ReelSonar Wireless Bluetooth Smart Fish Finder - Portable Underwater Sonar for Kayak, Boat & Ice Fishing | Real-Time Depth & Fish Detection

First off we wish there were other reviews before we bought our two units, as my experience is basically the same as others. That is the unit will work in a limited set of conditions to determine water depth, but dont believe the fish finder! As a toy its great when you aren't catching fish, but at $100 there should be more than that!Summary: Pros are its a great concept, looks and feels sturdy, and nice graphics on a larger screen, easy to cast and lots of neat features like the fish finder alert. Cheaper than the competition. Cons are poor battery management, software implementation, and inconsistent syncing (hint bring the USB charger and portable 5V batter in your tackle box if you really want the best performance)This review covers two separate units, the first we bought and returned to amazon, the second to/from walmart. We tried a second one as the first one had such awful problems with connecting we couldn't believe it was systemic, turns out the second worked a bit better in some areas, but IMHO the product still needs some work and better software. For example when using it to 'map' a cast it shows the farthest (deepest) part of the map as zero on the scale, and the nearest to shore as the farthest on the graph. Very non-intuitive, you want to know the distance a hole or bump/object might be and fish to avoid it, cant do it directly from the displayed scale.Unit one was purchased after new years and tried in both a fresh moving stream and shallow water lake in texas (its warm enough to fish down here year round.) the unit attached easily to a small brass type snap swivel but not to the heavier stainless steel types I favor and would be more secure. I used a 6.5 ft medium action rod with 20 lb test (no way I was going to lose this to a weed) but its buoyant nature keeps it from getting hung up. It was very easy to cast and retrieve across a medium sized stream and the first time we tried it it synced with my 4s with no problems It would report when it was out of water "ibobber out of water" and its depth readings seemed accurate enough, though its limited to 3.5 feet it seems as a minimum. we cast it about 5 or six times at a variety of spots to play with the settings, check the consistency of readings, turn on the blinker, check the water temperature (probably within a few degrees of being correct) and then stored it back in its sleeve in the tackle box. The battery still read 100% even after 30 minutes of toying around with it. We know there are fish in this creek, saw some on the surface, and have taken out 3 lb cats, but nothing on the fish sonar screen. Also note to self that 3.5 in iphone screen in direct sun not good way to visualize the readings Next challenge was a 5 acre stocked lake that we went to the next day, we rigged up and put the ibobber in the water to turn it back on, but no joy. It would not sync with either my iphone or nexus seven, which is a much better size to use with this product.Returning back to the house we tried every tip we could find, finally placing it back in its charger over night, and that solved the problem - except that it was supposed to retain its charge when out of the water, not run itself down to zero with no indication on the battery indicator. Thus ended the life of unit one and Amazon took it back.We got unit two a few days later and tried it out extensively in the house first, in both cold water and warm water 'baths' Its amazing how many fish this thing will find when its in a cup of ice! This second unit would reconnect over a days time period so we set out for a large power plant lake to compare it with a low end Hummingbird fish finder on our boat. First thing you notice is that while it worked fine in calm water, dragging it behind a boat, even at trolling speeds just makes the unit unreliable. It could match the depth readings of the boats unit fine one second, then the next be finding fish at 72 ft, or 36 ft, or 8 ft all in an 18 ft cove. We stopped the boat more than once to fish for some of these phantoms before we gave up and stayed with the built-in unit. We did tie up next to some trees in calmer water to do some head to head, generally the depths were the same, but the ibobber saw fish where the hummer didn't, and when they both 'saw' fish they never agreed on the depth. The ibobber would go from fish to its weed symbols alternately and we kind of lost faith in it. We did put some small hooks on the back end of the unit and turned the 'strike' alarm on but even the smallest movement would trigger it so we turned it off and decided it wasn't ready for the boat and the big lakes just yet.We tried another lake that was known to be full of fish, and fished the crappie barn at lake Somerville. Here the finder seemed to work well inside the fish barn and in very quiet water. It showed all sorts of fish that could have been fish or weeds since we were fishing over some sunken trees, but nothing was biting, except small bass at the surface. We took it out to the back cove and put it on 'fish finder' mode since if one is constantly staring at the screen one is not seriously fishing, and we found this to be the best mode for using it. Also all the other fisherman liked playing with it as well, but after only 2.5 hours of fishing the battery indicator went from 100% to 70% to 30% back to 35% to zero and just died. So if you want to use it in fish finder alarm mode you need to seriously down rate the expected time you might get from it, but unlike the hummer on the boat this will not last a full day of fishing, yet. Our last experiment was to take it back to the first shallow lake, freshly charged. It worked fine casting from shore and we could get about 50 ft out every time, farther than we could bait cast into the breeze. While this unit seemed to work better its 'ibobber