That's very interesting. I've also had the VR app (non-subscription) for a long while now and just gone (for the first time) to activate the buddy beacon (via the start track recording button). After asking me to set the timings and pin number, I started recording my trip and there it tells me the buddybeacon is active and last sent position at [time]. No subscription required :-\
Trying to "follow myself" on the computer is proving more difficult, despite having inputted the user name and pin number, apparently I'm invisible :(
[/time] <<<< Edit: ha! just realised that typing stuff in square brackets can be read by the forum programming coding thingy and it's switched my time command above off