12 ms·

Does InReach require a monthly cost? Alternatively, you can spend about $200 one time on a personal locator beacon that requires no ongoing costs. It can't do

Does InReach require a monthly cost? Alternatively, you can spend about $200 one time on a personal locator beacon that requires no ongoing costs. It can't do two-way communication but activating it sends out a specific frequency picked up by satellites and is the equivalent of calling 911. Rescuers will come to help you. All serious hikers and outdoor adventurers should carry a personal locator beacon.

DMell 4y ago
Yes there are monthly plans that have different features - such as number of texts, custom messages, tracking intervals, etc.
dont__panic 4y ago
Any personal locator beacon recommendations? It's one of those items that I could very much use during bike touring, hiking, and bikepacking... but I've never bought one because it seems like a very large cost for something I won't even test until it is a matter of life and death. Out of curiosity... is there any way to alert your local emergency department in advance of testing a beacon, so you can verify that it works?
- lxgr 4y ago
  "Live testing" is discouraged: https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/ https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/
- jzwinck 4y ago
  I dont own this but it is pretty much the standard: https://www.acrartex.com/products/resqlink-400/ https://www.acrartex.com/products/resqlink-400/ These devices require a new battery every few years and that service includes a test done by the manufacturer. There is also a self test button on the device which does not send a message to the satellites. If you really feel the need to send test messages into space, they do support that but then you need a subscription (https://www.acrartex.com/406link/ https://www.acrartex.com/406link/). At that point you may as well buy a different device which has 2 way messaging included in the subscription. PLB users generally do trust that their devices work the first time they're used for real, and this trust is backed up by a lot of real world use.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    >PLB users generally do trust that their devices work the first time they're used for real, and this trust is backed up by a lot of real world use. Although they are not foolproof. See for example the story of Kate Matrosova. [1] Basically, mountain shadows made the location readings erratic which, in combination with extremely bad weather, meant rescuers couldn't find her. [1] https://www3.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/21/the-young-woman-and-mountain/SEBPucaGpA1Fun4R5uoj7K/story.html https://www3.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/21/the-young-woma...
    - tialaramex 4y ago
      Note that http://www.catskillmountaineer.com/reviews-winterhikingKM.html http://www.catskillmountaineer.com/reviews-winterhikingKM.ht... for example says Kate did not have a PLB, but only a SPOT (one of the many commercial products in this space) PLBs are tested down to -40° so it might have stayed working for longer as the weather got worse. It is of course impossible to say if Kate might have survived under other circumstances except that (not very interestingly) if she's decided the weather was too awful and aborted she'd almost certainly live.
      - ghaff 4y ago
        It's been a while since I read the book on this. I'm not sure if it got into the exact equipment or not. Certainly if SAR had an accurate fix from the beginning there would have been at least some hope for a rescue. The book was interesting mostly for all the SAR detail. The accident, sadly, was mostly in the category of--however fit and well-equipped you are--don't try to beat a very bad incoming storm on an exposed ridge line in the middle of winter. If she had turned around at Madison Hut or wherever she'd have been fine.
    - jzwinck 4y ago
      I only meant that the devices, if properly maintained, can be trusted to do their job as best they can and not say "PC LOAD LETTER" and expect you to troubleshoot it. A successful rescue is never guaranteed. Those of us who are programmers usually default to "If it's not tested end to end, it won't work," and that is the sentiment I was responding to.
- jabroni_salad 4y ago
