Garmin communicator how does it work

While the inReach Explorer Plus includes just about everything you could want, it is rather large. For people such as trail runners, ultralight hikers, snowboarders, and others who generally want to cut bulk and weight, the inReach Mini is a very good option. It still has two-way messaging, though typing it out is even more of a pain than on the Explorer Plus, so you may opt for a preset message when you can. That said, you can pair it with a phone, and texting is back to being easy.

There is a dedicated SOS button, tracking, and weather right on the device. The device is about a hundred bucks less than the Explorer Plus, and it has all of the same options for service plans. The Explorer Plus is easily the better overall device, but if size and weight are at a premium, the inReach Mini is your best bet. The Bivystick sets itself apart by having a well-designed app that already knows thousands of routes for hiking, biking, canoeing, skiing, etc.

If you want to share your location or have people track you, it requires them to sign up for a Somewear account, which is pretty annoying. Even simple texts get cluttered with a plea for them to sign up for an account.

Its UI is extremely unintuitive, which is the last thing you want to be struggling with in the woods. It is in fact another set of satellites that handles message and data transmission. We regret the error. In fact, a route in the inReach world is simply a series of waypoints. The inReach Mini is much more basic. Also note that the inReach Mini does not sync with Garmin Connect or Garmin Basecamp , and any courses you plan there will not work on the Mini unless you export and import them into the inReach dashboard.

The compass is not a magnetic compass, but simply a display that indicates your direction of travel based on consecutive GPS fixes. Tracking is a handy feature where the unit sends out positions at regular intervals and plots them on a map for family and friends to see. You can minimize the battery drain of tracking by changing the send interval in the settings. The choices you have are: 10 min, 20 min, 30 min, 1 hr, 2 hr, 4 hr. The default is 10 minutes. Tracking is a neat way for people to follow you in a detailed manner, but for me it seems like overkill.

You can simply turn the unit on and off, send free preset messages to check in with your position, check for new texts, and then turn it back off. For such a small unit, the battery life is good on the inReach Mini, and you can tell that the Garmin engineers put a lot of thought into making the Mini efficient and giving the user options to extend the battery life. After testing the Mini for a while, I found that no one feature really killed he battery quickly.

As you would expect, sending lots of messages, getting weather reports, and tracking drained it quicker than not. One last tip: if you have the mini hooked up to an external power source and you disconnect it, the Mini will automatically power off once unplugged. If you want to keep it on after charging, make sure you turn it on again.

Overall, I really love the inReach Mini and use it on every hike. I like it better than the inReach Explorer , but again, that might be a better choice for you. The inReach Mini comes in two colors, black and orange.

Please use one of the links below to buy your Mini. I get a small commission that helps offset the website costs, and it costs you nothing.

A little pricey, but great peace of mind… For me and wife. Worked flawlessly. Battery was great. You can clip the included carabiner to the Mini and then clip it to your gear or pack. You can also run a lanyard through the loop. You can also use the included hex wrench to put the spine connector on the back of the unit, which allows you to hook the Mini to an optional spine-mount belt clip or backpack mount. I just keep it simple and put it in a pocket on my backpack. If you need to top up the battery on the trail, any portable charging option will work.

The unit charges with a micro-USB cable, which is standard for chargers. I get a lot of questions from readers in regards to some 1-star reviews that people leave. So let me share my thoughts on the specifics.

You are trying to send a receive a signal hundreds of miles to a smallish piece of metal flying through outer space. Is this device perfect? Far from it. Can it save your butt in the backcountry for a few hundred bucks? For sure. Obviously this would have a downstream impact on battery life, but certainly there are scenarios this could make sense. Doing so requires triggering a very real chain of events that ultimately would result in a helicopter coming to get me.

Real-life humans would then actually message you via inReach satellite first, to find out more about the issue. Is it a real problem? They could also be teams nearby you that may be able to assist. In talking with Garmin, during peak season on Mt. Everest, they often have more than inReach devices active at a time. Versus them wondering if something worse happened. Oh, and lastly, there have been reported issues with SOS buttons being accidentally pressed upon previous inReach devices two generations ago, not the most recent generation , and actually triggering.

