11 ms·

But low-bandwidth text is all I need. I guess I won't be renewing my subscription for my InReach Mini forever (although that form factor is pretty nice). I don

But low-bandwidth text is all I need. I guess I won't be renewing my subscription for my InReach Mini forever (although that form factor is pretty nice). I don't need to be able to stream Netflix when I'm in the backcountry, it's just that my wife insists I need to be able to get a helicopter if I break my leg. Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps, and log into a high-latency, low-bandwidth, high-packet-loss network instead so Messages will actually open instead of whatever it's trying to do to upload my location history and download contact pictures...

patryn20 3y ago
Not sure if it’s still this way, but Kotzebue AK was the perfect place to test low bandwidth internet. The over the horizon satellite uplink the entire town shared could only allocate 56k speeds to each client and had horrific packet loss. I had to rearchitect an entire file synchronization and uplink system for resilience while sitting in a hotel room in the middle of a blizzard during the shortest days of the year so I could deploy software for clients up there.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > The over the horizon satellite uplink the entire town shared could only allocate 56k speeds to each client and had horrific packet loss. I found your uplink. IDK the date of the photo. https://uploads.alaska.org/blog/Carl-Johnson-Blog/Kotzebue/_1600xAUTO_crop_center-center_65_none/Carl-Johnson-Kotzebue-0314-NWARAC-OTZ-1034.jpg https://uploads.alaska.org/blog/Carl-Johnson-Blog/Kotzebue/_...
  - jamiek88 3y ago
    So weird to see a dish that size almost pointed horizontally!
  - patryn20 3y ago
    Yes! It literally pointed at the horizon. Awesome find.
ghaff 3y ago
For the InReach use case, there's still something to be said for a rugged, long battery life, dedicated device (assuming you're cautious enough to have one and subscribe to the service). On the other hand, everything is a tradeoff and if your lifestyle is such that having a dedicated inReach is unlikely to ever be a key piece of safety equipment, there's a lot to be said for just relying on your phone. There's very little bandwidth you need when you're in the backcountry, especially given some reasonable pre-download of maps and other information.
- capitainenemo 3y ago
  Personally I just keep a spare cellphone battery in a pocket for emergencies. Would be awesome to have this service. I'm using a T-Mobile MVNO and last I checked they had no idea if T-Mobile would be extending them the service.
- wildzzz 3y ago
  I'm not a backcountry skier or much of a hiker but if I was, I'd much rather have a rugged device that can survive much better than an expensive piece of glass. I've damaged phones in the past by them getting bent in my pocket during rigorous activities. If my crumpled body is laying at the bottom of a cliff, I doubt my phone fared much better. A solid body device with a simple interface could be the difference in me being found in a couple hours or a couple weeks. Direct to phone satcom is neat and I can see plenty of applications for it but I know that I wouldn't stake my life on it simply due to it being a consumer-grade phone.
  - rob-olmos 3y ago
    I'm thinking the same.. if I've fallen off a cliff or crashed my bike and broken my leg, possibly in shock too, I want something rugged & simple to activate like a PLB
  - ghaff 3y ago
    I literally just destroyed an iPhone which was in my pocket, in a case, and I apparently smashed it into a rock (which I wasn't even really aware of except it was rugged hiking generally). Probably protected my thigh. I do carry a spare battery etc. I suppose I could keep my phone in a rugged case in my pack and use something else for pictures and maps but that's sort of getting away from the idea of one device you always have right with you.
gumballindie 3y ago
So basically app developers should build low bandwidth apps - that would be a win for high bandwidth users too. Everything transfers massive amounts of data exhausting even gigabit fibre fast.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  There anre also environments that are high-speed but high-cost or capped gb/month. I like how I can tell an iPhone that a wifi AP is a “low bandwidth” one so it holds off on many tasks. But you can screw yourself over if you tether a computer, even a Mac.
  - ElFitz 3y ago
    TripMode is great in those cases.
    - macintux 3y ago
      I’ve found recently that TripMode keeps forgetting the apps I’ve blocked. Haven’t done any investigation, but it’s disconcerting when I check the list and find that iCloud is once again enabled.
xoa 3y ago
>Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps, and log into a high-latency, low-bandwidth, high-packet-loss network instead so Messages will actually open instead of whatever it's trying to do to upload my location history and download contact pictures... FWIW, it's perfectly possible to simulate arbitrary levels of bandwidth/latency with a variety of tools even while having a fiber connection. For example, Macs have long had the "Network Link Conditioner" tool as a free utility included with the Additional Tools for Xcode package, which then allows simulating configurable bandwidth, latency, and packet loss. There are similar tools for Linux as well, tc is powerful. Most firewalls with quality traffic shapers also allow at least the first two at the network level, I used that on OPNsense to simulate a VSAT connection with 750ms latency and 4/.5 to a specific VLAN so that we could just connect systems and then see how applications worked. It's been awhile but it was eye opening. A nice thing about that approach is that then you can just connect devices to a given VLAN, which makes testing back and forth super easy. Wired is trivial of course, have a switch where each port is a different test VLAN, but even for wireless if you have WAPs that support PPSK/MPSK, then hopping between test VLANs just means reconnecting with a different password. Simulating packet loss with a network device seems the be more niche and complicated and I don't know if any firewalls put a GUI on it. tc queue disciplines can be used though so any Linux device with two network ports can sit inline and modify the traffic to simulate loss/latency, an RPi would be fine for that. I agree it'd be nice if more app developers would test under less than ideal conditions, particularly since it's so trivial to do so. I think most simply don't think about it though, same as many GUIs (web or local) not testing for stuff like various types of color blindness.