  For PLB I am pretty sure it's universal. For messengers (like the inreach), find out what people in your geo use between iridium or SPOT because satellite coverage can vary. For example, I have heard that in alaska SPOT's only geostationary sat is really low on the southern horizon and anything that breaks LOS will interfere with the device. For PLB specifically you cannot test them. Once you activate them, they continually broadcast and cannot be canceled except by destroying the device. For messengers, they hook up to a web service and you can send messages to personal email or SMS via the sat network as your test.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    > I have heard that in alaska SPOT's only geostationary sat is really low on the southern horizon and anything that breaks LOS will interfere with the device. Any geostationary sat would be low on the southern horizon in Alaska. That's just how geostationary orbits work, they are over the equator. Though pretty high above (35.000km/22.000mi). So it's still visible there but yeah you need a clear view of the southern horizon. But Globalstar which runs the service for SPOT only has low earth orbit sats which are definitely not geostationary. They're only at a few hundred kilometers. However it could very well be that their orbits are aligned so that they are always pretty low to the south from Alaska, yes.
- pajko 4y ago
  This is a quite good writeup with some recommendations: https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/best-personal-locator-beacons-satellite-messengers https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/best-personal-locator-beacon... And answers your question: "Each device has a test mode that will communicate with the SARSAT satellite network without sending an alert."
  - lxgr 4y ago
    > Each device has a test mode that will communicate with the SARSAT satellite network without sending an alert. That explanation is factually incorrect, then. There currently is no "test" flag, nor is there the required infrastructure to check if your test alert went through: https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/ https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/ So this "self-test" feature can't be communicating with actual satellites. No idea what it actually does, but it's definitely not an end-to-end test.
    - dont__panic 4y ago
      Perhaps the emergency communication with satellites is a handshake, and the "test" mode for the beacons simply doesn't complete the handshake?
      - lxgr 4y ago
        Possibly (the page I linked even mentions a "test" type of signal), but given that there is no return link for most PLBs and no "list of recent successfully received test transmissions" online, I don't understand how one would actually verify success. This policy document mentions that the "self-test" feature actually does not communicate with satellites at all, and also mentions a "test frame" that is discarded by satellites, as well as a "test protocol" that is forwarded by satellites, but discarded by the ground segment: https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/POL-MCC-051-v1.3-US-SARSAT-Program-Policy-on-Non-Distress-Transmissions-of-406-MHz-Beacons.pdf https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/POL-MCC-051-v... So it seems like both the "self-test" and the "test frame" don't tell you a lot about how well your beacon would work in case of an actual emergency (unless you have equipment that can receive and interpret that signal), and live testing involves a lot of paperwork.
Johnny555 4y ago
Does InReach require a monthly cost? Yeah, the cheapest plan is $14.95/mo ($11.95/mo if you pay for 12 months) and includes 10 "free" text's, $0.50/text after that. I wish they had a non-cost plan (or maybe $10/year) plus $5/text or something like that for use in an emergency. I have an InReach, but haven't used it for an emergency (yet), I've sent a few texts to friends/family while outside of cellular coverage since they are "free", but would rather save money and only pay if I need to use it in an emergency situation. Maybe they'll have to get more flexible with their plans now that the iPhone has this feature, and T-Mobile is reportedly coming out with Satellite connectivity for phones.
- lxgr 4y ago
  > I wish they had a non-cost plan (or maybe $10/year) plus $5/text or something like that for use in an emergency. Given that the outdoor SAR use case is probably the largest reason for people to get one of these devices in the first place, I doubt that such a model would be economically sustainable (unless subsidized by government agencies or possibly insurances saving money due to spending less on large-scale search operations). Vendors could also bake a free SAR plan into the initial sales price, I suppose.
  - chrisshroba 4y ago
    Yeah, if we conservatively say 1% of InReach users will need to send an SOS message, then looking at the math: Today, 100 InReach subscribers nets Garmin around $144/yr * 100 people = $14,400 If the InReach were free except for when activating the SOS, the SOS would have to cost $14,000 to make that same revenue from the same number of users. This would surely lead to more deaths due to folks waiting way longer to send an SOS. Numbers are estimates but the order of magnitude shouldn't be too far off.
    - Johnny555 4y ago
      They're going to lose the people like me anyway when phones can send a SOS by satellite, so their revenue from me will either go to $0 and I'll sell my InReach on eBay, or they can get some small amount of revenue (enough to cover the administrative costs of registering the device) from me.
