Actually, I thought they were quite cheap for what's essentially a satellite phone without audio. What I'd really like to know is why PLBs are so expensive. They can't be any more complicated than SPOT. If PLBs were $150 I would have owned one last year. Is there some kind of restriction on making PLBs that don't last for 24 hours while floating in raging seas? If it was just water resistant and ran for 8 hours on 4 AA lithium batteries, would that lower the price?