Garmin inReach Explorer+ discontinued

It seems Garmin has for some reason chosen to discontinue their inReach Explorer+ device. If you are / were on the fence about buying one I would do so soon. Some online retailers still have inventory available.

Not trying to make this a sales pitch, obviously everyone has a different scenario. But IMO the Explorer+ is / was the ideal backcountry communicator and SOS device. Being fully self sufficient with the virtual keyboard and rocker buttons - no cell phone or app needed. As far as I know, none of the other Garmin communicators in this family have that ability. They let you send preset messages, but I don't think you can type a custom message unless you are connected via the app.

The pessimist in my says that if shit ever truly hit the fan (I roll the truck or am seriously injured) my phone is either going to be broken or lost. So FYI if you were on the fence about pulling the trigger.
https://www.garmin.com.my/products/discontinued/inreach-explorer-plus/

 

The inReach Mini also allows you to send custom messages using he device, but it's definitely easier with the app. The inReach mini doesn't have maps on screen though.

For anyone on the fence about choosing an inReach vs SPOT or a PLB, I put together a bit about how to use one efficiently, with much help from Ken @DVexile. And, while it focuses on the Mini, everything there applies to the Explorer+ as well.

How I Use My Garmin inReach Mini Satellite Communicator

 

With AAPL going live with it's text to satellite last week for the iPhone it won't be long before all other manufacturers do the same. It will ultimately make things like the inReach obsolete. You could argue to still carry one for redundancy but those companies are about to lose a metric shit ton of market share.

 

InReach mini is also 'independant' no app or phone needed.

Edit: but I get what you're saying, my mini doesn't have a map screen. It does have a good GPS feature though, so pairs nicely as a nav back up with a map & compass

 

I was just going to say the same. You can send texts completely standalone but it would be painstakingly brutal, at least while learning how to do it (I've never actually tried).

From my limited understanding, that will only work for true emergencies, basically the SOS on a Garmin. Everyone uses their Garmins differently but I love the ability to send the preset messages and have casual texts with my wife. IMO inreach isn't going anywhere.

 

In it's current form it's only usable in an emergency. How long do you think it takes AAPL to add a $20/month text to anyone from satellite option? I'm betting under a year. The current program is a trial run to much bigger things. Once it goes industry wide in 5 years it's game over for inReach and the lot.

 

Apple is investing hundreds of millions of dollars into sat communication. It was some-odd $500M for them to get it set up just in Canada alone. It won’t be long until we see it opened up for rec use… Several other phone manufacturers have been working on it for a fair amount of time. Apple’s team started in it 7 years ago and the iridium network is already in place. I’ve owned an inReach since they launched back in 2013-14 (originally owned by Delorme). I’m looking forward to chucking it in the trash.

 

How well has yours worked? Mine's very finicky, even when connected to the app. It often fails to complete sending messages and/or not receive messages until I force a reconnection.

edit: I'd also note that I'd recommend sending a message in advance to anyone you're planning on texting with the device, so that they can save the number and associate it with you. The first person I texted with it didn't respond for two days because they had assumed the message was spam, due to it coming from an unknown number.

 

That’ll be great if that is the case, one less item to carry along. I still think it will be awhile though, we’ll just have to wait and see.

 

For sure. I think 5 years is a reasonable time frame to make it happen industry wide. I always carry my phone on alpine trips. I started using BackCountry Nav Pro for my topos years ago. It's so much better then a map and compass. I still carry those but haven't needed to use them in over 8 years. lol

 

Apple actually uses Globalstar (as opposed to Iridium). Their initial investment has been in ground stations to improve coverage in North America since Globalstar does not have satellite cross links (i.e. both you and the ground station must have simultaneous view of the same satellite). Apparently they are going to be paying more later to fund improvements to the actual on orbit constellation as well. They can't get immediate global coverage with Globalstar the way one can with Iridium (which technically only needs a single ground station to cover the entire globe since the constellation uses cross links). There has been *a lot* of garbage reporting on the Apple service from tech news sources that apparently can't think (or even just Google) their way out of a paper bag when it comes to satellite communications, so reader beware.

T-Mobile is pairing up with SpaceX going a different route of actually trying to use part of the terrestrial PCS band to link with the satellites. Not a lot of details as it is future satellites that will do it and so far while they plan to have cross links SpaceX hasn't implemented that yet. Someone else, I forget who, was partnering with Bezos's constellation.

So indeed, there is a lot activity in cell phone based satellite messaging. Will it become a commodity on everything? Probably eventually. Soon? Hard to say. Consumer level satellite services has resulted in a lot of bankruptcies over the years. At some point it will probably be ready for prime time and this might be the time. The thing folks (even the folks flinging around billions of dollars) have missed time and time again is that at the same time technology makes lower cost SATCOM possible the same kind of technology is making terrestrial networks have far broader coverage. Do enough consumers really care about emergency comms from remote areas to warrant a billion dollar investment from Apple to provide them to what is probably a tiny niche market? As terrestrial networks continue to fill out their coverage is that billion going to be worth it for the last 0.5% of coverage?

Anyway, it will certainly be exciting to watch. As for the providers (e.g. Iridium, Globalstar) honestly I don't think they care much about selling hardware. If someone comes to them with their own hardware (e.g. Apple) and just wants to buy network capacity from them then I think they will be singing and skipping to the bank. If inReach and SPOT go away because other devices have supplanted them probably no skin off their back - as long as whatever replaces it still uses their network. So at this point Globalstar at least probably feels pretty darn good about iPhone 14.

 

Once I understood how it worked, it's been quite reliable for me. I pretty much only use it as standalone, and pretty much only to send preset messages (since I'm cheap). I think I've sent a sum total of 4 custom messages - 3 with the app and 1 directly from the device.