masom 4y ago
InReach, and any users (other brands offering competing two-way communicators) of the Iridium satellite network, have ongoing fees. They're rather small compared to someone dying in the wilderness.
- Buttons840 4y ago
  My point was that you can avoid dying in the wilderness with an even cheaper PLB.
  - lxgr 4y ago
    PLBs are great and definitely better than not carrying any emergency communications device at all, but they can ultimately only send out a binary signal: "I need help at location x/y". There's a lot of situations in which I'd appreciate being able to call help without possibly triggering an expensive helicopter SAR operation, when sending a park ranger would be more than sufficient (e.g. a sprained ankle a mile off the trailhead when solo hiking). Another advantage of two-way communicators is being able to get instructions from the SAR team: It can be vital to know whether you should e.g. go to higher ground (because your signal has not been received yet) or conversely seek shelter from the elements for a couple of hours. Newer PLBs partially solve that problem though, thanks to Galileo's "blue light" return channel.
s0rce 4y ago
So far 100% of my inreach use is texting family, I bought it for emergencies but so far (luckily) haven't needed it for that. I'm confident that it will work well enough in that situation that I don't need a PLB.
subsubzero 4y ago
It does, I have the fancier inReach - the one that can make calls and texts without being tethered to an iphone. The service runs $15 a month for the basic service and scales up depending on how many texts a month you want to use. I wouldn't ditch it for an iphone 14 as it is way more rugged and in really cold climates(I live near the mountains) a iphone will rapidly discharge its battery and will be useless. I finally broke down and got my inreach as I was exploring a canyon way out in the desert and a rockslide almost took out my ankle. I told my Wife when I got back and she made me get one as I most likely would have been in serious trouble as cell signal was not working and nobody was in miles of me.
- carabiner 4y ago
  Which Inreach model allows voice calls?
  - jms703 4y ago
    None of the Inreach devices can make calls.
    - subsubzero 4y ago
      you are correct, inReach devices can text by themselves(with no cell signal) and can be paired with a cell phone to make calls(I have the 66i), but not make calls by themselves. https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-6E5DFD2E-EEE4-4EF3-89BC-AACD1B4936C7/EN-GB/GUID-201A6C2D-868B-4E8D-93F5-1D8EBB6736FE.html https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-6E5DFD2E-EEE4-4...
      - c0nsumer 4y ago
        Are you sure of that? I can find no info nor claims of inReach devices doing anything voice-wise, even when paired with a phone.
        subsubzero 4y ago
tony_cannistra 4y ago
Actually, I'm not sure this is good advice. Two-way commiunicators are vastly preferred by Search and Rescue organizations. The reason for this is that they can learn about what they need to do and who they need to send to you, because they can ask you. If you have a broken leg, they'll send in 10 people to get you out. Dehydrated? Two responders and water. Calls that come in from "dumb" communicators like PLBs are more likely to get a 1-2 person "hasty" team assigned to them who can arrive quickly then call in more reinforcements if necessary. A SAR org. isn't going to put 10 volunteers on a PLB call that ends up being a rolled ankle, at least not immediately. This has the potential to greatly delay the time to care for you, especially for more severe emergencies.
- widforss 4y ago
  I'm on a SAR team. We literally deployed 10 people on both PLB's and Inreaches last winter. SAR people are cheap
  - biomcgary 4y ago
    SAR people may largely be volunteers, but helicopters have fairly expensive operational costs. In time-sensitive situations, it is better to have two way communications (because it keeps SAR as inexpensive as possible). See my sister comment for my wife's experience.
    - widforss 4y ago
      Those two operations were made using snow mobiles, but yes, as soon as helicopters com into the picture, the costs skyrocket.
    - danuker 4y ago
      > because it keeps SAR as inexpensive as possible "Hurry, but please hold the helicopter, I won't make enough money for the rest of my life to pay for it, whether I survive or not."
    - circular_lights 4y ago
GeekyBear 4y ago
> Does InReach require a monthly cost? You buy the hardware, pay a $30 activation fee, and a then pay monthly for the service. There are several service plans ranging from $15 a month to $65 a month. The cheap plan comes with 10 texts a month and the $65 a month plan has unlimited texting. If you pay an additional $35 annual fee, you can suspend the plan during months you would not use it. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06000-SU https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06000-SU

