So I guess GoTenna is not allowing Google Family members to share the “Plus” subscription.
Bummer I really wanted to be able to share this with my kids and wife as we are going on a summer road trip to several National parks. This would have been an easy way to setup and share locations Automatically with “Location Tethering”. 
This is a deal breaker for me using gotenna with my Google Family members.
Steve,
Thanks for the post! This is something I have noted and will be communicating with our team.
Nate
goTenna Support
Just purchased 4 Mesh devices (about 3 hours ago, REI has them at 25% off FYI) for the family. I would have to agree that spending $120/year for Plus is a bit steep. Sharing with a family would be awesome. Thanks!
You get 30 days of free Plus when you first startup. Then there’s a chance to renew for something like $9.95/year, a substantial discount from the $29.95 list price. Then that can be renewed for $9.95 most likely, as I know several of the subscription services offer that deal.
Realistically, if you don’t need the extra features of Plus, then you don’t have to pay for it. If the features hold value for you (full 6-hop capability, off-grid map downloads, etc) then it’s well worth $10/year IMO.
You know its not really the cost that is really bothering me truly. Its the fact that its not disclosed anywhere. Almost all Paid content that I have ever purchase on the Google play store or on Apple store have been shareable among family devices if everything is setup properly. GoTenna gets around this by using the “in-app-purchase” method of adding the Plus subscription rather then having 2 apps listed on the online store. The “in-app-Purchase” is excluded from the Google Family Library because adding content in apps like games is a personal experience enhancer.
Sorry I’m ranting here a little. I still love the concept of the mesh network and what benefits it has for off-grid communications.
I suspect there’s a reason for this absence in the Google Family Library is related to the functionality of part of Plus. Since I don’t have any experience with this Google Family thing, I can only speculate that this Google package allows sharing of the same resources.
One of the Features of Plus is that it gives you individualized confirmations of reception of Group messages. This might be a good thing for many families, allowing you to know everyone is on the same page. Not sure how that would work if you were sharing it out of the same file.
In fact, with the need for different user accounts to really make it usable on separate goTenna Meshes, I’m not sure how shared resources would work in general with GTM. Does Google have any comparable sorts of apps or devices that are paired with the phones of a family group that suggests this is even technically possible?
If it’s any consolation, not everyone necessarily needs Plus to take advantage of many of its features. For instance, if you know you’ll need offline maps, get them on a couple of the devices (however many needed when your family breaks down into smaller groups at, say, an amusement park or zoo) and that may take of your needs.
IIRC, the enhanced six hops you get with Plus allows the recipient of one of these messages who only has the standard 3 hops to respond to it and it will be handled like the six hop original…if I’m wrong about that someone will let us know.
Thus two of the most desirable features of Plus can still help in a group environment with workarounds that would seem to serve OK without everyone having Plus.
New here and want to learn before potentially buying.
If you pay for the “plus” and download the maps how will it know you are no longer paying for the plus if you do not update the app again? Or will you have to connect to internet so often to verify you are up to date on your payments?
Mine haven’t expired, so no personal experience.
However, the maps are designed for offline use in the first place. My guess is that you will still have the map data, but perhaps the app wouldn’t work to access them once the subscription lapsed.
But go out and price maps independent of those typically included on your phone. They are not cheap. The Plus maps are decent and useful beyond the cell network at very reasonable cost. Where you have cell service, you can use apps like Gaia live, but beyond that you have to rely on stored data and less reliable GPS inputs if you’re on a device using the cell network (although there are workarounds if you invest as much as a stand-alone GPS would likely cost anyway.) At that point, the devices have equivalent utility for most purposes. If you need this sort of navigational aid in any case, Plus is pretty darn cost effective.
plus is a hard pill to swallow considering we cannot copy/paste GID or GPS coordinates OUTSIDE of the program, essentially making it extremely painful and impractical to use for anything but gotenna.
i want to use external map programs that have MUCH better mapping data and functionality. i wont be writing down GPS coordinates in the field to use in another app…
I use GPSLogger on Android for logging GPS coordinates.
One person’s bug is another’s feature. You’ll find you can’t cut or paste out of goTenna for anything. That’s by design and, generically, improves security if for no other reason than that it discourages users from copying materials. Screenshots are still doable if you need a record in some basic form. I would expect future generations to address this in some way as an option, but as an old radio guy I don’t have a dog in this fight beyond user convenience.
I’m not so sure how useful copying coordinates is in terms of accuracy. Locations tend to be internally consistent in a GPS, but results can vary if you take locations from one and plug directly into another. What may be more useful is to run both GPS in paralell and compare the tracks generated. I know there are ways to deal with these issues automatically if the budget allows, but what I do when it matters is to run both my goTenna and my old Garmin Legend C when on foot (have much more recent Garmin on the dash in the truck). Nothing fancy there, but people’s needs vary and you may need cut and paste.
