inReach account set-up, not for me (continue reading for try #2 success)

[jmez]

Thanks for the tips bro. The emails were actually working and receiving the test message but the phones weren’t. I wish I’d have had more time. Was looking forward to the mini.


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That is not uncommon either. Half the messages I send and receive never make it to the phone. I have no idea why.

I'll send my wife a message, the phone app shows it as sending, the mini shows it as sent, my wife responds to the message and the phone still shows it as unsent.

Get several incoming messages to the mini that never show up on the phone.

2 years running now on all of the above.

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[crdmax]

Took me about 20min start to sending my wife a text to see if it worked and it did!! Took it to work with me to play around with and all was great!! Shut it off that night and the next day it wouldn’t come on!! Got into a chat with cs and within a few min they decided it was defective unit!!! The guy asked where I bought it from and I told him amazon and he said to send it back to them cause it would be faster than garmins warranty process!! Sent it back had a new one in a couple days...got on a chat again to figure out how to switch my account to the new mini!! The guy in the chat walked me thru it and in about 10min I was up and running!!! Used it several times and has been great!! The messages can take a bit to go thru sometimes but it’s not that bad!! Been very happy with it!!


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[robby denning]

Took me about 20min start to sending my wife a text to see if it worked and it did!! Took it to work with me to play around with and all was great!! Shut it off that night and the next day it wouldn’t come on!! Got into a chat with cs and within a few min they decided it was defective unit!!! The guy asked where I bought it from and I told him amazon and he said to send it back to them cause it would be faster than garmins warranty process!! Sent it back had a new one in a couple days...got on a chat again to figure out how to switch my account to the new mini!! The guy in the chat walked me thru it and in about 10min I was up and running!!! Used it several times and has been great!! The messages can take a bit to go thru sometimes but it’s not that bad!! Been very happy with it!!


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I’m jealous.


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[Pro953]

I feel the pain. Mine works now but setup was FAR from seamless. I was fortunate to have mine six months before I needed it so it allowed some time to workout the kinks. It’s not the most seamless plug and play setup. Good yes, but a serious competitor could crush them in if they made the CS and interface experience better.

I have had a handful of Garmin GPS systems over the years as well. The devices and the base map/base camp software and interface have always been fairly clunky.


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[mpg07]

Sometimes putting out positive vibes goes a long way in a successful outcome.

 

[mpg07]

Positive i wont be buying Garmin again!

 

[camping1601]

I've had an SE since 2015 and a mini since 2018 and have had to use Garmins Tech support several times between switching units and trying to use both at one time. I used the call back feature of their CS and can't say enough good about them. Everyone I spoke to was very kind and patient and we worked through the issues.

Yes setting one up can take some time, but this is the case with many electronic devices.

 

[camping1601]

That is not uncommon either. Half the messages I send and receive never make it to the phone. I have no idea why.

I'll send my wife a message, the phone app shows it as sending, the mini shows it as sent, my wife responds to the message and the phone still shows it as unsent.

Get several incoming messages to the mini that never show up on the phone.

2 years running now on all of the above.

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I've had some of these issues with the mini, but not my full size unit. I'll also say with confidence that the mini doesn't have near the power to send and receive messages. I can use my SE inside my camper, but the mini not a chance.

 

[robby denning]

I've had an SE since 2015 and a mini since 2018 and have had to use Garmins Tech support several times between switching units and trying to use both at one time. I used the call back feature of their CS and can't say enough good about them. Everyone I spoke to was very kind and patient and we worked through the issues.

Yes setting one up can take some time, but this is the case with many electronic devices.

Their CS was very nice and helpful, hope it didn’t come across that they weren’t. But in the end, the unit wouldn’t work. Could even be defective. Hitting the road now so I’ll never know.


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[Tod osier]

Their CS was very nice and helpful, hope it didn’t come across that they weren’t. But in the end, the unit wouldn’t work. Could even be defective. Hitting the road now so I’ll never know.


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I know many love the inreach, but consider a sat phone. About 1k new and monthly is not too bad compared to the inreach. We got caught up in a forest fire this summer in the bob and having the person to person voice communication made all the difference in that situation. The first phone call for fire status paid for the phone.

Hearing the voice of a loved one is worth it too for me.

 

[wind gypsy]

They are clunky, I've had issues with two different delorme units. I have found it is important to download all of the frequent updates to them.