But what if I put all my force on it, and pushed it up against a hard surface and held it for 10 seconds, would it trigger then? Nope, simply nope. The reasons for not accidentally triggering an accidental SOS event are many. First, embarrassment of it all is less than ideal. Then there would be the wasted resources of emergency folks.

Nobody wants that. When you send a message you get the option to include a map with it. It also has the ability for that person to then send back a message to you, directly from that page. Note, if you want to also show your track, you need to send that as part of a MapShare link.

And as the owner of the devices, you can look these up as well afterwards on the portal. For example, some mountain biking. On the left you can see totals for that activity, as well as the track on the right:. Well, that takes a bit more planning. The first step is creating a pre-planned course or route.

Alternatively, you can import courses from your Garmin Connect stash. Plus, this is really the easiest way to ensure the route on your watch matches the route on the inReach device. Once these are imported in, they appear within your routes section.

This is then mirrored on the inReach mobile app, called EarthMate. That app acts as a gateway to both the Garmin inReach platform online, as well as your device via Bluetooth Smart. So it can operate without online access including offline maps , as well as operate without access to your device.

You can even download other map regions for free, quickly and efficiently. Perhaps the remainder of Garmin could steal this capability…cough, Cycling and Outdoor wearables teams. Same goes for sending previous tracks or current tracks to other previously unspecified people. Thus, in effect, you can operate totally without cellular or WiFi service from within the app. Finally, it should be noted that the unit can do basic navigation. Oh, and for lack of anywhere else to stick it — the device can receive weather updates for your position.

The premium ones cost extra in certain plans, and give you more detailed information. The integration occurs via a widget, but not a Connect IQ one. This pairing also needs to be enabled on the side of the inReach unit:. Note that this widget can be accessed both within an activity and outside an activity. You can do almost everything message-wise from the watch. And lastly, you can trigger an SOS message from the watch too.

The ability to have this information directly on my handlebars would be awesome, and hugely appreciated in quite a bit of mountain biking terrain where cellular service is spotty including where I was testing this not far from Sea Otter last week.

But more so, I want to see these two service mesh together. You should be able to go out for a ride with your Edge and have it use cellular live tracking when available for near real-time tracking, but then at the same time with a paired inReach Mini it should be able to seamlessly merge the tracking data on the backend web platform. This reduces the expensive satellite network tracking burden when not needed, while getting more information on the cellular side.

The benefit for Garmin there is that once they make this totally seamless, the solution pretty much sells itself. For its part, in my discussions with Garmin about this — they get it. They completely agree the use case for getting this in Edge devices is huge, especially in the mountain biking community.

After all, they added that capability to a flotilla of devices. All inReach devices require a subscription plan — not much different than one you might pay for Apple Music or Spotify or, just the Spot platform. The top line-item is the name of the plan. Now, the biggest difference between the two cheapest plans is that one includes unlimited tracking points, and 40 messages.

Tracking points over just a single day can add up very quickly. You can reduce the interval though, which would save you costs. The three presets are fully inclusive no matter which plan, and if you tweak those just enough you can kinda cover all the basics. Garmin seems to have largely nailed this device from a features and functionality standpoint.

It does precisely what it says it does, and does it in a super small form factor that has fairly versatile battery life. The fact that it can go from 50 hours of battery life up to 20 days is astounding, especially for longer range treks that may be moving slower where a minute interval is perfectly functional. The downsides here are relatively few, but the main one is cost.

I suspect though that Garmin is catering this device towards people dropping thousands or tens of thousands on other gear and trip fees, whereby the cost of this is relatively trivial. I could see myself picking one up to use in my more remote travels, especially in the minute interval mode and just leaving it on for weeks at a time, allowing friends or family to quickly check in. With that, thanks for reading!

