Originally Posted by
Aushiker
I have been using mine now for a number of years and until my last trip, last December the messaging was pretty good. Not much worse than what I can experience with the mobile service here in Australia, however on that last ride there was a noticeable lag. That is concerning if it is becoming the norm. Still for me riding in remote areas of Australia where phone coverage can be non-existent for large periods of time, the inReach is still the best option me short of going with a satellite phone.
I have a plan where I pay AU$6.00 a month to suspend it and then whatever I need per month when I want it activated. Not sure if Garmin offer something similar or not.
I guess I wasn't impressed that much with the service. when we were trying to relay medical information back and forth, the latency was long enough that sometimes we were overtaken by events. So, in actual practice, when we had to actually have a conversation, it was not the greatest. As well, using just the unit itself for composing a message is slow - similar to those days of 10 key cell phones and texting.
It's been a bit, but I seem to remember that it was about $35 a month while it was activated. That struck me as a lot for what you got. But, in those particular use cases of being in the boonies in a third world country, being in very remote area not easily accessible by motor vehicle, or at sea - then the choices are limited and this is one of them.
In our case, when we needed it to work, did it work? Yes but I don't think I'd say it worked "well.". Was it effective? Yes, but..... It has worked ok for tracking movement and I presume it would work well for that when coupled with an SOS. We've also used it backpacking in the mountains and found that when down in valleys that the location tracking would get wonky. I suspect that has something to do with latitude and satellite visibility. It's better than nothing but it's not a slam dunk success either. I'd probably give it a 2 to 2-5 out of 5 stars if I was forced to get it down to user rating.
J.