Garmin Inreach SE plus

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brainstorm

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I have just ordered one of these " Satellite Communicators" from Force 4 for £399. If they operate as advertised they should be an excellent piece of safety kit, especially along with an Epirb, or even instead of one. It allows people ashore to track one's progress, updated every 10 mins, and also allows text to and fro, and also has an SOS function. It seems good value to me against the cost of renting a satellite phone.
Has anybody else got one yet and got first hand experience? Or have I been sold a pup!
 
There used to be a DeLorme Inreach - presumably Garmin have bought them.

You might find more information under that name?

Pete
 
Yes I think there is a fee of about £25 to register, then £30 or 40 per month , for the months you want to use it. Even so it seems a reasonable deal. Renting a sat phone seems to be at least £10 per day for short periods , plus airtime.
In answer to PRV, he is quite right , evidently Garmin bought Delorme in early 2016, and have now released this new model.
 
I went down this road last year as an alternative to sat phone. Paired it with a tablet, and found it very useful. Good signal, so worked down below (better than previous sat phone experience). The unit is left on, so any incoming emails can get picked up straight away. You can also get weather information sent to the phone - looks like the software might now be capable of sending that request, but otherwise there is is a page here telling you you how to do it: http://wx2inreach.weebly.com/
 
Thanks Pye end very helpful. I just checked that link and the weather forecast seem to be restricted to US waters, or have you found you get local forecasts in the UK?
 
I use a delorme Inreach when out and about in the hills as a landscape photographer working alone, I bought it before it was acceptable to use a PLB onshore. It just works. I've had mine on the $12 a month emergency tariff but in April will be working offshore for long periods so will be using it a lot more to keep in touch with home.

The reassuring thing is you get two way comms, so you know someone is coming to help if needed.
 
brainstorm said:
Thanks Pye end very helpful. I just checked that link and the weather forecast seem to be restricted to US waters, or have you found you get local forecasts in the UK?
Click to expand...

Not just US.

You can get a few days based on the GPS position that the InReach automatically sends. Worked fine in the Atlantic (and at home).

You can set up some pre-set messages and email addresses, so I set up 'wx now io si' (see http://wx2inreach.weebly.com/details.html ).

It may be automatic now - I haven't tried the latest software yet.
 
We end just finished doing a transatlantic crossing as crew. We had an InReach (sold as Delorme, taken over by Garmin). The owner had a level of subscription which gave us unlimited texts, incoming and outgoing. Note that whilst you can send texts to email addresses, mobile phone numbers or other inReach terminals, they are limited to 160 characters.

It is possible to only use the inReach brick itself but it's much easier to use a Bluetooth link to a tablet or smart phone. We kept the inReach on all the time in a mount which kept the antenna in a position to pick up a good satellite signal.

The weather forecasts from inReach are area specific, centred on your chosen location, rather than the more normal area forecast. However, we found them to be accurate and useful. They cost, IIRC, $1 per forecast.

Tracking captures course a position, course and speed every ten minutes but only sends a signal to the satellite every four hours (you can choose a smaller interval for transmissions but we found four hours to be fine). The track can be viewed on a web page on the garmin site, which also allows people to send you texts.

The software is better on Apple IOS than Andriod: we found that it was too easy to turn tracking off on the Andriod version.

The only downside of the inReach is that it cannot be used for voice communications.
 
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Hi Duncan

Thanks very much it's reassuring to hear what you say. I am expecting delivery later today so looking forward to getting it set up.
 
Just the same as Duncan, recently completed a transatlantic and agree with all he says, just one thing to add. They clearly kept theirs nice and safe in its mount the one we had onboard dived from its usual berth beside the companion way hatch down into the cabin sadly it was terminal and stopped working. Needless to say the sudden lack of communication with all the outside contacts caused a little consternation, fortunately I had taken my Spot tracker which I was using once a day and the continued spot positions confirmed that we were alright and still on our way.
 
I've use both Inreach and spots. I think the ability to pre-program messages is very useful for my line of work: out in the boonies and having to regularly check in with HQ. Simple to message with and you can reassure people before they send out the cavalry for no reason. Better to be able to say: "I'll be an hour late" then have them guessing that the boat has sunk or you've been eaten by a bear or whatever.
 
brainstorm said:
I have just ordered one of these " Satellite Communicators" from Force 4 for £399. If they operate as advertised they should be an excellent piece of safety kit, especially along with an Epirb, or even instead of one. It allows people ashore to track one's progress, updated every 10 mins, and also allows text to and fro, and also has an SOS function. It seems good value to me against the cost of renting a satellite phone.
Has anybody else got one yet and got first hand experience? Or have I been sold a pup!
Click to expand...
Ive got one of the original ones, bought it new off ebay for £100, used it when we went down to Portugal, does what it says on the tin, excellent piece of kit plus it doubles up as an epirb
Stu
 
Thanks Armchair and thanks Stu. I have the unit now and am trying to get to grips with it. I have registered and signed up for a plan and have been able to send a message to my daughter in London, and got her reply. The message she received had a link to Google Earth and showed a remarkably accurate position and even proved that I was in the front garden. Today I want to learn how to use the tracking function. Am I right in thinking that anyone who wants to track you needs to download the free Earthmate App onto their phone or iPad, and then log in using my email address and password. I wonder then whether my position can be superimposed onto say a Navionics chart or will it just appear on the blank blue sea on the Earthmate map. Any help appreciated, I am not a techie person!
 
Scillypete said:
Just the same as Duncan, recently completed a transatlantic and agree with all he says, just one thing to add. They clearly kept theirs nice and safe in its mount the one we had onboard dived from its usual berth beside the companion way hatch down into the cabin sadly it was terminal and stopped working. Needless to say the sudden lack of communication with all the outside contacts caused a little consternation, fortunately I had taken my Spot tracker which I was using once a day and the continued spot positions confirmed that we were alright and still on our way.
Click to expand...

That's the only problem with trackers. Unless you have another way of informing those ashore they will start to panic if they don't get your regular position update.
 
You can set up a page on the Delorme website which shows your track, drop icons onto the track when you send a message and can be used by people to send messages to your inReach. No idea if you can grab the tracking data and drop it into another app. When I was doing the Greece to Lanzarote legs, my wife just did screen grabs of the tracking page and posted them to FB.
 
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