For better or for worse most of us are wired to smart phones. Almost literally. They are successful in facilitating geo-fenced marketing that delivers personalized ads directly to your screen. Or to help guide you to the next swanky bar. Out there in the bush, they are useless.

Those of us that are into dog training, hunting, backpacking, outdoor sports, and traveling need as reliable and accurate satellite link as we can get. Professional gear is essential for us. The dozens of advances in design made them very versatile and applicable in many types of outback situations.

It is a simple navigation exercise. You have a dog with transmitter attached to its collar (T5/TT15). This signal is connected to the receiver, or a hand held device (Alpha 100 and Astro 430). The GPS device is used by the master to locate the distance and direction of the training dog. And if that is not fancy enough, you have a slick handheld gps navigation system that supports the same tracking software but is placed on a GPS watch. The high end gps watches allow you to track up to 13 dogs within a 20km range. What more could a dog trainer ask for?

Just turn the "Dog broadcasting" feature on and make sure you have installed the compatible software. The battery life on these things is up to 16 hours in GPS mode, but it can be extended to 40 hours if you activate the UltraTrac battery saver mode. The dog tracking screen starts automatically and you can even use it during hunting.

There is a solid community of different extreme sport tribes out there that use gps navigation systems almost on a daily basis. You have ultra trail marathon runners, long distance cyclists, sailboat racing teams, climbers and many other. It is not possible to end this list without someone getting offended for being left out. Most of them need a gps gadget that is as small as possible – ideally a watch - to check if they are on the right track. This is important in competitive context or just to track training and progress. Event organizers issue electronic maps nowadays. These personal gps units allow athletes to simply download the race track and follow it.

The advantage of any handheld gps navigation system is not necessarily limited to racing per se. You can use it to navigate through unknown location and get data like never before. Open-water swim metrics are one such example.

Going off road on a four wheel drive requires navigation. Even the die hard off road-ers throw an occasional glimpse at the GPS screen. The drive-track doesn’t have to be only a car navigator. You can integrate it with other navigation systems to track your dogs in the hinterland. Drive your jeep and when you close in on your target (to retrieve your dogs) hop out of the vehicle and continue with a handheld device. You can share dog tracking data between the GPS screen mounted on your dashboard, the handheld tracking device and your navigation watch. There are some limitation as to this sharing, so be mindful that you can’t use all three devices to track the transmitter attached to the collar of your dog. Not at the same time. Birds eye view and Topo maps will give you fairly precise picture of the whereabouts of your dog.

Some enjoy spending time off the beaten path. You can imagine how grateful this bunch is to have an option to traverse unknown terrain without worrying about getting lost. It takes some practice to get the hang of it, but if you are one of these folks, you will learn the drill fast.

Say, you dock a sailboat on a remote island and want to hike. If you are on the Eolian islands in Tyrrhenian Sea or on the Easter Island in the South Pacific – you don’t need GPS because you could not get lost even if you want to. However, if you want to explore an island like Tasmania from Hobart, or big island like Crete from Chania, then you will be happy to turn your inReach on.

Most of these personal gps navigators (be they watches or handheld) have the feature of leaving an electronic bread crumb trail in real time. So you can just get of your vessel or vehicle and start hiking. How great is this for the RV bunch? You park your RV at the latest national park you visit and just hike.

Accidents at sea happen very quickly. A 15 meter sailing vessel hits a rogue shipping container and the crew and guests have minutes to abandon ship onto a life raft. Having a two-way satellite communicator service saves lives in such circumstances. Some of the GPS devices and similar communicators (like inReach) use the Iridium low orbit satellite network that allows location-based (GPS) tracking services. You can send and receive text messages to a cell phone (SMS) and, of course, send a distress signal.

You can even have up to date weather reports, however keep in mind that some of these services will add up on your bill. Is the price high if you are in a life threatening situation?

The market is full of such devices, but make sure you get them from a local retailer. They will be able to offer helpful advice that is relevant to your exact location. Getting relevant data for Australia and New Zealand is always easier when done locally.