I haven't tried it yet, but I will be giving this a go in a 70.3 to test it before IMFL.

https://www.jiobit.com

It's a GPS tracker marketed at parents to put on their kids. It's small, waterproof, and has an all-day battery life. This is the one thing my wife is requiring me to purchase before IMFL because she says that scanning a race for 20-30min is just miserable and they can't really get into the race and cheer the other athletes as well while looking for me.

You cold use your phone + Google's location sharing. However, many here can't/won't carry a phone with them during a race.

Both of the companies I've used in the past are now out of business. The pro of the athlete-specific trackers was that the race courses were loaded into the app - so if your crew wasn't familiar, they could easily see how to meet you at a certain point and the estimated time you would arrive, what direction you'd be coming from, turns, etc. The con was that they all relied on cell service, and a lot of IM bike courses are in cellular dead zones. The last one I rented was for IM Chattanooga and it couldn't track me for literally half of the bike course and about a third of the run (couldn't figure out the run dead zone as the course was all in the city). My family said the IM Tracker worked significantly better.

The IM app is much better than it used to be.

You could always buy something like this...
https://www.brickhousesecurity.com/...trackers/spark-nano/

Then its a monthly subscription to keep it active. I think its $25? Great way to always let your loved ones know you're safe during training rides as well. Has way more features than you would probably ever need but its a great little solution that you would own.

Another vote for the Ironman tracking app. I know it has issues sometimes but has improved and does a pretty good job with location prediction. You could also dye your hair hot pink before the race to be easier to spot.

Any knowledgeable opinions or actual experience from past Nice races about using IM Tracker for the Nice 70.3 World's? If I have wi-fi access for my iPad, can I use that rather than a phone?

If you stuck your phone in your storage container and the Bluetooth was on, that would work, and then also get messages on your head unit, i.e. your placing. Is that even legal? Personally I wouldn’t bother, enough going on already.

I used BAT / Beacon Athlete Tracking for IMAZ last year, little GPS unit you had with you for the Bike and Run. Gave actual real-time location for your spectators or anyone with the link. I just tried to go to their website and FB page but it looks like they are deleted so maybe they are no longer in business.

That's the one I used as well last year at Boulder. Worked great and my family thought it was great, but I can't find anything indicating that they're still in business. Guess they'll just have to use the IM tracker.

Thanks all!

So this is what I used for my race on Saturday:

https://www.samsung.com/...smartthings-tracker/

It's like the one I posted about earlier but cheaper and comes with a 1 year data plan. It records a point every 10 minutes, but if somebody is looking on their phone, you can get a real-time view of where they are. It was pretty easy to setup, but the downside is that you have to have everybody you share the data with add the Samsung smartthings home automation app to their phone, and get access to your domain. So if you have a bunch of their stuff, you'd have to feel comfortable with them being able to turn your lights on and off.

But overall it performed just as advertised. It's waterproof up to 1.5m, so I put it in a small plastic bag and in the small zipper pocket I have on my tri suit, then forgot about it. It's the size of an Oero cookie and weighs exactly the same as 4 quarters, so I never really knew it was there. The plastic bag did open during the swim at some point, so the device was quite wet, but it was still working so water isn't a big deal.

If your family/friends really want to track you closer than the IM app and not spend tons of time scanning the race looking for you, this is a pretty damn good investment for them IMO.

EDIT: I bought it on Amazon for $89.99 and that did include 1 year of data. $5/mo or $50/year for data after the year is up.