7S Feedback

[User Name]

Just in case anyone at Polaris still cruises these forums, I wanted to offer up a central place for feedback on these units.

First, I want to call out that the Buddy Tracking that comes with the 7S is truly a game changer and great innovation that is perfect for a mountain snowmobiler. Obviously the community is asking for this to be more of an open standard so other manufacturers can jump in, but I totally understand Polaris prefers to leverage this as competitive advantage - or brands were not able to agree to terms.

That being said, buddy tracking is just about the only value the 7S provides for a mountain snowmobiler - it seems to be geared far more towards a trail rider or SxS rider. To start, not all my friends ride Polaris and of those, most don't have the 7S. If I was buying a 9R instead of a Boost, I would 100% opt for the standard gauge, since so few others have a 7S. This creates a loop that is difficult to fix. Polaris needs to have a value proposition in addition to buddy tracking in order to get out of that loop. To me, thats a map on the screen that allows me to keep my phone in my pocket. Today, we're nowhere close.

Must Have:
Satellite Maps without Cellular Connection
We usually don't have cell service but satellite maps are obviously a huge tool when navigating in unfamiliar terrain. I find it hard to wrap my head around why they made a trade off here. There is room for at least 30GB of map data. They decided to use that space to load the entirety of US and Canada riding areas with half decent hill shading. Why not allow us to select a state or two, or a certain radius and allow us to download offline satellite imagery? If I am going to travel to another state, ill be smart enough to download the map update before I leave.

Hybird Satellite Maps
We need topo lines on the satellite maps! I am not even complaining about the topo layers being metric. Just give us offline satellite with topo layers

Should Have:
Hill Shading
Nice to have but not absolutely necessary IMO. Hopefully I don't have to expand here. Nice to understand avalanche terrain (while also understanding the ways this shading can be misleading)


Could Have:
Better mobile app
I dont mind poking around in OnX and transferring my learnings to the 7S or App manually but obviously would be ideal if I didn't need OnX


Won't Have:
Heat Maps
We do not care. In fact, we want the opposite. With how easy snowmobiles are getting easy to ride, the easier are spots get blown up. Obviously we are finding new spots etc - but I don't think anybody is asking for heatmaps.


It's not my job to solution but it feels like an OnX partnership could really work here - there is already a marketing partnership - now get those maps in the 7S hardware. I imagine the snowmobile community would be up in arms having some of these features behind a paywall but I'd rather have the option to pay for them and get them then not have them at all.

What else am I missing?

 

[A@ron]

Another value with 7s IMO is being able to set pins or waypoints and having a better idea to where I’m at. It’s been a game changer for me when it comes to being in the trees. Pre 7s there was a lot of “I think I know where I’m at/going”. I will say that was part of the adventure, but now it’s allowed me to explore way more in the thick/tech stuff with confidence due to being able to zoom out and see whereabouts I’m heading.
At first I wasn’t impressed, but after using it I’d really hate to give it up.

 

[Rob.G]

I have a 7S on my '23 Khaos 850 and I am largely unimpressed with it. I feel like I wasted $1200. I've posted a critique of it here in another thread, but I'm happy to re-post here. These are in no particular order.

Overall fit and finish is great. I like the non-glare screen, the physical buttons and the fact that they are back-lighted.

The overall resolution of the device leaves a bit to be desired. When cell phones and tablets are using super high res displays, there really is no excuse to not be doing the same here.

The maps are "okay" at best. There is no way that I've found to change the color of the recorded track logs. There's no real track or waypoint management either. Think about how a Garmin GPS operates. Now, Garmin is FAR from ideal (they have their own issues) but they're better than this.

The gauges are cool looking but it'd be great to create your own color scheme.

The group ride feature NEEDS TO BE OPEN-SOURCE, period. Now that Arctic Cat has the Garmin G8 with its own buddy ride system, it would be amazing to have the two systems be able to talk to each other. I have a new '25 Catalyst 858 with the G8 and really wish it could talk to the 7S on my Khaos, since a friend whom I trust will be riding the Khaos from time to time.

