am very used to on my Nuvi GPS unit. I mean exactly the same. That gave instant recognition and an ease that the learning curve should be almost nil. This was great because I wanted more time testing and less trying to learn how it works.


Because the application mirrors the Garmin Nuvi I set my car GPS to ride side by side with the mobile unit on my phone. This would in my opinion give a fairly good comparison. I had a few performance suspicions already preset but we would have to see if they came true. For example if you use a Blackberry application like Google Maps, Blackberry Maps or AT&T Navigator there are issues with speed of the map updates and a bit of slowness when approaching a street while driving. They always seemed just a step or two behind, which at times can be a bit irritating. That is one of the main reasons I liked a road GPS like a Nuvi because the processor and map updates flowed much smoother.


Real Time Functionality
Right off the bat I was very pleased with some functionality that exists with Garmin Mobile that I did not have on my Garmin Nuvi. For example because it is running on a GPS enabled phone with Internet connections you have access to pleasantries like current weather, traffic reports, airport flight statuses and even a place to upload and view street level photographs called Panoramio. Not earth shattering innovations but nice to have none the less.


Road Trip Test
Next I took both units on a 15 mile road trip to compare and report. It consisted of five different waypoints with two of them being via points. Via points are waypoints that are requested to stop before reaching your actual destination.


POI (Points Of Interest)
Maybe it was because it was around noon and I was hungry
but my first stop was a Fast Food restaurant. It was just a subtle thing but I really liked that under the Food POI Garmin put the first category to choose from was Fast Food. That is normally the category I go for and it was sweet to see it on top of all the rest. Nice move Garmin.


After loading the same destination in both units I was off. There were slight differences like the actual map display was a bit different on the GM unit. For example the default zoom is three and at three it does not show the side streets. This was a bit distracting at first and I realized that this must be to keep the unit from downloading the mappings so often on long trips. The idea in my mind is when you do get down to where you would have to turn you simply click the '+' sign to zoom in one and you were set. A slight extra step but when you consider that you are using a phone application it really was not too much of an inconvenience.


Results – Turn for turn the Garmin Mobile unit matched the Nuvi exactly. Did notice that the feeling of movement on the GM unit was not as distinct as the Nuvi but again, for a phone application you are not going to have the graphics horsepower as the auto unit.


Local Search
Local Search is a way of using Google and getting the most recent information for POIs you may be looking for. I have noticed that the mappings appear to be Garmin's yearly North America map and that only updates yearly. When you use Local Search you have a better chance of getting the latest and greatest. I used it to find a department store in the next town. It was newer and accurately found it. I also created a via point buy looking for the nearest gas station. One of the cooler features was you can search by gas price. This is not always accurate but it can be a good guide line. The gas station I chose was off by .10 cents from what was posted.


Results – Local Search seems the better way to go when looking for Points of Interest you may not be certain about within the area you are currently driving and the via point functionality works just as nice as the Nuvi device.



Highway Driving
I used the Contact section to find my next destination. This was rather cool because it uses the address book that is already into your Blackberry phone to get the address. You simply choose the contact person, validate the address and go. This is slick in my opinion because sometime you just don't remember the address and this saves some time looking it up.


Results – One of the biggest pluses with Garmin Mobile is how smooth the map uploads are as you drive. In many of the cases I was expecting to see the upload/download arrows and did not yet the driving map continued on without interruptions unlike other viewed GPS mapping applications. On the flip side I did notice that a new section of freeway that has been in place about a year did not show up while driving. Which tells me that Garmin is using their mappings. I have seen free GPS map applications like Google Maps having more current maps. Not a show stopper but if they have Google working with them would it not be better to use the most up to date mappings?


HeadHardHat's Conclusions

Pros

• Fast and almost seamless updates to the mappings while driving.
• Real time accessibility to the Internet which gives you the most current information available.
• Many little niceties like street voice audio and familiar Nuvi application interfaces.

Cons

• Pricing is a bit steep. $99.00 one time fee is per the life of the phone. If you change phones you null the contract and have to purchase a new contract at full price.
• If you are in areas with phone dead zones you are going to have issues. There is no way to upload/download maps without a connection.
• Default zoom is set to 3 which makes the user have to zoom in to see local streets (annoying).

HeadHardHat's Final Thoughts
Overall I am very impressed with the Garmin Mobile application. It truly is like having an automobile Nuvi GPS in your pocket. This I feel boils down to your need of usage for an application like this and the $99.00 price tag.


I already have a Nuvi GPS in my car and currently very happy with it. Which means that this particular application would be used for travel. If you cannot pack your auto GPS while travelling this would be a perfect solution. Then again there are phone applications that get you from here to there for free. I am personally going to hold off purchasing this application because even though it is a sweet thing to have, the overall usage just does not currently seem to fit my needs. Your views and needs of course may be different. Give the seven day trial a try and see for yourself. http://www8.garmin.com/mobile/mobilext/


HeadHardHat host of GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos frequently does reviews for all types of gadgets, gizmos and applications. Be sure to Google headhardhat blog to see his latest blog and video posts. You can contact him at headhardhat@gmail.com.



Please don't forget to visit our GeoSnippits Geocaching Tutorial Videos Website at http://www.geosnippits.com/