The goTennas Mesh was designed to address some basic comm needs, keeping things simple, durable, and secure. Things like the variuos SDKs allow it’s potential integration into many different devices. New feartures are worth considering but there needs to be a pretty high bar for adding to the basic mesh device… This very well coulld be a great feature to have support for via the mesh, but would maybe be much more complicated and $$ vs the GTM one would think.
locking out a copy and paste function is pretty nuts because you cant even copy/paste WITHIN gotenna. And if it is supposed to be a messaging/sharing program one would think you could COPY/PASTE.
not to mention in say emergency situation where you can vital information that needs to be shared easily & immediately to forward it or send to other users instead of having to remember it and then type it out again.
As for the security feature, you can easily turn that on and off in many secure programs such as SIGNAL or Wickr.
I have to help design 50km tracks through forests and constantly have to share GPS coordinates between users, but now have to use a different app to share coordinates (which gotenna wants us to do with their platform).
Using say Locus GPS mapping i can overlay use over 30 different layers to help efforts. being able to see a satellite view with topography is CRUCIAL for many operations and to navigate anywhere.
And the apple crowd simply goes, Ill just AIRDROP it to ya! (bluetooth or wifi protocols…)
So I’d like some clarification on goTenna Plus for multiple devices, if anyone has definitive answers.
I picked up a “beater” used iPhone 8, which has no SIM and is unlikely ever to get one. I got it for using as a base station for goTenna, for experiments and as a pingable relay for when we’re out hiking, cycling or such out of cell coverage. I have set this phone up with a distinct Apple ID, as I have no need for it to know anything about my email, iCloud, etc. When I installed and set up the goTenna app on it, I used the same email. My “real” phone’s GT ID is its cell number. The “unPhone” is using a GUID.
If I subscribe to GT+ (likely) on my real phone, does the unPhone get plus as well? What’s the binding here? If it’s Apple ID, that’s really unfortunate. If it’s email, that makes sense (and makes me happy), but I can see where that would be very easy to abuse.
I have 4 GTs. One will be paired to my SO’s iPhone, one to my phone, one to the unPhone, and one for anonymous relay. I see chatter about Google Family sharing above and it not propagating Plus across family devices. If Linda registers her app with my email address, does she get Plus if I have it?
When I registered the unPhone, the GUI’s responses sounded like it’d never seen my email address before.
Anyway, if anyone has crisp answers on how this will/won’t work, I’d love to hear them. Have about 20 days left for the discounted year sign up.
–Richard
PS: if this is all spelled out clearly in the goTenna FAQ, my apologies. Never mind, I went to have a look at the FAQ, and that link leads to a contact form. There is no FAQ. Maybe someone who does web maintenance for goTenna should scrub references to it on their pages.
Pretty sure Plus is tied to your email address. I’ve gone through multiple devices and Plus is still there. I currently use three GTMs: my personal one; one at home as the easy target for use when evaluating the network; and one in the truck. All are tied to different phones, but same Plus account AFAIK.
I don’t have Google Family, but based on previous discussions, Plus does not work for that. This seems to be because Plus relies on a single email address and when there are multiple ones involved you wouldn’t be able to contact another family member via Plus, because they’d have the same Plus address as you.
The FAQ is down right now but needs to be restored. I think it fell between the cracks in a recent website update, because it was in need of some updating.
Happy to help with documentation, faqs, tuts etc…
Can pass along Github account on request 
So I’m sure it’s not email per se, but rather Apple ID. My free intro expired on both my iPhone and unPhone (SIM-less iPhone 8). It wasn’t my preference, but I set the 8 up with my normal Apple ID a while back, but after I had installed the GoTenna app.
Did the subscribe on main iPhone. It shows I have plus. 8 still says it expired 8 days back. On that phone, if I check under subscriptions for my Apple ID, the GT+ shows up, says it will expire next year.
Am I going to have to unpair the GTM from that phone, remove the app, reinstall, re-pair before the GT app decides the Plus subscription applies to it?
–Richard
If you used two emails or Apple IDs then you have two Plus accounts. The system is not designed to screen you out or otherwise prevent muliple accounts, because there are practical reasons wht you may bneed more than one.
You want to maintain at least one, of course, but you will likely be able to add the iPhone (currently with a second account?) to your other Plus subscription once it’s exhausted the timespan of the duplicate subscription. Don’t know for sure, as I’ve never done that, but that should work.