This guide walks you through how to monitor the battery health of your Spot device, when and how to replace it, and how to keep your fleet running smoothly with the right tools and settings.
Understand Spot battery performance
Your Spot device continuously estimates its remaining battery life based on how it is used and the conditions it operates in.
By accounting for factors such as device settings, reporting frequency, GPS and cellular activity, and temperature, the estimate provides a more accurate prediction of battery life and helps you plan ahead.
The estimate updates automatically whenever device settings change, so you can see how configuration changes affect battery life.
For example, when you adjust how often the Spot device should report, you will be able to see the effect of your decisions on the battery estimates. Read here how to update the settings for your Spot device.
💡 Tip: Proper installation plays a key role in extending battery life.
For best results, follow the Spot Installation manual to ensure optimal placement and signal strength.
Monitor and manage the battery of my Spot device
You can monitor your Spot battery in two places:
The asset's Telematics tab - best for checking a single device.
The Device Health app - best for spotting batteries across your whole fleet that will soon need attention.
Telematics tab (single-device view)
The Telematics tab is useful for viewing individual Spot devices:
Click on the Asset page at the top of the navigation bar on the left side.
Find and click on the asset with the device you want to check
Navigate to the Telematics tab on the left side of the Asset home and go to Battery Status
In the Battery Status section you'll find:
Total transmissions: the number of transmissions reported on the current battery. Hover over the tooltip next to this field to see the expected number of transmissions for your product under typical conditions.
Battery percentage: how much usable battery life remains. This value only decreases over time, providing a stable indication of battery health.
Estimated battery lifespan: how much longer the battery is expected to last, shown as > 1 year, < 1 year, or < 3 months. Want to understand how these estimates are calculated? See How battery estimates work
Battery replaced?: use Reset counters here after fitting a new battery (see How do I replace the battery?)
Device Health (fleet-wide view)
For planning across your whole fleet, use the Device Health app. It gives fleet administrators a single view of every Spot device whose battery is running low, so you can plan device or battery replacements well in advance.
Open the Device Health app under Apps in the navigation bar on the left.
To focus on your Spot fleet, select Filter, then choose Device Type and tick Spot 2 . This isolates your view to Spot devices so you only see the batteries that are relevant to you.
Click on the Device Battery issue category. It groups the Spot devices that need attention into two battery alerts:
Device battery approaching end of life (Low) —> the device is estimated to have less than a year of battery left. This is your cue to start planning a replacement.
Low device battery (Critical) —> the battery is critically low and the device may stop reporting. We recommend replacing it within about 2 months (< 3 months remaining).
Click any asset to open the side panel, where you'll see the active battery issues and the recommended action. For example, "Plan a battery replacement for the Spot device" or "Replace Spot device battery"
💡 Tip: For a full walkthrough of the app, read Getting Started with Device Health
Understand battery estimates
Each device tracks how much of its battery budget it has used, and combines that with its recent behaviour to predict how much life is left. It learns from real conditions. The estimate reflects how the device is actually used and the environment it works in, including:
Reporting frequency: how often the device sends data.
Operating Environment: Temperature, cellular signal strength, and GNSS satellite availability all play a role in how much power is consumed on each device wake cycle.
The estimate becomes more accurate as the battery approaches the end of its expected life. As a battery gets closer to the end of its life, Spot switches to a machine-learning model trained on the real-world behaviour of thousands of devices. This gives a more accurate estimate exactly when you need time to plan a replacement.
It responds to your changes. If you adjust a device configuration, for example, how often it reports, the battery estimate will adjust. The adjustment takes a little time to settle, because it's based on the device's behaviour over recent weeks rather than a single moment.
Replacing a Spot battery
Is it time to order a new battery for your Spot device? See how to order and replace the battery of your Spot device, here
💡 Tip:
Need more help?
Click on the Messenger icon in the lower left corner to get in touch with Customer Support