One of the buttons on the unit goes from the closest cache to the next closest and so on, but to get back to the beginning of the list you have to hold the button down and wait. For kids, this is a bit of a challenge: they (and me!) like to stop to get bearings.Īdditionally, I found it confusing navigating between the units different screens, and getting it to go back to the cache I was interested in. The distance display is good, but the arrow is only helpful when you’re moving. As such, you still need this information somehow, so you need another device or print-outs. No cache name, no description, no hints, no logs, nothing else. The only information you have about the cache you’re seeking - other than the size, terrain, and difficulty - is the GC number. On the other hand, I found using it a bit less intuitive than I liked. The display is easy to understand on the cache hunt, with big numbers counting down the distance to the cache, and an arrow pointing the direction. The best things about it are the things it’s designed for: it’s a nice small, rugged device that’s quite suitable for small hands racing around the forest. We used it to find a few caches and even after a short time with it I think we got a pretty good idea of what it’s like. We had the GPS for a bit over a week, and brought it to the Geocaching 101 event where quite a number of kids were able to look at it and use it.

On the periphery of the display are LCDs for cache size, difficulty, and terrain. When searching for caches, it shows distance in metres and an arrow pointing the way. The display is a black and white LCD that presents a small amount of information at any given time. The device itself is small, rubberized, and only has a two buttons (plus a power button).

It promises to be quick, easy, and uncomplicated. You don’t have to worry about downloading caches from it … it comes with 250,000 caches already installed. It’s intended to be simple to use so that kids can just pick it up and start geocaching. The Geomate.jr is a “family-friendly” GPSr. You can read an awesome summary of the day on the Outdoor Vancouver blog.Īs part of that event, the fine folks (Helen and Chris) at Landsharkz loaned us a Geomate.jr GPSr.

On the weekend, Gwen and I put on a “Geocaching 101” event for some people we’ve met through Twitter.

Adding private cache to geomate jr