14 DAY TRIAL // Lately, there actually is a mobile phone for every type of user and it's no surprise to see a mobile phone that targets workers in a certain industry, meaning to raise productivity.
The F@rmphone is a customized version of the Glofish X500 and as the name suggests, it is supposed to give a helping hand to farmers. The Windows Mobile 5-powered PDA comes with special software that is meant to assists farmers with surveying, navigation and tracking tasks.
The handheld is based on a Samsung SC3 2442 processor running at 400 Mhz and features 64MB SDRAM, 128 MB Flash memory, a 2.8 inch touchscreen with a QVGA resolution and a 2 megapixel camera with video recording capabilities. It comes with quad-band GSM, GPRS and WiFi support, Bluetooth for connectivity and GPS for navigation.
But the main features of the device are the three applications that it comes with: Pocket Area, PocketNav and Trackomat. The first one, PocketArea measures the area in acres or hectares and stores the recorded data in Google Earth kml or ArcView shp formats, for further processing.
The 'electronic foam-maker' PocketNav is meant to guide users parallel while they are spraying chemicals or spreading fertilizer. Two modes are available, following parallel the last driven track with curves or setting a start/end point and following a grid defined by those two points.
Trackomat is a tool that optimizes the remote monitoring of rentable equipment or machinery. It logs the movement of the handheld in a vehicle and is meant to eliminate the need for paper logs. The log data can include operating time, distance covered or breaks taken. Moreover, the user can take snapshots and add them to Trackomat's log file with a utility called JPG2KMZ.
F@rmphone is now available with three different software bundles, at a price ranging from 1,200 to 1,900 Euros.Expensive? Maybe, but you've got to hand it to SatconSystem, they have really managed to provide the best and most likely only PDA specially made for farmers.