- cassepipe 3y ago
  Firefox's console in its Network tab also has a way to choose what tier of bandwidth you'd like: GPRS, 3G etc. Thought it was worth mentioning
  - DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
    I find Firefox and Chrome's network-limiter feature to be "unrealistically unreliable" insofar as it limits data transfer bandwidth, and simulates some kinds of latency issues, but doesn't seem to implement things like DNS suddenly stopping working for 5 seconds, or sporadic network drop-outs, or how some things will arrive out-of-order, or an entire web-page blocked by a single synchronous <script> from one particular external host.
sangnoir 3y ago
> Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps You should try WhatsApp - there really are not many messenger choices when you have unreliable 2G(!) connectivity. For all the faults of Meta, WhatsApp seems to be the only company that cares about people with bandwidth measured in kbps, sometimes fractions thereof.
- ugjka 3y ago
  Because Whatsapp is huge in Africa IIRC
  - fishtacos 3y ago
    It's huge in many countries where Internet service has been expensive or difficult to come by. Case in point, all my relatives in Eastern Europe use WhatsApp, and with better bandwidth options, some are using FB Messenger for video calls,.as well.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    Facebook used to have (has?) 2G Tuesdays, where devs had to test their stuff at 2G speeds, for this exact reason.
  - murphyslaw 3y ago
    Everyone I know in Belgium/The Netherlands/... uses Whatsapp. It's even got into the language: "to app someone", i.e. "iemand appen".
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  WhatsApp also gracefully handles being offline and queuing messages for later. That can’t be said of iMessage.
  - sangnoir 3y ago
    Offline queueing is a fantastic feature! I know someone who lives in a remote area whose phone only gets network connectivity when they walk up a specific hill. In many ways, they use WhatsApp the way most people used email in the dialup days: read and compose offline, then go online once a day to send and receive new messages. Edit: I sometimes get a chuckle when they say "Look at this cool picture I took", and then receive the picture some days later when the conversation thread has moved on. I guess they'd have stayed in thr coverage area for long enough for the entire image to upload.
whyenot 3y ago
I was recently in a fairly remote area of the Sierras and my iPhone when totally haywire and then died. Somehow water had gotten inside. That makes me a little concerned about depending on my phone for everything in the backcountry, but maybe what I need is a really good case for it.
- ElFitz 3y ago
  Depending on the remoteness and risks, I would go for a better case and a backup simpler and more reliable device.
  - ra7 3y ago
    The simpler and more reliable backup device is the Garmin InReach.
- vidarh 3y ago
  Or get a cheap "armored" waterproof Android phone. There is a whole thing of Android phones that look like Black and Decker designed ruggedized phones, some of them with extra large batteries. My son has one that is pretty much indestructible. Also ugly enough some other kids cornered him and wanted to "see it" a while back and decided it wasn't even worth stealing.
  - Grimburger 3y ago
    Not cheap, but CAT phones are pretty awesome: https://www.catphones.com/en-gb/ https://www.catphones.com/en-gb/
  - fullspectrumdev 3y ago
    I have one of those - “builder phones” as some call them - for outdoor activities. Cheap, fucking indestructible, and you could probably bludgeon someone to death with it in a pinch. It also has a thermal imaging camera which is surprisingly handy for stuff like “finding where in the garden my cat is hiding at night” or “figuring out what’s overheating” or monitoring the state of my compost bin.
AdamJacobMuller 3y ago
While it's plausible that I, too, will cancel my inreach subscription over this i'm not so entirely convinced. My InReach (I have an Explorer, not the mini) is an exceedingly rugged bit of kit with an effectively infinite battery life. It is, by no means, a sleek or svelte device like my iPhone but if I fell down on a trail and broke all my fingers (or had severe frostbite or something) I'm fairly confident I could operate the device with some combination of my teeth, nose and toes. I'm also fairly sure that it will keep functioning even if I had accidentally dropped it off a cliff, in a blizzard, into an ocean. The mini is basically the same kind of rugged so you know exactly what I mean :) The battery also lasts basically forever. I turned mine on about 48h ago before a trip and it's been on ever since and I just checked and the battery is at 86% with 2-minute tracking intervals. Anyway I am still very happy for the starlink service for the 99% of people who don't have an InReach, it will definitely save lives, I'm just not yet ready to ditch my InReach.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> I won't be renewing my subscription for my InReach Mini forever (although that form factor is pretty nice) Before getting an InReach, confirm a 406MHz emergency beacon doesn't fit your bill [1][2]. (I have this one [3].) You can't text a loved one. But with no subscription, a years-long battery and powerful radio that works around the world, you can call emergency services to your precise location. [1] https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency-406-beacons/ https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency-406-beacons/ [2] https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/personal-locator-beacons.html https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/personal-locator-bea... [3] https://www.rei.com/product/161982/acr-electronics-resqlink-400-personal-locator-beacon?color=ACRTREUSE https://www.rei.com/product/161982/acr-electronics-resqlink-...
