3 Exceptional Things about Totem Compass Tech
We’ve all gotten lost before. Nobody deserves to lose their friends or loved ones.
The world has been hurting for an easy-to-use solution to that fundamental problem for quite some time now—especially for large-scale events and music festivals.
In pursuit of a world that is truly free, there’s a LOT to love about the Totem Compass. 🫶
Our engineering team has spent countless hours iterating on this simple but effective festival compass that transcends the need for cell service, phones, or even apps.
Ultimately, The Totem Compass allows people to feel true freedom at festivals and live events around the world. If you’d like more insight on how the Totem Compass works, we’ve got a blog post all about it!
In this post, we’ll highlight a few of the technical marvels that set the Totem Compass apart from other navigation solutions:
1) its location precision,
2) the peer-to-peer range, and
3) its update frequency!
1) Location Precision
There are very few consumer devices in the world that can achieve sub-meter location precision (aka centimeter-level) solely through satellite signal. The Totem Compass is one of those devices!
Quick Primer on Location Precision
In practice, location precision refers to how ACCURATE the Totem Compass is, but the technically correct term here when it relates to satellite tracking is PRECISION.
The Totem Compass uses GNSS technology to determine its exact location on the earth at all times.
Precision (accuracy) is absolutely crucial when you’re trying to track down friends, especially at a crowded music festival. With festival popularity at an all-time hig, and EDC Orlando reporting its highest attendance numbers to date, this reinforces the importance of nailing this aspect of friend finding compass tech!
How Location Precision Works with the Totem Compass
GPS alone is limited to around 16ft of precision due to several factors, including satellite count (max of 32), atmospheric disturbances and nearby signal noise.
The Totem Compass uses a high-end GNSS receiver instead, which tracks 96 satellites including the Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) and corrects for atmospheric disturbances while also rejecting local noise.
Think of SBAS as repeaters between GNSS satellites to improve the signal greatly over traditional GPS devices. This increases our precision to around 3ft (1m) or less in good conditions!
Is the Totem Compass’ location always precise?
It is important to note that the Totem Compass does not always reflect sub-meter location precision.
For example, if:
- You’re in an urban area with no horizon views
- You’re if there's a cosmic solar storm occurring
- You’re in an area of the world where there are fewer satellites,
you may see precision that's closer to 3-7 meters. This still makes the Totem Compass an excellent Apple AirTag alternative, offering a far better solution even than the AirTag’s Precision Finding feature.
That said, in good conditions, sub-meter accuracy isn't just possible—it's pretty common. You can see it for yourself in this unedited video from our Instagram!
It's a truly amazing feeling when you experience it for yourself.
It's rare that you actually need that level of precision, but when you're in a dense crowd (like EDC), every inch matters.
2) Totem Compass Peer to Peer Range
Another exceptional thing about Totem tech: the peer-to-peer range!
What is the range of the Totem Compass?
The Totem Compass has registered a peer-to-peer range of 730 meters in various field tests. This is pretty amazing, especially considering that these festival totems communicate via 2.4GHz frequency band.
Very few devices are able to reach this distance through 2.4GHz.
It's only possible because of our proprietary peer-to-peer communication protocol, which features hyper-low latency with extra small data frames.
What if the event I attend covers a greater distance than 730 meters?
You will rarely ever have a max range of 730 meters with your Totem... because our Unity Mesh Network™ extends your range much further any time there are 3 or more Totems in the area!
In fact, we logged ranges upwards of 2200 meters at the sold-out EDC Orlando in November—the full length of the entire festival. Read more about our experience at this incredible festival on Totem Tuesday here.
3) Totem Compass Update Frequency
Another exceptional feature of Totem Compass tech that we couldn’t forget is its real-time location update frequency.
What is location update frequency?
The Totem Compass sends location updates to bonded devices every 2 seconds. The only exception here is when you're in Eco Mode, which slows down the frequency a bit to preserve battery.
That means that the Totem Compass isn't just useful for "hide and seek" scenarios—you can actually find a moving target pretty easily! This especially applies to music festival scenarios, where at any given time your friends could be moving throughout a crowd or changing stages.
It's a really cool experience to hold your Totem and watch it swivel to track a friend walking around you at close-range.
Take a peep at the gif below to see for yourself!
Why Totem Compass Tech Matters
If you’re made it this far, thank you – you’re the one with an eye for design and the curiosity surrounding the details. We see you!
The technology powering the Totem Compass is absolutely critical to our mission of making live events safer, more beautiful, and more immersive than ever before.
In truth, most people don’t believe that this level of freedom is even possible – whether in a music festival setting, for kids, employees, you name it.
That’s what makes this festival compass so exciting, because let’s be real… what better conduit to spread the word than the positive force that is this community!
