New Garmin InReach Mini Satellite Communicator

[Adfischer]

Looks like a great device for someone that wants simple SOS and canned messages only. For me, I really like my Inreach with the integrated on screen GPS and enough buttons to quickly compose text messages. Sure you can use your phone to do it, but with power sometimes a premium I like being able to depend solely on my Garmin. Also, now that Iridium has launched a good number of their next gen satellites I can definitely tell the difference in the speed and reliability of message delivery.

I have also built a custom application for myself that I can use to get all sorts of data from my Inreach such as more detailed weather, storm locations, weather warnings, river stages, forest fire updates, news, Twitter feeds, ISS flyover info, and even Wikipedia and Wolfram Alpha searches. It really makes the Inreach a much more valuable tool when hiking.

[iAmKrzys]

[...] I have also built a custom application for myself that I can use to get all sorts of data from my Inreach such as more detailed weather, storm locations, weather warnings, river stages, forest fire updates, news, Twitter feeds, ISS flyover info, and even Wikipedia and Wolfram Alpha searches. It really makes the Inreach a much more valuable tool when hiking.

Wolfram Alpha searches??? Are you using Lagrange multipliers to optimize your hike or something?

[Adfischer]

Wolfram Alpha searches??? Are you using Lagrange multipliers to optimize your hike or something?

Haha. I’ll have to look into doing that! Wolfram can pull stuff like weather, sunrise and sunset data, gps coordinate conversions, river and flood stages, or even tell you what aircraft are flying overhead if you see something interesting.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[iAmKrzys]

I think Garmin inReach Mini will give Spot a run for the money. With greater capabilities than Spot and option to get monthly plans it makes so much more sense for people like myself who have maybe 1 or 2 week-long trips per year. My most recent Spot renewal bill was over $200 which really felt like a ripoff given my limited usage. The only downsides to inReach that I can see are higher initial cost and built-in battery which Garmin claims could last up to 20 days with 30 min tracking interval.