There was a guy in sheep camp with a mini who was having struggles with his as well.

At the end of the day, mine works most of the time and has been a valuable gadget to me.

 

[danarnold]

I bought a mini this year, set it up easily, connected to my phone np and sent a test txt to my wife with sucsess ....turned it on in the field for 1/2 hour in fairly open country and cant send anything, tried in diff areas for longer periods of time w/o luck.
I was pretty patient with it but the "what if?' I really need it for the reason I bought it outweighs everything.

I have a couple rhinos that work fine as a radio but totally suck compared to Gaia gps for nav, it blows me away that a company that huge can't do what an app on my phone can.
My mini will be returned

 

[Cockeye]

It must be the mini that’s the problem because if you can use a smartphone you can set up the SE with no problem. My SE would keep a charge for least three days and charging was super fast from 20k mil amp backup battery

 

[hikenhunt]

I had my mini setup in about 30-40 minutes and worked well in the field. Later on, it took a little longer to figure out how to setup inreach-to-inreach messages because of a synching issue, but figured that out fairly quickly and that has worked well in the field too. Haven't had any of the issues Robby has run into. I don't ever remember needing to contact CS when I set mine up.

Hopefully it (or something else) works better for you next time you try to set it up!

 

[justin davis]

Good to hear. I can’t afford that stuff anyways!

 

[jspradley]

One day all of our cell phones will directly communicate with the satellites and this will all be irrelevent.

It probably won't be until after you are way too old to hunt anymore so that's probably no comfort but at least it'll probably happen some day.. lol

 

[Deplorable77]

I've had nothing but problems with mine. It is completely miserable to use, and it's a 50/50 if any of the messages will be delivered or the track you're recording will be in the device when you are trying to find your way back to camp. Yes, mine is current on software updates. The customer support is a joke. I primarily bought this to be in contact with my wife or other parties in my group while hunting/riding areas without cell service and the gps features was supposed to be the cherry on top. I ride (dirtbike) in a lot of remote regions and can easily get 50- 80 miles from my truck in a few hours . My teenage son rides with me and if one of us were to get injured or have a mechanical problem, I wanted to have something communicate with. Sat phone and Onx looks like the way to go. Here are two screenshots of the same track ridden today at approximately the same amount of zoom. You tell me which one is going give you confidence in backtracking to your original location? Sometimes the Garmin records , sometimes it doesn't. Completely unreliable and the customer support is even worse.

 

[tim tarras]

@robby denning, at least it is happening before you left. This year i went to Colorado, I set up camp and sent messages out that camp was setup and everything was good and went to bed. The next morning I went into to town to get things and got a text from my Dad as to why I haven't let them know how things were. I tried some more messages in the Walmart parking lot and nothing was going through.

Tried some things on my own and finally called Garmin. I ended up having to do a soft reset on the unit to get it to work, which required a WiFi or mobile data connection. This took from 9 AM to 3 PM. I used it that night and everything worked. I tried it the next morning, left it on all night, and got no response. After waiting an hour I drove to where I got reception and called my Dad to see if he had received the messages, which he didn't. So I ended up pulling out and coming home because I couldn't depend on it to work. So I drove a total of 4 days (round trip) for a 2 day camping trip.

I called when I got home and they sent me a replacement, refurbished, unit which I got on Wednesday. I tried to activated it today and couldn't. Called Garmin, minimum of an hour wait on hold, I left a call back number and received a call back 45 minutes later. It turns out the Dumb ass that returned this unit never bothered to deactivate it from their account. Garmin is looking into it but won't know until next week as to how to resolve this issue.

 

[fwafwow]

No problem with my setup, or connecting with my phone or watch - but I bought my unit and set everything up well in advance so that I could test everything out without being rushed or out in the wilderness. Yes the msgs sometimes were out of order, or delayed when I didn't have a clear line of sight (and sometimes even when I did), but I wasn't trying to carryon complicated conversations - just stay in touch. I'd say it's perfect for what it costs and what it's for.

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[5MilesBack]

You know, it's funny. My buddy had to use my flip phone all season to check in at home because his I-phone couldn't pick up any service.......and we both use Verizon.....LOL. My flip phone normally had at least 3 bars wherever we were. He was really frustrated when I was sitting in camp talking on my phone and he couldn't even send out a text. And the best part........I didn't even have to recharge the battery until I got home.