Ability to update the trip by sending a text

[bohwaz]

It would be great to have a SMS number we can use to update the trip, like sending "LATE I'll be late of 2 days because of a flooded river" when you'll be late but it's ok, or "SOS" if I need help or "SAFE" to say that I returned safely. All of this would have to be forwarded to registered contacts. And the perfect thing would be that there is one free number in every country to send that, so that you don't have to pay to send a text to this number ;-)

Might be hard to do, but still a good idea, as not anyone has a smartphone or a data plan, or sometimes when coverage is poor you can't use data but still be able to send texts.

[ivoire]

That's a good idea. That's possible but you will have to pay the right provider for it. Unfortunately I looked at the price and that's expensive.

I'm keeping this idea I case someone found a way to do that without paying to much money.

[bohwaz]

Yep. The only cheap way to do this would be a cheap phone with a cheap SIM card plugged into a computer, there is software that can be used to receive and send texts from the computer, using the phone as a GSM modem. I think that's the solution used by http://receive-sms-online.com/ Or a cheap provider if that ever exists.

[bohwaz]

For an Android phone there is http://smssync.ushahidi.com/ (free and open source, requests a HTTP URL when you receive a SMS)

[ivoire]

You will have then one phone number for the whole planet.

This won't cost that much money with Free Mobile for instance. Not sure they accept it in the conditions.