- biomcgary 3y ago
  My wife hikes in Western Colorado quite a bit and has helped rescue 3 parties over the past 4 years. In one case, a young woman (an ER nurse) was in dire distress for no apparent reason and fading quickly (in retrospect possibly COVID related sequela). Initially, emergency responders were going the route of a land-based rescue, but the Mini allowed the urgency to be communicated more clearly. The helicopter touched down on a scree field (but couldn't land) while my wife and a couple others helped the EMT load her. Docs said that she had less than an hour or so before long-term consequences or death. Any emergency beacon is better than none, but two-way communication can be a literal lifesaver. I hope that the Starlink system is eventually linked into our 911 infrastructure and available to anyone with an LTE phone regardless of carrier.
  - zmj 3y ago
    Two-way communication is important to prevent false positive emergencies, too. There have been several times I've used my inReach to message that I'm going to miss my planned check-in time, but everything is OK - no need to alert SAR. Also to communicate on-the-fly decision-making to inform potential SAR - "I'm making good time, going to head up this extra peak before continuing the planned route." I'm happy to have a cell phone backup to the inReach, but I don't see this Starlink offering as a replacement. That goes double if you're out in winter. Phone batteries aren't great in the cold.
andrew_ 3y ago
I have an InReach Mini that I use when I go offshore fishing, where I'm out of cell range by 40 miles or more. The Mini is nice, when it works. Most messages I send take 15-20 minutes to send, and the delay is even longer on receiving most of the time. And that's in the middle of a large body of water with no obstruction of the sky. I've been waiting with bated breath since the announcement of Starlink in the hopes that it could knock out the three satellite services I use the most: InReach Mini for text comms and location sharing, XM Radio, and XM Weather. I'm really looking forward to when this becomes available for individuals and not just businesses. Also really looking forward to 12v Starlink equipment and affordable marine plans.
jakogut 3y ago
It's actually trivial to simulate a high-latency low bandwidth network on Linux with the traffic control subsystem, one need not switch networks at all. tc qdisc change dev enp1s0 root netem delay 300ms 200ms loss 10% 80% This command delays all packets in and out of the wired interface enp1s0 300ms, +/- 200ms, with 10-80% packet loss.
- dataflow 3y ago
  Where's the low bandwidth portion of the command?
  - notTooFarGone 3y ago
    You can also limit interfaces with TC to a certain bandwidth. It's super easy!
- throwfaraway398 3y ago
  all packets in and out Are you sure about that ? According to man tc, it only works on egress.
  - jakogut 3y ago
    Nope, I would definitely trust the man page.
mr_toad 3y ago
> Now we need app developers If I’m reading the docs correctly the satellites will offer SMS service directly so you won’t need an app, you’ll just need your carrier or roaming provider to support it.
- lxgr 3y ago
  Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to convince an iPhone to actually send an SMS to a specific number, at least if the contact is registered for iMessage...
  - mr_toad 3y ago
    If you have no data connection it will fall back to SMS.
    - lxgr 3y ago
      What if I know that the recipient doesn’t have a data connection, but I do? This is all incredibly clunky and one of the weakest points of iOS in my view. How can it be so hard to provide a switch that lets me use SMS proactively?
killingtime74 3y ago
I can take my inreach mini underwater up to 50 meters with the official accessory dive case (I bottom out at 45). Short of making a custom case I can't do that with a cell phone and I'm not sure it's rugged enough to take even small waves.
tjbiddle 3y ago
The US is fairly unique in that everyone still texts. The rest of the world use apps that need data, like WhatsApp. While SMS would be great for low-bandwidth use cases like this, most people don't use it to the point where having contacts accessible with it on the other end would be an issue.
- vikarti 3y ago
  As far as I understood, this is because US carries throws unlimited SMS for free and data is costly. In my country, it's possible to get unlimited sms but for additional fee on some carries (other carries just provide N SMS per month) and data prices are rather low even now.
- aembleton 3y ago
  If they're on Whatsapp, then they've got their number. Surely everyone can receive an SMS? If its an emergency, you're not going to care what app you're using, just so long as you can communicate.
pmontra 3y ago
> Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps or also any web app. In a Rails app I recently started working on for a customer I saw many controller actions starting with a call to a method called simulate_delay_for_development. I checked the code and when run in development mode it basically sleeps for a random value between 0.1 and 3.0 seconds. I'm sure that there are gems for that or proxy servers sitting between the browser and the server, but it's a cheap and effective way to make every developer experience delays with zero installation costs.
- helb 3y ago
  Browsers can simulate that without a proxy too: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/network_monitor/throttling/index.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/networ... Chrome can also throttle the CPU power: https://www.wikihow.com/Throttle-Your-Browser-for-Testing https://www.wikihow.com/Throttle-Your-Browser-for-Testing
SergeAx 3y ago
This messaging app already exists, it called Telegram. I was on a boat around Aeolian Islands and Telegram started working once my phone got Edge (=2G) coverage. Slack and WhatsApp were unable even to connect to server without at least 3G.

