Regarding my comment on warranty after flyaway, it was more to the fact that you have no claim with no bird, at least there's something to work with if you find the flyaway. Just my opinion. Anyway..
the realtime positioning independent of the app is pretty invaluable IMO. I can't tell you the number of times I've whipped out my cell and checked the flytrex app when phantom connection breaks or I lose control signal.
Personal record tracking is pretty cool too, as is the real time telemetry data automatically backed up to the server.
I dunno, just makes everything seamless IMO and I like that.
I see where you are coming from, no bird no chance of warranty claim.
I believe the unit I have ordered sends live data for you to view on the manufactures website, I think the standard setting for sending information is every 10 minutes, but I believe this can be changed. For this to work you do need to make sure you have a data plan on the sim. As you stated I'm sure the flytrex is seamless and it also looks the part imo, and was a serious contender until dji declared the warranty issue.
Lets hope my GPS device works just as well, or even better, that I never have the need to use it.