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Subscribe me to the newsletter. Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can click here to Subscribe without commenting. I suggested this to Garmin when the Fenix 5 first arrived because I use both hiking frequently. I have an original Delorme unit before Garmin aquired them. My unit does all the functions this does. Based on the review I can think of all kinds of use cases where this could come in handy. If the helicopters are failing you, the second best way of getting that emergency Orval is going up to the Hospice du Grand-Saint-Bernard, home of the world famous SAR dogs.

They the bar, not the dogs have a very fine collection of trappist beers. Great review, thanks! Just one small query — did you actually check out the longer time battery life?

Jumping up to 20 days is a leap hours. But in that case, why not calculate the hour battery life also assuming nightly hibernation? So my question is — did you test that and was it reliable? Thank you! Spot has no monthly subscription options, and requires a hefty annual fee. Sorry if I missed this — but when is the unit available? I see that Clever Training has it listed as pre-order. I used an inReach Explorer with trackleaders last year on the Arizona Trail.

This looks small and unobtrusive though so looks like a winner. Also, if you were to order one from USA, the import taxes are horrendous. Well this is a first. The UK price is actually bigger numbers than the US price, despite the stronger currency. Worst part about this product launch is it suggests there will not be any imminent update to the existing inReach devices. Different devices for different folks and uses i guess but I do not find the mini feature set at all compelling.

Does both sending and receiving messages count toward the limit or do you only pay to send messages? Wow, this thing is tiny. Very very impressive. I do, however, have some doubts about the claimed battery life.

Anyway, my point is that 20 days with 30 min reporting seems rather optimistic. Especially in cold weather and obstructed sky. But considering the intended use, this is not much of a drawback. I would really like to see some real life tests and measurements in various environments at sea, in urban canyons, open land and in the mountains. Can you switch subscription on and off, or are you tied in for a year? Pay as you go would suit much better.

It looks like the break-even point is around 9 months for the Safety Plan and 8 Months for the Recreation plan — meaning you can use the Freedom plan for that many months before it becomes more cost effective to use the Annual Plan. I would only use the unit for 4 consecutive months of the year. That is, reactivate on, say 18th May and payment will be due again on 18th June. A movement up a level is instant A movement down or a suspension will occur at the re billing date.

Tracking does not work when suspended, either on device, or app. Yes I am tossing up between the Spot and inReach Mini. Although based in the UK I will primarily be using it in the Australian Outback with a retrieve driver following my track.

So do I understand this correctly? I must admit the Spot subscription and tracking is far less complicated but the coverage and text messaging is a plus for the Garmin.

One cannot use the Earthmate app without an account. Yes, no other charges other than monthly fee. Regarding Spot, coverage in Australia might be an issue, so do look into it. My hope is that Garmin will release a high end inReach and review their pricing policy. Oh, and make better maps available. Did you get a chance to weigh it yourself?

This scaling seems off. Also with all the pics you have, none of the USB port :-p But more importantly dealing with the USB port is, is the port water proof and can the unit be charged when in use? Being a waterproof port in case when you notice you need to charge the device its raining or something. Are we leading the world in that option? We have only just been allowed to add the Garmin inReach devices to our service, nearly 2 yers after they first came out. Wonder how long this unit will take?

I am repeating myself, but…. I have no interest in a device like to to day, but loved reading about it. I really like that you expand your focus to things broader than just biking or running. Glad you found it interesting! Will the InReach app as well as the extended display for edge devices appear on the Garmin Descent as well?

Just curious as I may upgrade my 3hr in the future. Having an unobstructed view of the sky from a commercial airplane would be a bit of a worry. And when that helicopter shows up, you need a VHF to talk to it as well. As with all safety items, you should never rely on just one, and this looks like a useful addition to a VHF. Ray, three quick questions: what number or address do others use to text the device? Do both receiving and sending text count towards the number included in the plan? How did you find the reception?

Do you have to have a clear blue sky above you or on the top of a mountain? Will it transmit through some tree cover? As always awesome review. Timothy, the inreach devices are some of the best in terms of connectivity. They use SBD or short burst data so they dont connect for long periods.

