The last thing you need when frantically searching for your best bud in an avalanche is for your beacon to switch out of search mode. Ortovox is recalling a small group of its 3+ beacons when testing revealed that they switched to transmit mode after two minutes.

The avalanche transceivers switched unintentionally and internal tests showed that the problem is part of a particular production batch shipped to vendors after October 17, 2012.

“Despite our continuously optimized quality control measures, we have now discovered a scenario that has never occurred before in our QA processes,” Ortovox announced on their website.

The glitch seems to be caused by a new internal motion sensor used for “follow-up avalanche switchover”. Apparently, the sensor fails to detect your motion while you’re searching, and turns the beacon to transmit. While you can still manually switch back to search, it’s not an ideal way to use the transceiver.

Head over to the Ortovox website and input your beacon’s serial number to see if it’s part of the recall. The 10-digit number appears on the beacon’s display two digits at a time when the 3+ is switched on. 

FYI- Your beacon still does the job if you’re buried (i.e. not moving) despite this issue.