The SparkFun RTK Facet far exceeded my expectations. It arrived with the battery support broken since the battery internally moves, but easy to uncover and adjust the battery in a better way, in a new version maybe this can be improved.

Works fine, tested to less than 2cm error over bench marks using the MNDOT VRS network as a correction source. Trying PPP this weekend.

Gave a 4 out of 5 because the battery was loose inside the housing. Heard a rattle, opened it up, and the foam placed between the battery and antenna was too thin, so the battery could rattle around and perhaps detach. I cut some flexible dense foam to fit, put the unit back together, and seems to work fine. Not sure how well the black gasket cover seals against water, I sealed the upper lip with somie silicon grease. Probably not as robust as my Trimble or Arrow units, but if I’m not too rough on it I should be alright, and it has equal accuracy for 1/10th the cost.

I'm giving the RTK Facet 4 stars only because it has not been tested enough to give five. More time is required to see if data is reproducible.

I was excited to try this fantastic sounding product but was disappointed when I picked up the box and it rattled. The battery pack was loose, a plastic piece holding the battery in place broke during shipping. I believe this happened because it was either improperly packed for shipping or needs improved mounting tabs to restrain the battery pack. I returned this item and am hesitant to order another one if they are that delicate.

Won't comment on all the great features as this can be read on the guides. The Ublox chip's performance is well known to be great. I will say that the unit is not very strong and needs to be handled with more care than traditional devices. Also water damage is more likely if not carefull. My unit arrived with a broken plastic piece which rattled inside. This was part of the battery support and required a small fix.

I'm from Ecuador, I brought the product with the greatest possible care, paying even extras, but the product arrived loose the battery with broken pieces inside, it turned on once and then we checked nothing with my team and inside the plate is as if it had been removed from an old equipment, damaged cables, circuits that were not worth the truth, I do not recommend it to those who read this, it could be a loss. DO NOT BUY IT

It came with a broken battery holder, although it was easy to repair. I had a lot of trouble updating the firmware (Achieved thanks to the support of Nathan Seidle) . Now the Power/setup button doesn't work. I was only able to use it once in the field. I think the product is a good idea that needs to be improved, now I am waiting for instructions for its replacement.

Update: The button issue was my fault, as I left the button ribbon bent and pressed making poor contact when I reassembled the unit after removing the sd card from inside the unit.

Now it's working great.

I leave 4 stars because of the fragility of the battery holder.

I have not been able to use it yet because there is no App for IOS even though it says it supports IOS. It looks like I will need to at least purchase an Android phone just to test it it out.

Couldn't connect via bluetooth, eventually the unit became totally inoperative. SparkFun have now returned the item to them for repairs, thank you for that. Potentially a very impressive unit, looking forward to its return and possibly a second unit to act as correction data base as we have no phone/internet. Disappointed but not put off.

When I received my RTK Facet it was not working. I posted on the forum about my journey to make it work. Most likely, there was a bad connection on the OLED. I disassembled it, debugged it, reassembled it (with help of Sparkfun support) and I now have an up and running RTK Facet. It would definitively worth a five star review (*****) if it would have work out of the box.

Few more comments…

I’m definitely not into over packaging, but RTK Facet was shipped in a box with only some paper to prevent from shocks for international shipping.

I would like to be able to buy RTK Facet parts separately in case of an eventual failure. Sparkfun kindly offer me fixing it, but international shipping round trip is not an easy option.

Overall a beautiful piece of technology!

I bought this Rtk and it is working so well! I haven't had any issues until now. We are using this rtk as base in a drones swarm. Our drones are using M8P module and it is working well.

After reading the reviews I was expecting the worst. But thankfully I was completely happy with the unit when it arrived. No issues with the shipping, it powered right up and worked perfectly. Already have it connected to our Carlson data collector and plan to field test it by surveying a few lots in the next few days. It does seem a bit delicate, but I think that might be due to how little it weighs. I can already tell we will be buying a few more of these.

First, it works. Given the price, that's pretty great. My unit did not have the issues with the battery that were described in other reviews. Build quality seems appropriate for the price.

The antenna can see more satellites than i'd have expected from under tree canopy.

I've seen > 1 meter differences from day to day in "RTK Fix" positions of the same point, that the Facet reported as less-than-20mm accuracy. This could be due to erroneous data from the NTRIP server (I'm using a public one only a few km away but one can't rely on them for anything real). But still, > 1 meter is a lot of variation.

The 900 MHz Holybro telemetry radios (v3) are indeed "plug and play." But they're also pretty low power and have small antennas, so not a lot of range is available. I wasn't able to get higher-power 900 MHz telemetry radios to work.

All in all, you can do useful things with the Facet, but the products surrounding it are not robust enough for the fixes to be trusted without additional post-processing.

UNA BELLEZA PARA TRABAJAR

This is a phenomenal GNSS receiver, at any price, but especially at this price. I am an archaeologist who has been using Emlid receivers for a few years now. I ordered two Facet's to replace my existing setup. I've tested my Facets in the field using our local base station network, and will be using them in the coming months in a base/rover setup. My initial experience shows the Facet outperforming my earlier setup in time to setup, ease-of-use, and accuracy. The open source nature of this is great as well, and seamlessly integrates with my QGIS field mapping workflow already in place. I couldn't be happier!