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Has anyone got one of these and can help me out?
I recently purchased one and it will send messages out and contacts will receive it. However their replies will not come through at all via satellite?
Waiting on reply from garmin, they've made it quite difficult to access any product support which I'm not impressed with.
What unit?
Do you have it paired with the explore app, or just the unit itself?
Im not impressed with Garmin either. They seem to think that everyone is technology savvy and its only dimwits that cant work it out. Ive spent 6 months procrastinating over signing in to a new Garmin package. Am at the stage of going old school and saying to hell with it.
I can't offer any specific advise but there might be a YouTube tutorial that helps
The unit is called an inreach messenger, little square shaped unit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst
I've paired it with the new messenger app, but doesn't matter if it's paired or not it still won't receive anything (I've tried both ways)
if you bought it from a store..take it back and get it sorted BY THEM while you wait..... funny watching NZHunter today on demand,one of the adds was for the new starlink/cell coverage and in next segment Willy did speil on the garmins and epirb..... garmin will need to up their game if the new system is even half as good as planned.
This is one thing I don't like about InReach - it's a great step up over no communication and Sat phones with their issues (access to satellites in steep country, $10+/min costs) but the tech side of it with how InReach devices are configured I think is a bit risky to be able to rely on it. The main issue is the system is just different to what most people are using at the other end, a smart phone which is set up with it's own unique ID set in the IMEI number on the Telco network. The InReach is identified by it's account setup in Garmin's system which is different and requires the message to effectively be received by Garmin, identified as an InReach message going to account xxxxx and then matched up to the correct device attached to that account before being sent on. It also requires a message to go out to that device first otherwise the Garmin system struggles to identify which account and device it needs to go to - this is in effect a translation step or a handshake between the two network types to get them both talking nicely. The issue in the one I had to use was in the account setup and it got handed to someone else to fix which I recommend (if it's an option haha).
Try the following though:
https://support.garmin.com/en-NZ/?fa...EJ2e3RodPc3ad8
https://support.garmin.com/en-NZ/?fa...LC8KhFNWJEVPI7
You probably already know this,........ there is a specified "link" in the recieved message you have to send your message back through. If you just hit the reply button,, message will not be forwarded to you...
@Husky1600#2 I said to Malcolm last year we had a inreach, he said don't bother messaging him i will pick you up at x date and x time:D
Yes have tried that, from the screen that link takes you to I get an error message and it fails to sendQuote:
Originally Posted by matagouri
Sounds like an account setup issue with your Garmin account, it's probably similar to what went pear shaped with the unit I had to use. I never had the pleasure of trying to reply to it, was supposed to be forwarding updates on progress out to the manager. Matagouri is correct though, the message goes out with a link that you follow to reply on garmin's service portal and that junction between the service types is where I had the issue as well. The outgoing message didn't arrive correctly, and the reply service failed with an error message.Quote:
Originally Posted by Skinny White Boy
By the time they got it sorted we did a few test messages but were working back in cell service so the InReach system was no longer required.
I have texted my wife on our SAR inreaches before and she just texted me back from her phone,no special portals or anything she just hit reply.
Mine was a complete fck around. To the level it was not reliable In the hills so I ditched it.
My experience with the inreach mini has been pretty good. Number one you must load all your contacts via Garmin explore and then sync the device. Messaging and replying via text is not an issue - adds up depending on plan but worked well with Heli operators. Inreach to inreach is great and worked well in Fiordland last year and south Westland this year. When sending email it’s just been one way Comms which has been fine can always use the text option. That being said it looks like Starlink and Vodafone (one nz) will be a game changer - be interest8 g to see what the plan cost could be.
Looks like 2024 before they roll it out, and then it's going to be a slow time thing. Messaging only, followed by some voice capability followed by some data with no timeframe to when the capabilities roll out... Looks like Voda/1NZ have done the big reveal as part of the rebranding but the details are very much a work in progress and wait until 2024 when we confirm it!
Apparently 2deg is in the final stages of negotiating with a satellite service provider, and Spark is in talks with everyone else as to the best way forwards before they announce anything. It will be interesting to see who rolls out the capability first, and in the final washup who's done it best...
The biggest advantage I can see is one device (cellphone) doing it all - almost the same as the dual-sim phones when they came on the scene allowing you to run a voda and a telecom sim. I think you could see the cellphone in conjunction with a powerbank take over all back country duties apart from PLB - and sure as anything someone will invent an app to do that. If I was Garmin, I'd be looking to bring out a cellphone device incorporating a PLB, a radio and a scanning doohickey for the pighunting boys as their market share on sat comms is not going to be looking flash that's for sure...
I'm sure hoping 2D can pull this off as I wont give money to Voda
Update.
This thing just randomly started working properly with no replies or contact from garmin.
Glad it now works but hasn't exactly filled me with confidence
I've got the 66i Inreach and done a few trips with it now. Found it good in terms of the messaging to and fro - once set up properly. The painful things are:
1. Basecamp - which I spent untold hours learning to use - is now redundant it seems and the Explorer app is how you communicate and swap files etc. It is no better than basecamp - as others here have said it is a classic bit of software written by youngsters who assume everyone is expert in garmin-speak.
2.Also they changed Tracks to Activities. My 66i was beeping at me in the bush and I could not work out why, and thought maybe a memory issue, and I found activities and figured I'd never heard of those so deleted them to make space. Issue was that I thereby accidentally deleted the tracks I had spent 3 days walking and recording..... OK my fault, but it is not at all intuitive and why would they change something like that? Turns out is was beeping at me to warn that I was to "Continue to Paved road" as for some reason, navigation had turned on and assumed I was heading to a road, even though "hunting" was set up as the profile. Maybe thats USA hunting? Eventually I figured out how to turn navigation off....
3. Garmin support is non existent. If you can't work it out yourself, there is no hope of anyone else doing so from the garmin end. Probably a profitable business model, until there is an alternative...
4. It is good being able to send texts. But you also need to include on the texts that you get charged for replies so don't reply to "all going well here" type texts - unless it's important.
5. I can see I'm at the beginning of another 50 hour learning journey to work out how to use a laptop etc to set up a map showing tracks and block boundaries etc so that can be loaded on GPS and shared. Explorer is an awful piece of software. Reminds me of the IRD site where the IRD boffins assume everyone is an expert with their internal jargon.
6. The aerial is OK, better than Monterra but not as good as 62s and needs to be exposed to the sky on your shoulder, not in a pocket.
7. I reckon its a great backup for an EPIRB incorporating GPS.
8. Battery life is pretty good as long as you have the screen set to turn off after 2 mins, as by default it stays on all the time. 10 hours use with the screen off uses less than 30% of the battery.
Maybe someone knows of youtube or other tutorials that speed up the process of learning how to get activities tracks waypoints etc off the 66i and onto explorer, saved in a collection and then edited by colour and description so as to show all the block tracks waypoints and boundaries, without double ups?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Happy Jack
You don't need to worry about giving them money, When I was with them the most difficult thing was paying my bills. Even after I left them they still threatened me with debt collecters over the $3 my account was in CREDIT.