DMell 4y ago

Yes there are monthly plans that have different features - such as number of texts, custom messages, tracking intervals, etc.

dont__panic 4y ago

Any personal locator beacon recommendations? It's one of those items that I could very much use during bike touring, hiking, and bikepacking... but I've never bought one because it seems like a very large cost for something I won't even test until it is a matter of life and death. Out of curiosity... is there any way to alert your local emergency department in advance of testing a beacon, so you can verify that it works?

lxgr 4y ago
"Live testing" is discouraged: https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/ https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/
jzwinck 4y ago
I dont own this but it is pretty much the standard: https://www.acrartex.com/products/resqlink-400/ https://www.acrartex.com/products/resqlink-400/ These devices require a new battery every few years and that service includes a test done by the manufacturer. There is also a self test button on the device which does not send a message to the satellites. If you really feel the need to send test messages into space, they do support that but then you need a subscription (https://www.acrartex.com/406link/ https://www.acrartex.com/406link/). At that point you may as well buy a different device which has 2 way messaging included in the subscription. PLB users generally do trust that their devices work the first time they're used for real, and this trust is backed up by a lot of real world use.
- ghaff 4y ago
  >PLB users generally do trust that their devices work the first time they're used for real, and this trust is backed up by a lot of real world use. Although they are not foolproof. See for example the story of Kate Matrosova. [1] Basically, mountain shadows made the location readings erratic which, in combination with extremely bad weather, meant rescuers couldn't find her. [1] https://www3.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/21/the-young-woman-and-mountain/SEBPucaGpA1Fun4R5uoj7K/story.html https://www3.bostonglobe.com/metro/2015/02/21/the-young-woma...
  - tialaramex 4y ago
    Note that http://www.catskillmountaineer.com/reviews-winterhikingKM.html http://www.catskillmountaineer.com/reviews-winterhikingKM.ht... for example says Kate did not have a PLB, but only a SPOT (one of the many commercial products in this space) PLBs are tested down to -40° so it might have stayed working for longer as the weather got worse. It is of course impossible to say if Kate might have survived under other circumstances except that (not very interestingly) if she's decided the weather was too awful and aborted she'd almost certainly live.
    - ghaff 4y ago
      It's been a while since I read the book on this. I'm not sure if it got into the exact equipment or not. Certainly if SAR had an accurate fix from the beginning there would have been at least some hope for a rescue. The book was interesting mostly for all the SAR detail. The accident, sadly, was mostly in the category of--however fit and well-equipped you are--don't try to beat a very bad incoming storm on an exposed ridge line in the middle of winter. If she had turned around at Madison Hut or wherever she'd have been fine.
  - jzwinck 4y ago
    I only meant that the devices, if properly maintained, can be trusted to do their job as best they can and not say "PC LOAD LETTER" and expect you to troubleshoot it. A successful rescue is never guaranteed. Those of us who are programmers usually default to "If it's not tested end to end, it won't work," and that is the sentiment I was responding to.
jabroni_salad 4y ago
For PLB I am pretty sure it's universal. For messengers (like the inreach), find out what people in your geo use between iridium or SPOT because satellite coverage can vary. For example, I have heard that in alaska SPOT's only geostationary sat is really low on the southern horizon and anything that breaks LOS will interfere with the device. For PLB specifically you cannot test them. Once you activate them, they continually broadcast and cannot be canceled except by destroying the device. For messengers, they hook up to a web service and you can send messages to personal email or SMS via the sat network as your test.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  > I have heard that in alaska SPOT's only geostationary sat is really low on the southern horizon and anything that breaks LOS will interfere with the device. Any geostationary sat would be low on the southern horizon in Alaska. That's just how geostationary orbits work, they are over the equator. Though pretty high above (35.000km/22.000mi). So it's still visible there but yeah you need a clear view of the southern horizon. But Globalstar which runs the service for SPOT only has low earth orbit sats which are definitely not geostationary. They're only at a few hundred kilometers. However it could very well be that their orbits are aligned so that they are always pretty low to the south from Alaska, yes.
pajko 4y ago
This is a quite good writeup with some recommendations: https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/best-personal-locator-beacons-satellite-messengers https://www.greenbelly.co/pages/best-personal-locator-beacon... And answers your question: "Each device has a test mode that will communicate with the SARSAT satellite network without sending an alert."
- lxgr 4y ago
  > Each device has a test mode that will communicate with the SARSAT satellite network without sending an alert. That explanation is factually incorrect, then. There currently is no "test" flag, nor is there the required infrastructure to check if your test alert went through: https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/ https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency_beacon-testing/ So this "self-test" feature can't be communicating with actual satellites. No idea what it actually does, but it's definitely not an end-to-end test.
  - dont__panic 4y ago
    Perhaps the emergency communication with satellites is a handshake, and the "test" mode for the beacons simply doesn't complete the handshake?
    - lxgr 4y ago
      Possibly (the page I linked even mentions a "test" type of signal), but given that there is no return link for most PLBs and no "list of recent successfully received test transmissions" online, I don't understand how one would actually verify success. This policy document mentions that the "self-test" feature actually does not communicate with satellites at all, and also mentions a "test frame" that is discarded by satellites, as well as a "test protocol" that is forwarded by satellites, but discarded by the ground segment: https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/POL-MCC-051-v1.3-US-SARSAT-Program-Policy-on-Non-Distress-Transmissions-of-406-MHz-Beacons.pdf https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/wp-content/uploads/POL-MCC-051-v... So it seems like both the "self-test" and the "test frame" don't tell you a lot about how well your beacon would work in case of an actual emergency (unless you have equipment that can receive and interpret that signal), and live testing involves a lot of paperwork.