patryn20 3y ago

Not sure if it’s still this way, but Kotzebue AK was the perfect place to test low bandwidth internet. The over the horizon satellite uplink the entire town shared could only allocate 56k speeds to each client and had horrific packet loss. I had to rearchitect an entire file synchronization and uplink system for resilience while sitting in a hotel room in the middle of a blizzard during the shortest days of the year so I could deploy software for clients up there.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> The over the horizon satellite uplink the entire town shared could only allocate 56k speeds to each client and had horrific packet loss. I found your uplink. IDK the date of the photo. https://uploads.alaska.org/blog/Carl-Johnson-Blog/Kotzebue/_1600xAUTO_crop_center-center_65_none/Carl-Johnson-Kotzebue-0314-NWARAC-OTZ-1034.jpg https://uploads.alaska.org/blog/Carl-Johnson-Blog/Kotzebue/_...
- jamiek88 3y ago
  So weird to see a dish that size almost pointed horizontally!
- patryn20 3y ago
  Yes! It literally pointed at the horizon. Awesome find.

ghaff 3y ago

For the InReach use case, there's still something to be said for a rugged, long battery life, dedicated device (assuming you're cautious enough to have one and subscribe to the service). On the other hand, everything is a tradeoff and if your lifestyle is such that having a dedicated inReach is unlikely to ever be a key piece of safety equipment, there's a lot to be said for just relying on your phone. There's very little bandwidth you need when you're in the backcountry, especially given some reasonable pre-download of maps and other information.