Clear sky is not required, we have them transmitting out of an aircraft hangar overnight if left on. Yes they work through light foliage cover, but the great thing about them is the audible whistle when the message has successfully sent.

On our system the return message is handled by a permanent link online, GARMIN, and shortly we will also have, have direct to device reply texting and online email return link like ours.

Yes on all services a request send or reply is all charged to the holder of the account. I agree it was a great review. I would love to use this rather than a PLB given the ability to send msgs. The signal from this device is superior to the PLB as the Helix aerial is not worried about the angle you have it on. Also the message has an audible tone to let you know it has been received. The accuracy the GPS on the nReach means unless you are drifting or having to move for safety reasons, then the position you set it off from is very accurate.

It also can update on the go and most rescue helicopters have Satellite comms to get updates in flight. I think PLBs send signals of around 5 watts. My concern is that a SOS from the Garmin would be less likely to be received due to a weaker signal. Or am I missing something? From here, a global rescue will immediately be initiated. The InReach sends a text message to a third party call centre who may at some point call emergency services and ASK for a rescue to be initiated.

They will then need to provide sufficient information to the MRCC or other agency to begin a rescue attempt. These are designed and tested for a life measured in years such that you never have an emergency and a flat battery if you follow the instructions. The InReach, by contrast, has a rechargeable battery which can lose charge due to cold conditions just like your camera is always dead in the snow!

The frequency they transmit on is very different. PLB uses a frequency which is much better at penetrating obstacles and weather, albeit much lower bandwidth.

If you also need tracking and messaging, take both. Forgot the most important one! Hi Dave, our inReach connections are delivered directly to the Rescue centre, not through a third party. All the information is available and updated regularly as we identified this weakness in using call centres. We now rely on Ai and our delivery from device to Rescue co-ordination cente is under 60 seconds. I agree with the built for purpose and extreme conditions or harsh environment has determental effects on electronics and the PLB is built for these very conditions.

The perfect ideal would be having both. In most situations that a PLB was setoff immediate rescue was not warranted and had one of these devices been used a more measured approach would have meant less expense and tieing up of resources needed for the real rescues.

To put this in its place. InReach devices are primarily designed as a 2 way satellite communicators with optional tracking and an enhanced GPS receiver. A PLB has one job, have long storage life and when used to last as long as possible, transmit in harsh conditions, and guide rescue services to a stricken vessel or human, hopefully in time to save them. Hi Tony, I think you misunderstood me. In this scenario you are the third party. PLB goes directly to the actual emergency services.

In safety of life scenarios such as when I was in the Irish Sea in a F10 gale not so much. Any time safety is being monetised, safety is not the number one item on the agenda; money is top of the list. Your example proves this, anyone involved in true rescue operations would never be so concerned by the cost of the operation.

As I said, InReach is a great solution and I plan to buy one for the tracking and messaging, and possible SOS in non safety critical scenarios. But the lack of communication options is also a hindrance. What kind of help do you need is often just as important as getting help. I think inReach would likely fit almost every scenario. Your understanding of the delivery of those emergency messages has gaps. GEOS is only used by paying customers.

You also pay for PLBs for a one time activation when you buy it. All organisations rely on satellites, groundstations, servers, hosts, message centres and delivery mechanisms.

Our delivery to emergency services is not dependent on us notifying them, it happens on a parallel path and has been proven to be quicker and more complete in information in front of the rescue coordination centre than a PLB.

But back to the review, this is a useful piece of kit for people wanting better coverage than cell phone or the current spot devices. By its interface and use of the Iridium network it provides most needs for people tripping beyond the borders of our cities.

Ray I completely agree, that was kind of my point. The question in that scenario is whether you also want to take one of these, not if one of these would replace the PLB. This new feature, dubbed the Garmin Communicator, is a browser plugin that must be installed on your computer. Once installed, it allows you to connect your GPS device to a web site that supports Garmin Communicator.

The plugin is provided for free from Garmin.