Since the music festival craze began in 2011 one of the most persistent issues at music festivals and concerts is how to find your friends and stay together in a large, packed space. In the Golden Era of EDM this was pretty much a fool’s errand as cell service was awful, and you had no choice but to stay together or risk being lost all night. While things have improved, there’s still nothing foolproof. Cell service can still sometimes be spotty, using live location features is ok, but not when trying to pinpoint your friends in a packed crowd. Over the years, a number of products have promised to fix this, but they have often proved prohibitively expensive or relied on mesh networks that never really got off the ground. Totem Compass aims to change all of that, and we got to test it out during Art Basel at Factory Town in Miami. The device, while not perfect, may just have what it takes to solve this problem once and for all.
The Device
The device itself is like a light-up pendant. It’s a bit smaller than the palm of your hand and comes with a stretch lanyard to wear it like a necklace. It focuses on being a compass, but it actually uses satellites to get and maintain your location heading (which is key). Rather than rely on Wifi or Bluetooth or solely a mesh network, the satellite gets your position locked and then updates on the go. So the device can work without cell service or Wifi, but it also creates a mesh network to add strength to the location service. It’s impact-resistant, dustproof, and water-resistant. The max range between 2 devices is 1000 meters, but this can be expanded with the “Unity Mesh Network” created between devices in an area.
The way this device works is that it must be paired with other Totems, with a maximum of 4 additional totems in your crew. Each device is assigned a color, and then each device will track the relative locations of each color. You follow the color on your compass until you reach the other device. In the meantime, when you wear the Totem on your neck, it pulsates and changes colors to the music to make it a cool accessory.
The Setup
It sounds simple enough, but the initial setup is a bit more complicated than you might expect out of the box. First, you need to follow some steps to update the firmware on your device to the latest version. The overall theme with the Totem is that you can manage everything with just the device and its 3 buttons (1 touch on the front, and 2 hard buttons on the back), but it’s always confusing to remember all of the various button combinations and light signals without some sort of app to guide you. There is an app, and you can use the app for the firmware update process. First, the app will have you pair the device with a local wifi network, and it will update. Once that is done, you’ll have the full feature set.
The way these devices work is that you need to gather your crew beforehand and pair all of the devices before the event. Since the devices rely on satellites, you can’t really use them indoors or in covered spaces. Also, you’ll want to allow the lock to happen once you arrive at the venue, so you don’t turn them on until you arrive.
To pair the devices, again, can be a bit cumbersome. There is a way to pair devices one at a time, but then I struggled to be sure that all of my devices were linked to eachother (I had 3). Luckily, there is a simpler group pairing system that lets you pair your entire group of devices all at once, then each is assigned its color, and you can hand them out. Now, presumably, I can just hand 2 devices out to my friends before each event, and then we’re all paired. So this relies on a fixed group of friends, more or less.
Before leaving for the event, you’ll need to do a quick training session to show your crew how they work, including powering on and what the lights look like, so you can understand if it’s working.
Use
As mentioned above, you’ll want to leave the devices off until you arrive at the venue. Then you power on, and after a brief moment, you’ll get a satellite fix. We tested this out during Circoloco at Factory Town, which you can be sure was absolutely slammed. To our pleasant surprise, the devices worked pretty well! Our friends went off to the bathroom or to get water and came back without issue, impressed at how easy it was. What seemed to make sense for my use case was to have some trustworthy friends hold the other 2 devices, and if somebody wanted to go on a sidequest, I gave them a Totem to take with them.
Then the only concern is whether you can rely on your friends to come back to you and not lose the Totem! One thing we did not yet get a chance to test was how it works locating another device when you have no idea where the person might be, or a situation where both people are moving at the same time. We will certainly continue testing the devices!
Continuous Improvements
For a technology that is complicated but also very heavily demanded, it’s gratifying to know that the Totem team is constantly striving to improve the devices. They were very curious to hear about my experience and very open to feedback that they can use to make future improvements to the devices. One such plan is to give the app more capability to control and read out all of the things occurring on-device, so you won’t be forced to remember all of the various light and button combinations. For a product that will be used in many less-than-sober situations, this will be important. The team also informed us that the app will soon feature a complete onboarding sequence as a recommended first step so that everybody will get the full tutorial and walk-through before they start using the devices.
Right now, the company is offering specials on bundles, which is the perfect way to use Totem. You can snag a 2-pack holiday bundle for $205, a 3-pack for $234, a 4-pack for $297, or an 8-pack for $676. If you just need one, they’re available for $79, making it a no-brainer if you attend a lot of festivals. Click here to learn more and purchase one for you and your crew for 2026!
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