capitainenemo 3y ago
Personally I just keep a spare cellphone battery in a pocket for emergencies. Would be awesome to have this service. I'm using a T-Mobile MVNO and last I checked they had no idea if T-Mobile would be extending them the service.
wildzzz 3y ago
I'm not a backcountry skier or much of a hiker but if I was, I'd much rather have a rugged device that can survive much better than an expensive piece of glass. I've damaged phones in the past by them getting bent in my pocket during rigorous activities. If my crumpled body is laying at the bottom of a cliff, I doubt my phone fared much better. A solid body device with a simple interface could be the difference in me being found in a couple hours or a couple weeks. Direct to phone satcom is neat and I can see plenty of applications for it but I know that I wouldn't stake my life on it simply due to it being a consumer-grade phone.
- rob-olmos 3y ago
  I'm thinking the same.. if I've fallen off a cliff or crashed my bike and broken my leg, possibly in shock too, I want something rugged & simple to activate like a PLB
- ghaff 3y ago
  I literally just destroyed an iPhone which was in my pocket, in a case, and I apparently smashed it into a rock (which I wasn't even really aware of except it was rugged hiking generally). Probably protected my thigh. I do carry a spare battery etc. I suppose I could keep my phone in a rugged case in my pack and use something else for pictures and maps but that's sort of getting away from the idea of one device you always have right with you.

gumballindie 3y ago

So basically app developers should build low bandwidth apps - that would be a win for high bandwidth users too. Everything transfers massive amounts of data exhausting even gigabit fibre fast.

Scoundreller 3y ago
There anre also environments that are high-speed but high-cost or capped gb/month. I like how I can tell an iPhone that a wifi AP is a “low bandwidth” one so it holds off on many tasks. But you can screw yourself over if you tether a computer, even a Mac.
- ElFitz 3y ago
  TripMode is great in those cases.
  - macintux 3y ago
    I’ve found recently that TripMode keeps forgetting the apps I’ve blocked. Haven’t done any investigation, but it’s disconcerting when I check the list and find that iCloud is once again enabled.

xoa 3y ago

>Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps, and log into a high-latency, low-bandwidth, high-packet-loss network instead so Messages will actually open instead of whatever it's trying to do to upload my location history and download contact pictures... FWIW, it's perfectly possible to simulate arbitrary levels of bandwidth/latency with a variety of tools even while having a fiber connection. For example, Macs have long had the "Network Link Conditioner" tool as a free utility included with the Additional Tools for Xcode package, which then allows simulating configurable bandwidth, latency, and packet loss. There are similar tools for Linux as well, tc is powerful. Most firewalls with quality traffic shapers also allow at least the first two at the network level, I used that on OPNsense to simulate a VSAT connection with 750ms latency and 4/.5 to a specific VLAN so that we could just connect systems and then see how applications worked. It's been awhile but it was eye opening. A nice thing about that approach is that then you can just connect devices to a given VLAN, which makes testing back and forth super easy. Wired is trivial of course, have a switch where each port is a different test VLAN, but even for wireless if you have WAPs that support PPSK/MPSK, then hopping between test VLANs just means reconnecting with a different password. Simulating packet loss with a network device seems the be more niche and complicated and I don't know if any firewalls put a GUI on it. tc queue disciplines can be used though so any Linux device with two network ports can sit inline and modify the traffic to simulate loss/latency, an RPi would be fine for that. I agree it'd be nice if more app developers would test under less than ideal conditions, particularly since it's so trivial to do so. I think most simply don't think about it though, same as many GUIs (web or local) not testing for stuff like various types of color blindness.

cassepipe 3y ago
Firefox's console in its Network tab also has a way to choose what tier of bandwidth you'd like: GPRS, 3G etc. Thought it was worth mentioning
- DaiPlusPlus 3y ago
  I find Firefox and Chrome's network-limiter feature to be "unrealistically unreliable" insofar as it limits data transfer bandwidth, and simulates some kinds of latency issues, but doesn't seem to implement things like DNS suddenly stopping working for 5 seconds, or sporadic network drop-outs, or how some things will arrive out-of-order, or an entire web-page blocked by a single synchronous <script> from one particular external host.

sangnoir 3y ago

> Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps You should try WhatsApp - there really are not many messenger choices when you have unreliable 2G(!) connectivity. For all the faults of Meta, WhatsApp seems to be the only company that cares about people with bandwidth measured in kbps, sometimes fractions thereof.