Johnny555 4y ago

Does InReach require a monthly cost? Yeah, the cheapest plan is $14.95/mo ($11.95/mo if you pay for 12 months) and includes 10 "free" text's, $0.50/text after that. I wish they had a non-cost plan (or maybe $10/year) plus $5/text or something like that for use in an emergency. I have an InReach, but haven't used it for an emergency (yet), I've sent a few texts to friends/family while outside of cellular coverage since they are "free", but would rather save money and only pay if I need to use it in an emergency situation. Maybe they'll have to get more flexible with their plans now that the iPhone has this feature, and T-Mobile is reportedly coming out with Satellite connectivity for phones.

lxgr 4y ago
> I wish they had a non-cost plan (or maybe $10/year) plus $5/text or something like that for use in an emergency. Given that the outdoor SAR use case is probably the largest reason for people to get one of these devices in the first place, I doubt that such a model would be economically sustainable (unless subsidized by government agencies or possibly insurances saving money due to spending less on large-scale search operations). Vendors could also bake a free SAR plan into the initial sales price, I suppose.
- chrisshroba 4y ago
  Yeah, if we conservatively say 1% of InReach users will need to send an SOS message, then looking at the math: Today, 100 InReach subscribers nets Garmin around $144/yr * 100 people = $14,400 If the InReach were free except for when activating the SOS, the SOS would have to cost $14,000 to make that same revenue from the same number of users. This would surely lead to more deaths due to folks waiting way longer to send an SOS. Numbers are estimates but the order of magnitude shouldn't be too far off.
  - Johnny555 4y ago
    They're going to lose the people like me anyway when phones can send a SOS by satellite, so their revenue from me will either go to $0 and I'll sell my InReach on eBay, or they can get some small amount of revenue (enough to cover the administrative costs of registering the device) from me.

masom 4y ago

InReach, and any users (other brands offering competing two-way communicators) of the Iridium satellite network, have ongoing fees. They're rather small compared to someone dying in the wilderness.