As far as reliability goes - the catch with the Mini is that the GPS functionality seems to suck something seriously awful. Where my phone, 5-year old tablets, etc. seem to get a GPS lock within a few seconds of booting up, the Mini can take multiple minutes. I don't know if it's because Garmin wants more links for accuracy or what, but they've made the wrong tradeoffs there IMO.

But, the problem with the GPS wouldn't be such a big deal if it didn't interact poorly with the rest of the device's functionality. Before I get into that interaction, it's important to realize how the inReach communicates with the Iridium constellation...

In order to save power, inReach devices listen for a signal from an Iridium satellite before even attempting to send a message. If it can't hear the satellite, then the satellite certainly can't hear it either. This allows it to be much "smarter" than messengers powered by other constellations (e.g. SPOT, since the SPOT blindly transmits and "hopes" a satellite is listening). InReach, instead, listens for the satellite (a much, much lower power operation than continuously transmitting in the blind) and when one is heard, the inReach does a quick handshake before sending out the message and receiving a read receipt from the satellite.

Unfortunately - and this is where the GPS shittiness comes into play - many InReach devices take power saving one step further and won't even try to listen for Iridium until it can hear GPS first. In this mode, they will refuse to send a message without GPS unless you intervene. Combined with the fact that some InReach devices (e.g. Mini) have really sucky GPS front ends, this can make the network seem far less reliable than it actually is. Intervening to force transmission without location is not difficult, but the UI should do a better job of informing the user about what is going on.

So, what does it mean to "intervene"? Well, it turns out that when a message is "stuck" in the sending state, backing out of the message UI and going to the location UI can kick the GPS to reattempt connectivity. When it eventually connects, switching back to the message UI will trigger the message to send.

It's a bit of a pain, and it's made worse if you only turn the device on when you want to send a message (this is how I do it, in order to save battery in case I ever end up in an SOS situation), since it means that the shitty initial GPS acquisition is always necessary - but once you know how to workaround the shortcoming, it becomes much more predictable. For me at least.

 

Yes, this is the critical undocumented "feature" of the Mini. I get very reliable comms starting from power down by following this sequence:

- Power up the device
- Immediately scroll to the GPS position screen
- Wait for it to get a GPS fix
- Go back to the main screen
- Send my preset message

The very first time I use it on a trip it may take a bit of time to get a GPS fix because it is pretty close to a cold start. Subsequent uses typically get a fix within 30 seconds or so from power up and then send out a message in 30 seconds to a minute with a mostly clear sky. Things can be much slower with a very restricted sky and in such cases you might want to just tell the thing to attempt sending a message without a position fix if you don't really need a position fix for that message.

The GPS on the Mini sucks nuts. I don't understand exactly why it sucks so badly and it hasn't been worth my time to disassemble and reverse engineer the thing.

The Iridium radio on the Mini is the Iridium 9603 which is pretty darn rock solid.

So if the Mini software would just use the stupid 9603 without the GPS dependency the device would be far more reliable for sending informational text messages where a position fix isn't important.

 

Good knowledge! Would be nice if somebody could hack the device's firmware to work more effectively. Or maybe to pull GPS data from the phone, figuring that they shouldn't be more than a few feet from one another if they're linked, and if the phone can get the GPS signal, the Mini should be able to, too.

 

Hmmm… I see there is now an InReach Mini 2 with a new navigation chipset that also uses other navigational constellations beyond GPS.

 

Hrm. Maybe I'll upgrade from the lady's InReach Mini.

 

Interesting, I did not know that. Like @EatSleepTacos said I can imagine how slow it would be, but good it at least has the option.

I don't see that happening at all. A device like the inReach is specifically designed for the task at hand. A very rugged, simple, compact device with no touch screen to break and a battery that can last weeks on end if used properly. I do not think a cell phone will ever replace that for the person who is truly remote, not just Instgram remote, and needs to be certain they can reach the outside world when needed. But again everyone has a different use case and Im sure most folks are not that 'extreme'.

Good point.

 

I will admit, even the Explorer+ isnt great on the GPS side of things. If conditions are nice it hasn't been a big issue, but even a cloudy day can slow it down quite a bit

 

As a person who thought the same thing about phone based mapping for use in the alpine 10 years ago let's just wait and see. lol

 

For clarity I think you had a quote editing issue there, @DVexile didn't say that but rather @SR-71A...

Some form of satellite capability in almost every cellphone is almost inevitable as the cost to add such features to a handset is becoming vanishingly small from a hardware perspective. The real costs are in the network/constellation and so that's where it is more difficult to predict exactly what kind of services would be provided over that hardware. Just emergency comms? Coverage gap filling for SMS? Voice? Data? Of course since the handset hardware is the same cost for all of those what will probably happen is tiered services and if at least emergency comms becomes available by default that will probably save some lives of the ill prepared. And satellite will always be a gap filler, it will never replace terrestrial cellular networks, so it is of utility to a fairly small set of users a small fraction of the time.

Personally I'll always carry a dedicated emergency comms solution with me. I do use my phone as my GPS when hiking, it is vastly better than any "dedicated" navigation device. I also use my phone for quick "trail photos" when I don't feel the need to drag the camera out of the pack. Since my phone already gets use on a hike, and it is a complicated device liable to suddenly decide to drain its battery, I want at a minimum a separately powered dedicated device not constantly being updated over the air with potentially bug laden updates.

But I'm an oddball. I actually have three SATCOM devices on my trips, each using a different constellation (SPOT/Globalstar for the vehicle, inReach/Iridium for my person, PLB/SARSAT if all else fails). Many people are out there with none. Having something just included in your phone more or less "for free" is undoubtedly going to reduce the market for stand alone devices while also vastly increasing the number of people with emergency SATCOM access.