ugjka 3y ago
Because Whatsapp is huge in Africa IIRC
- fishtacos 3y ago
  It's huge in many countries where Internet service has been expensive or difficult to come by. Case in point, all my relatives in Eastern Europe use WhatsApp, and with better bandwidth options, some are using FB Messenger for video calls,.as well.
- jorvi 3y ago
  Facebook used to have (has?) 2G Tuesdays, where devs had to test their stuff at 2G speeds, for this exact reason.
- murphyslaw 3y ago
  Everyone I know in Belgium/The Netherlands/... uses Whatsapp. It's even got into the language: "to app someone", i.e. "iemand appen".
Scoundreller 3y ago
WhatsApp also gracefully handles being offline and queuing messages for later. That can’t be said of iMessage.
- sangnoir 3y ago
  Offline queueing is a fantastic feature! I know someone who lives in a remote area whose phone only gets network connectivity when they walk up a specific hill. In many ways, they use WhatsApp the way most people used email in the dialup days: read and compose offline, then go online once a day to send and receive new messages. Edit: I sometimes get a chuckle when they say "Look at this cool picture I took", and then receive the picture some days later when the conversation thread has moved on. I guess they'd have stayed in thr coverage area for long enough for the entire image to upload.

whyenot 3y ago

I was recently in a fairly remote area of the Sierras and my iPhone when totally haywire and then died. Somehow water had gotten inside. That makes me a little concerned about depending on my phone for everything in the backcountry, but maybe what I need is a really good case for it.

ElFitz 3y ago
Depending on the remoteness and risks, I would go for a better case and a backup simpler and more reliable device.
- ra7 3y ago
  The simpler and more reliable backup device is the Garmin InReach.
vidarh 3y ago
Or get a cheap "armored" waterproof Android phone. There is a whole thing of Android phones that look like Black and Decker designed ruggedized phones, some of them with extra large batteries. My son has one that is pretty much indestructible. Also ugly enough some other kids cornered him and wanted to "see it" a while back and decided it wasn't even worth stealing.
- Grimburger 3y ago
  Not cheap, but CAT phones are pretty awesome: https://www.catphones.com/en-gb/ https://www.catphones.com/en-gb/
- fullspectrumdev 3y ago
  I have one of those - “builder phones” as some call them - for outdoor activities. Cheap, fucking indestructible, and you could probably bludgeon someone to death with it in a pinch. It also has a thermal imaging camera which is surprisingly handy for stuff like “finding where in the garden my cat is hiding at night” or “figuring out what’s overheating” or monitoring the state of my compost bin.

AdamJacobMuller 3y ago

While it's plausible that I, too, will cancel my inreach subscription over this i'm not so entirely convinced. My InReach (I have an Explorer, not the mini) is an exceedingly rugged bit of kit with an effectively infinite battery life. It is, by no means, a sleek or svelte device like my iPhone but if I fell down on a trail and broke all my fingers (or had severe frostbite or something) I'm fairly confident I could operate the device with some combination of my teeth, nose and toes. I'm also fairly sure that it will keep functioning even if I had accidentally dropped it off a cliff, in a blizzard, into an ocean. The mini is basically the same kind of rugged so you know exactly what I mean :) The battery also lasts basically forever. I turned mine on about 48h ago before a trip and it's been on ever since and I just checked and the battery is at 86% with 2-minute tracking intervals. Anyway I am still very happy for the starlink service for the 99% of people who don't have an InReach, it will definitely save lives, I'm just not yet ready to ditch my InReach.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> I won't be renewing my subscription for my InReach Mini forever (although that form factor is pretty nice) Before getting an InReach, confirm a 406MHz emergency beacon doesn't fit your bill [1][2]. (I have this one [3].) You can't text a loved one. But with no subscription, a years-long battery and powerful radio that works around the world, you can call emergency services to your precise location. [1] https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency-406-beacons/ https://www.sarsat.noaa.gov/emergency-406-beacons/ [2] https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/personal-locator-beacons.html https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/personal-locator-bea... [3] https://www.rei.com/product/161982/acr-electronics-resqlink-400-personal-locator-beacon?color=ACRTREUSE https://www.rei.com/product/161982/acr-electronics-resqlink-...

biomcgary 3y ago
My wife hikes in Western Colorado quite a bit and has helped rescue 3 parties over the past 4 years. In one case, a young woman (an ER nurse) was in dire distress for no apparent reason and fading quickly (in retrospect possibly COVID related sequela). Initially, emergency responders were going the route of a land-based rescue, but the Mini allowed the urgency to be communicated more clearly. The helicopter touched down on a scree field (but couldn't land) while my wife and a couple others helped the EMT load her. Docs said that she had less than an hour or so before long-term consequences or death. Any emergency beacon is better than none, but two-way communication can be a literal lifesaver. I hope that the Starlink system is eventually linked into our 911 infrastructure and available to anyone with an LTE phone regardless of carrier.
- zmj 3y ago
  Two-way communication is important to prevent false positive emergencies, too. There have been several times I've used my inReach to message that I'm going to miss my planned check-in time, but everything is OK - no need to alert SAR. Also to communicate on-the-fly decision-making to inform potential SAR - "I'm making good time, going to head up this extra peak before continuing the planned route." I'm happy to have a cell phone backup to the inReach, but I don't see this Starlink offering as a replacement. That goes double if you're out in winter. Phone batteries aren't great in the cold.