out of water' alarm never worked like the first unit, and we conclude there may be some deeper issues in the manufacturing side...????I have been contacted by OEM and told there is a revised version of Ibobber with battery battery life and physical connector. Will test out this third unit and update review accordingly - Feb 20 2015Super easy to setup. Charges pretty quickly and holds the charge as long as u don’t leave it in the water for no reason. Definitely use some heavy test line if casting out the IBobber because it’s very heavy and could absolutely break the line, with light test,when casting and reeling.Unit does not come with any of the suggested swivels for attaching the IBobber to your line, so make sure you have some swivels in hand if you want to use it promptly.Generally speaking, I think it’s a great product for shore fishing and kayak fishing.Easy to use from the shore line. 20 feet is all you have as far as blue toothGot this for my father in law for Xmas and he was so eager to use! He absolutely loves it and all of it's features!I bought this to fish from banks...So I took it to a farm pond to try it out it was covered in moss I casted it out to see how deep it was and it kept saying 5.2 feet so I thought ok it works lets try it somewhere else so I went to a river casted out it was little over 6 feet and showed a couple of fish so later on tried a different place on a creek it went crazy with fish almost non stop but it went back to saying 5.2 feet deep even reeling in slowly it never changed right at the edge of the water in a couple of inches of water it said 5.2 feet deep...So its true that you need to use it in water thats 6 feet deep or more or you will get a false reading and possibly false fish it would show 4 fish about a foot deep that was over 15 inches...I went home and was looking for reviews about this bober and seen a video a guy was using it in a pond he even got in a boat and casted out in the middle and it showed 5.2 feet deep and the exact same thing with fish 4 fish going by... So I believe that was a false reading as well...I still like this bobber though...Pros: Its portablePros: Can use bluetooth on your phone control everything right from your phonePros: Can be cast out using your fishing polePros: Has a built in light for night fishing its a green flashing lightPros: No on/off switch to mess with it turns on when it hits the water and shuts off on its own when out of waterPros: Has a fish alarm that beeps on your phone when a fish swims by and a bait alarm if you use it to fishPros: Comes with a bag to carry it inPros: Long battery life. I had it fully charged and used it for several hours and it only dropped to like 92% batteryPros: Nice app that has cool featuresNow for the cons..Cons: The charging cradle is sensitive you have to be careful trying to put it in the cradle or it will pop looseCons: Has to be used in water at least 6 feet deep to work properCons: Has to have location turned on your phone to workCons: The manual doesnt talk much about using raw sonarCons: Bluetooth can only go to about 100 feet away and has a weak signal the further out you areCons: Gives false readings if its not in water deeper than 6 feetOverall I still like it the only real problem is if you dont know the depth of the water or just have a guess and its not 6 feet deep you will get false readings... I dont know about other bodies of water but around here when fishing on a bank it doesnt just drop off it slopes down gradually going down which makes it hard to get accurate readings but if it is 6 feet or deeper it works fine...This works well to find water depth. I use it on my kayak to know depths quickly. I fish a deep reservoir and It seems fairly accurate from looking at fishing maps and from dropping lines and anchors into the water. I can't speak to the fish finder aspect, as I don't really pay attention to it. Not sure if its accurate or not.I have tried it on a pole a few times, and it doesn't work as far as I'd like. it seems to maybe get 30 feet away, approximately. Would be nice if I could cast it out and get distance from there, but I have to reel it a lot closer to get a reading.It also doesn't do well if you move it too fast. It basically has to be still or moving so very slow. Whether reeling or dragging on my kayak, I have to almost stop to get updated readings. Ill probably finally upgrade to a real fish finder this year, but I'm happy with the use I got out of this. Like I said, still works and this will be year 5.I like how easy to use it is and it does everything I wanted it toUtter rubbish! Bought in early as a birthday gift, will not communicate with phone despite updating the firmware and buying a new galaxy S8. Apparently outside the return window now but sadly no body responds from the manufacturer, probably worth throwing close to 100 quid straight down the loo instead and keeping a photo of the thing as it's about as much use!!Having fished a local lake for over forty years I knew were the fish are so I took a friend with me I cast the I bobber in and to he's amazement when I told the depth and were the fish should be it worked to millimetre fantastic bit of kitNot the most clever bit of kit I have ever purchased...easy to lose Bluetooth contact with it even over relatively short distances. Blocky readouts on depth finding chart & many object that are not fish appear as fish.Bought to use with my I-phone 7 Plus, but didn't work. Gave to my brother and works perfectly on his Android. It does all that is is designed to do. waiting for the I-Phone update :)Product faulty.Contacted reelsonar who advised to try on another phone. Tried 3 different, compatible phones and still not working. Supplied photos and serial number.Will not reply to my messages.The person I was in contact with was called Alex Lebedev.After researching on line, it seems the majority of units out in the marketplace are faulty. Not read one good review.