In the last two years, Zoleo has made great inroads with the cruising community and for good reason. For example, when the Salty Dawg Rally organizers decided to make satellite-based comms a requirement for all entrants, they chose Zoleo as one of the acceptable systems.
The transceiver works with an app on your smartphone and will connect to whichever of the three data sources it accepts by selecting the strongest signal, whether that is cellular, wi-fi or a direct link with Iridium’s constellation of satellites that encircle the planet.
The Iridiuim connection is what makes the Zoloe system so useful for cruisers since it works everywhere and provides a fast, high quality and reliable data exchange at a very affordable price.
Zoleo handles email, messaging and app-to-app communications. With email you can certainly manage your affairs at home and stay in touch with family, friends and associates almost as seamlessly as you do from a home office ashore.
But, the system does not extend to carrying large attachments to emails so you won’t be able to forward images that can’t be easily reduced in size and embedded into an email.
Other standard functions include an SOS alert and a non-emergency medical response that are monitored 24/7, an instant check-in function, weather updates, and an optional real-time tracking function.
The Zoleo transceiver costs about $150 and monthly plans run from $20 to $50 depending on your email and messaging requirements. The $50 unlimited plan would be the choice for live-aboards who are still working or have busy commitments ashore. The subscriptons are month-to-month so you can switch the system on and off as need be.
Although not as high-functioning as the Starlink satellite communications network, Zoleo will make a fine comms device for non-power users and will be a reliable and inexpensive back-up for Starlink, which is owned and run by a mercurial billionaire whose whims cannot be predicted.
https://www.zoleo.com/en-us