andrew_ 3y ago

I have an InReach Mini that I use when I go offshore fishing, where I'm out of cell range by 40 miles or more. The Mini is nice, when it works. Most messages I send take 15-20 minutes to send, and the delay is even longer on receiving most of the time. And that's in the middle of a large body of water with no obstruction of the sky. I've been waiting with bated breath since the announcement of Starlink in the hopes that it could knock out the three satellite services I use the most: InReach Mini for text comms and location sharing, XM Radio, and XM Weather. I'm really looking forward to when this becomes available for individuals and not just businesses. Also really looking forward to 12v Starlink equipment and affordable marine plans.

jakogut 3y ago

It's actually trivial to simulate a high-latency low bandwidth network on Linux with the traffic control subsystem, one need not switch networks at all. tc qdisc change dev enp1s0 root netem delay 300ms 200ms loss 10% 80% This command delays all packets in and out of the wired interface enp1s0 300ms, +/- 200ms, with 10-80% packet loss.

dataflow 3y ago
Where's the low bandwidth portion of the command?
- notTooFarGone 3y ago
  You can also limit interfaces with TC to a certain bandwidth. It's super easy!
throwfaraway398 3y ago
all packets in and out Are you sure about that ? According to man tc, it only works on egress.
- jakogut 3y ago
  Nope, I would definitely trust the man page.

mr_toad 3y ago

> Now we need app developers If I’m reading the docs correctly the satellites will offer SMS service directly so you won’t need an app, you’ll just need your carrier or roaming provider to support it.

lxgr 3y ago
Unfortunately, it's incredibly hard to convince an iPhone to actually send an SMS to a specific number, at least if the contact is registered for iMessage...
- mr_toad 3y ago
  If you have no data connection it will fall back to SMS.
  - lxgr 3y ago
    What if I know that the recipient doesn’t have a data connection, but I do? This is all incredibly clunky and one of the weakest points of iOS in my view. How can it be so hard to provide a switch that lets me use SMS proactively?

killingtime74 3y ago

I can take my inreach mini underwater up to 50 meters with the official accessory dive case (I bottom out at 45). Short of making a custom case I can't do that with a cell phone and I'm not sure it's rugged enough to take even small waves.

tjbiddle 3y ago

The US is fairly unique in that everyone still texts. The rest of the world use apps that need data, like WhatsApp. While SMS would be great for low-bandwidth use cases like this, most people don't use it to the point where having contacts accessible with it on the other end would be an issue.

vikarti 3y ago
As far as I understood, this is because US carries throws unlimited SMS for free and data is costly. In my country, it's possible to get unlimited sms but for additional fee on some carries (other carries just provide N SMS per month) and data prices are rather low even now.
aembleton 3y ago
If they're on Whatsapp, then they've got their number. Surely everyone can receive an SMS? If its an emergency, you're not going to care what app you're using, just so long as you can communicate.

pmontra 3y ago

> Now we need app developers to log off their fiber-served wifi when writing messenger apps or also any web app. In a Rails app I recently started working on for a customer I saw many controller actions starting with a call to a method called simulate_delay_for_development. I checked the code and when run in development mode it basically sleeps for a random value between 0.1 and 3.0 seconds. I'm sure that there are gems for that or proxy servers sitting between the browser and the server, but it's a cheap and effective way to make every developer experience delays with zero installation costs.

helb 3y ago
Browsers can simulate that without a proxy too: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/network_monitor/throttling/index.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/devtools-user/networ... Chrome can also throttle the CPU power: https://www.wikihow.com/Throttle-Your-Browser-for-Testing https://www.wikihow.com/Throttle-Your-Browser-for-Testing

SergeAx 3y ago

This messaging app already exists, it called Telegram. I was on a boat around Aeolian Islands and Telegram started working once my phone got Edge (=2G) coverage. Slack and WhatsApp were unable even to connect to server without at least 3G.