It should be possible to download your track logs to a USB drive, and then clear the tracks off the 7S if you so choose. Furthermore -- these track logs should NEVER be stored on Polaris servers unless encrypted in such a way that they are inaccessible except to the end user that owns the sled. This is specifically due to an idea I saw posted recently about anti-access groups wanting to subpeona ride details out of these devices to use in their fight to shut down access to places.

But overall, due to the issues with the map quality and such, I record all of my rides using GaiaGPS on my phone. It'd be nice to not have to do that. I have NEVER been a fan of OnX. They have some good ideas but their app is awful.

I think that covers it for now.

 

[Cb850]

I also feel better topo lines and give us feet instead of meters!!!

 

[KhaosRipcord]

100% Agree that buddy tracking is the single best feature and that it shoupd be an open source or at least licensable standard so our other brand buddies can join. It's a safety issue that shouldn't be overlooked.

Extra note on buddy tracking. We use it
all the time. Last year we took a newb friend into the trees and he managed to eject himself into an uncomfortably deep and narrow tree well. The because he couldn't get to his radio or really move at all the ONLY reason we knew he was in trouble and we're able to find him was because of the 7s. For that reason alone I'm sold.

 

[line8]

My problem is I bought one and installed on my new sled, expensive but was excited for it. It lasted about 14 months and went dark. Debated on just throwing the basic gauge back on but decided to get another 7s out of pocket. Accessory purchases only have 1 year warranty. Hopefully it lasts but I’m not confident.

 

[bobback]

The buddy tracking is awesome; I am surprised how well it works. For those that don't have the 7s - you can literally look at the map and drive right to your buddy.

I believe a person with maybe just a cell phone can tap into the buddy system? Not sure but I need to do more research on this one.

IMO this feature alone is worth the price of the 7s.

 

[Rob.G]

The cell phone version works only if there's cell service. So if you ride in an area where you do actually have cell service, yes this totally works. But otherwise, no.

As for the 7S that died, that's another great example of Polaris' BS. Only a one-year warranty on that thing, wow. I also bought my 7S out of pocket and installed it, BUT, I have a five-year warranty on the sled so I hope that will be covered should it need to be. If not, I will just put the stock gauge back in and say to heck with it.

 

[5167jacob]

I have a 2023 Kaos Boost 165 and I have many glitchy issues with my 7S. Most I have been able to fix at least for now but one thing I cannot figure out is how to save rides, create waypoints, or save marks in the map. I figured out how to track a ride but I cannot figure out how to save it for the next day. I usually don't have cell signal where I ride. Is there any instructions on how to do this?

 

[Rob.G]

This MIGHT work, I don't remember. I will go outside later and doublecheck... but when you're on the map, tap directly on the icon that represents you. That may (or may not) bring up a dialog to let you create a marker (waypoint). It should let you name it, edit it, etc, etc. At least that's how it works on a normal GPS type application.

As for saving the tracks, I've seen the menu for it but I don't remember how to get there. I leave all of my tracks visible so that they're always there to refer to. This is why I hate that I can't set the color of the track. I'd prefer that they were different for each ride.

I just logged back into the Ride Command app (it's been ages since I touched it). There's a "rides" icon along the bottom. Tap on that and it brings up all of the rides I've done. I wish I could remember how to end a ride and start a new one. I just know it's in there someplace. Like I said, I'll see if I can get more info on that a bit later.

 

[5167jacob]

This MIGHT work, I don't remember. I will go outside later and doublecheck... but when you're on the map, tap directly on the icon that represents you. That may (or may not) bring up a dialog to let you create a marker (waypoint). It should let you name it, edit it, etc, etc. At least that's how it works on a normal GPS type application.

As for saving the tracks, I've seen the menu for it but I don't remember how to get there. I leave all of my tracks visible so that they're always there to refer to. This is why I hate that I can't set the color of the track. I'd prefer that they were different for each ride.

I just logged back into the Ride Command app (it's been ages since I touched it). There's a "rides" icon along the bottom. Tap on that and it brings up all of the rides I've done. I wish I could remember how to end a ride and start a new one. I just know it's in there someplace. Like I said, I'll see if I can get more info on that a bit later.

I can tap the icon to bring up creating and naming a way point and hit save, it just never seems to save. As far as saving the ride, I haven't figured out how to save it without cell signal to link your Polaris app data base. It is a tussle enough just to get it to link to my phone period.