Buttons840 4y ago
My point was that you can avoid dying in the wilderness with an even cheaper PLB.
- lxgr 4y ago
  PLBs are great and definitely better than not carrying any emergency communications device at all, but they can ultimately only send out a binary signal: "I need help at location x/y". There's a lot of situations in which I'd appreciate being able to call help without possibly triggering an expensive helicopter SAR operation, when sending a park ranger would be more than sufficient (e.g. a sprained ankle a mile off the trailhead when solo hiking). Another advantage of two-way communicators is being able to get instructions from the SAR team: It can be vital to know whether you should e.g. go to higher ground (because your signal has not been received yet) or conversely seek shelter from the elements for a couple of hours. Newer PLBs partially solve that problem though, thanks to Galileo's "blue light" return channel.

s0rce 4y ago

So far 100% of my inreach use is texting family, I bought it for emergencies but so far (luckily) haven't needed it for that. I'm confident that it will work well enough in that situation that I don't need a PLB.

subsubzero 4y ago

It does, I have the fancier inReach - the one that can make calls and texts without being tethered to an iphone. The service runs $15 a month for the basic service and scales up depending on how many texts a month you want to use. I wouldn't ditch it for an iphone 14 as it is way more rugged and in really cold climates(I live near the mountains) a iphone will rapidly discharge its battery and will be useless. I finally broke down and got my inreach as I was exploring a canyon way out in the desert and a rockslide almost took out my ankle. I told my Wife when I got back and she made me get one as I most likely would have been in serious trouble as cell signal was not working and nobody was in miles of me.

carabiner 4y ago
Which Inreach model allows voice calls?
- jms703 4y ago
  None of the Inreach devices can make calls.
  - subsubzero 4y ago
    you are correct, inReach devices can text by themselves(with no cell signal) and can be paired with a cell phone to make calls(I have the 66i), but not make calls by themselves. https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-6E5DFD2E-EEE4-4EF3-89BC-AACD1B4936C7/EN-GB/GUID-201A6C2D-868B-4E8D-93F5-1D8EBB6736FE.html https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-6E5DFD2E-EEE4-4...
    - c0nsumer 4y ago
      Are you sure of that? I can find no info nor claims of inReach devices doing anything voice-wise, even when paired with a phone.
      - subsubzero 4y ago

tony_cannistra 4y ago

Actually, I'm not sure this is good advice. Two-way commiunicators are vastly preferred by Search and Rescue organizations. The reason for this is that they can learn about what they need to do and who they need to send to you, because they can ask you. If you have a broken leg, they'll send in 10 people to get you out. Dehydrated? Two responders and water. Calls that come in from "dumb" communicators like PLBs are more likely to get a 1-2 person "hasty" team assigned to them who can arrive quickly then call in more reinforcements if necessary. A SAR org. isn't going to put 10 volunteers on a PLB call that ends up being a rolled ankle, at least not immediately. This has the potential to greatly delay the time to care for you, especially for more severe emergencies.

widforss 4y ago
I'm on a SAR team. We literally deployed 10 people on both PLB's and Inreaches last winter. SAR people are cheap
- biomcgary 4y ago
  SAR people may largely be volunteers, but helicopters have fairly expensive operational costs. In time-sensitive situations, it is better to have two way communications (because it keeps SAR as inexpensive as possible). See my sister comment for my wife's experience.
  - widforss 4y ago
    Those two operations were made using snow mobiles, but yes, as soon as helicopters com into the picture, the costs skyrocket.
  - danuker 4y ago
    > because it keeps SAR as inexpensive as possible "Hurry, but please hold the helicopter, I won't make enough money for the rest of my life to pay for it, whether I survive or not."
  - circular_lights 4y ago

GeekyBear 4y ago

> Does InReach require a monthly cost? You buy the hardware, pay a $30 activation fee, and a then pay monthly for the service. There are several service plans ranging from $15 a month to $65 a month. The cheap plan comes with 10 texts a month and the $65 a month plan has unlimited texting. If you pay an additional $35 annual fee, you can suspend the plan during months you would not use it. https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06000-SU https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06000-SU