If you have a cellular-equipped Spotter, please consult our Cellular Support page for information about data pricing specific to your device. The information below applies to Spotters transmitting data via Iridium satellites only.
This page outlines the remote data subscription service currently provided by Sofar Ocean Technologies. We continue to refine and improve our offerings, and we will update this page accordingly. In the following sections we outline how the various Spotter operation modes, data packages, and pricing work, as well as how all of this relates to what you see on your Dashboard. Sofar makes an effort to keep data transmission affordable and simple. Any savings we can accommodate due to future price breaks with our satellite provider we intend to pass on to our users. Also, we will continue to refine and update data subscription features and options to accommodate user needs. Please contact support@sofarocean.com with any questions, suggestions, or feature requests.
Data Subscription
90 days of complimentary data is included with every Spotter purchase. Your subscription begins on the day you register the product(s) to your online user account, or three months following Sofar’s shipment of the product(s) to you, whichever is sooner. The subscription expires at the end of the number of months purchased (use-by-date) or when the transmission budget is exceeded, whichever comes first. When your current subscription expires, any pending renewal will automatically activate. All data services are subject to Sofar's Terms of Sale and Terms of Use.
With a data subscription, your Spotter will send selected data via satellite transmission to be stored in our database and made accessible to you via the dashboard and API. Without a subscription, your Spotter continues to operate normally and will store all collected data on the on-board SD card. For real-time satellite updates of wave data, status, and position, you will need a current data subscription. Subscription status information and renewal is accessible via the detailed view of your Spotter on your Dashboard.
Your data subscription includes unlimited access to the Spotter Dashboard and:
- Continuous real-time wave data and position updates on interactive Dashboard map.
- Rich interface for visualizing historical wave and position data.
- Simple file download of historical wave and position data.
- Comprehensive API and WebHook for seamless integration of Spotter data into your custom applications and websites.
- Two-way over-the-air communication for on-the-fly configuration changes to your Spotter(s).
- Geofence notifications to alert when a Spotter leaves the user-set perimeter.
- Real-time system health monitoring.
- Firmware update notifications.
- Access to guides, user manuals, post-processing scripts and other support documentation.
Renewal and Pricing
Renewals can be purchased through the dashboard in durations between 1 and 24 months. Renewals will automatically activate upon expiry of your current subscription, or on purchase if your subscription is currently expired. The Dashboard will indicate if you have any pending renewals on your Spotter.
1-5 months – $100/month
6-11 months – $92/month
12-24 months – $84/month
At any time, you can purchase a 1 to 24-month renewal for your Spotter data subscription. To keep things simple, each month of subscription allocates a fixed amount of satellite transmission budget. This amount is the equivalent of continuous operation in Waves:Standard mode using the default update rate (1 hour).
The usage rate of the monthly satellite transmission budget will vary based on the Spotter data mode (Waves: Standard, Waves: Partition, Waves: Spectrum, and Track). Continuous operation in data modes and/or update rates other than the default 1-hour Waves:Standard may reduce the effective duration of the subscription (see Table 1 below). For instance, if you switch your system to Waves:Spectrum with 3 hour updates, the Data Usage Multiplier (Table 1) is equal to 2, which means that the rate of transmissions is effectively doubled, and if the system is used continuously in this month, your subscription will expire in half the time than the number of months purchased. However, if you switch to 3-hourly Waves:Spectrum and only use your system half the time, your effective subscription remains unchanged. This may sound complicated, but the Dashboard will automatically update available transmission budget in real-time whenever you make a change. So you can always check your current subscription usage in the Spotter view on your Dashboard. In this view you will always find the up-to-date subscription use-by date, as well as the continuous days of operation in the current configuration before the data transmission budget is exhausted for your Spotter. When changing modes on the Dashboard, any resultant changes to the subscription are displayed before confirming the mode change so you can decide whether you want to make the change or not. For reference, Table 1 shows the Data Usage Multipliers for the various mode options.
