Rick I believe you mentioned InReach on a prior thread. Picked up their newest model. One of the negatives of the previous devices was that they were only one way. That is, you could only send a signal to the satellite and assume that your family or friends received it. With this thing, it's two way communication. InReach relies on the Iridium satellite network, which supposedly is more reliable in locking a signal than Inmarsat and also includes true global coverage and doesn't rely on ground repeaters, as far as I know.

A quick test ...

1. Compose a message either on the satellite device or on your regular cell phone. With the latter, Bluetooth is supported so you have a choice, meaning you can use a phone, tablet/iPad or other mobile device to send/receive using the satellite device as a relay. You can also bring up excellent maps, terrestrial and others, including NOAA Sailing Charts (another reason why I got it, very cool). Anyhow, after you compose your message, you have a choice of sending it to an email address or other destinations such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Hit send and it takes about 5 seconds for it to hit the satellite 485 miles above. Very fast. In fact, for this test I wasn't even outside. The unit was about 3 feet away from a window.

2. Here I sent my message to an email address, so the recipient gets something like this:



3. If he/she clicks on the link, it pulls up a map of where you are along with the option in the top right corner to respond to your message:



4. You get the reply message on the device like this:



5. If you have your phone or tablet tethered via Bluetooth, you also receive it there like this:



6. Here's a simple view of your location as well on the tethered device:



7. A few other features like SOS and tracking is available, as well as pre-set and quick text messages, convenient I guess if you are hanging on the side of a cliff. Tracking intervals are recorded at a max moving interval of 10 minutes and sent to the satellite so your friends and family can track you in close to real time over the web.

For the SOS feature, it's obviously very real so there is also a separate button to active it. Your profile has your contact information as well as the information of two contacts that the authorities may contact. I believe after sending out an SOS, you have a few seconds to cancel it before it's treated as real.



8. Finally, for SMS/text messages directly to cell phones, you enter the phone instead of email address, send and it appears a few seconds later on the recipient's phone. Notice he/she also has the option to launch into a map to see your current location. If he/she replies, the lowest retrieval interval is 5 minutes on the device. That is the device will check the satellite every 5 minutes for new messages.





Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/21/2014 12:15AM by mohave.