421–430 of 479 posts
I was just on the ground coordinating with 4 friends that got buried in 5+ foot of unexpected snow in the mountains (forecast said 1"-2" when they went up) for the rifle opener in Montana. I wound up getting sick so I stayed home (hilariously I was the only one who got an elk) but I sent them up with my InReach. All I can say is THANK GOD that I did, because it turned into over a week long effort to get them out. Two…
I was just on the ground coordinating with 4 friends that got buried in 5+ foot of unexpected snow in the mountains (forecast said 1"-2" when they went up) for the rifle opener in Montana. I wound up getting sick so I stayed home (hilariously I was the only one who got an elk) but I sent them up with my InReach. All I can say is THANK GOD that I did, because it turned into over a week long effort to get them out. Two…
Does InReach require a monthly cost? Alternatively, you can spend about $200 one time on a personal locator beacon that requires no ongoing costs. It can't do two-way communication but activating it sends out a specific frequency picked up by satellites and is the equivalent of calling 911. Rescuers will come to help you. All serious hikers and outdoor adventurers should carry a personal locator beacon.
You buy the hardware, pay a $30 activation fee, and a then pay monthly for the service.
There are several service plans ranging from $15 a month to $65 a month. The cheap plan comes with 10 texts a month and the $65 a month plan has unlimited texting.
If you pay an additional $35 annual fee, you can suspend the plan during months you would not use it.
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> there needs to be a "use it now, pay later" or no one is going to activate it and actually have it available when they need it I've been solo hiking, running, kayaking, and biking in areas without cell service since before cell phones were things people carried. Haven't needed emergency search-and-rescue in 20 years, so it's just never seemed like a good investment...that's $3600 I could have 'wasted' on a service…
>Haven't needed emergency search-and-rescue in 20 years, so it's just never seemed like a good investment It's just $16 a month and there are other uses besides SOS; like texting to say you'll be late but everything is fine or that you've decided to stay another night. You can even get weather forecasts which is pretty huge if you ever do multi-day trips. Besides all that, carrying an InReach could one day save someo…
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Does InReach require a monthly cost? Yeah, the cheapest plan is $14.95/mo ($11.95/mo if you pay for 12 months) and includes 10 "free" text's, $0.50/text after that. I wish they had a non-cost plan (or maybe $10/year) plus $5/text or something like that for use in an emergency. I have an InReach, but haven't used it for an emergency (yet), I've sent a few texts to friends/family while outside of cellular coverage sinc…
You can turn it off in the off-season making the annual cost not quite monthly * 12
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None of the Inreach devices can make calls.
you are correct, inReach devices can text by themselves(with no cell signal) and can be paired with a cell phone to make calls(I have the 66i), but not make calls by themselves. https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-6E5DFD2E-EEE4-4...
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One of my buddies does S&R in Marin county, they get called for people getting lost 300 yards off trail that were going for a walk CONSTANTLY. Just people out for a walk, no cell coverage. They never have gear with them. My friend said this a game changer.
I notice we have a lot of SAR people in this thread so question for everyone: Is it wrong to call for help when you are lost only 300 yards off trail like you said? I would be embarrassed - but is anyone going to be upset?
Mistakes happen.
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It can be easily reconciled if there are far more instances of false positives than true positives. Remember that a 99% accuracy for a condition that 0.1% of the population has still means 10 false positives for each 1 early diagnosis. I don't what the numbers are for the conditions that the Apple Watch can detect, just discussing the general principle. Whether it's more useful or more harmful depends crucially on th…
Their post said “nothing positive”. That’s different than “not a net positive”.
I'm not making a statement on whether the apple watch in particular is close enough to that line.
I'm surprised there isn't much discussion here about the similar capability announced by SpaceX and T-Mobile (first of many carrier partners) earlier this year. It will not be exclusive to emergencies, and will work with unmodified existing phones, not requiring you to hold the phone a special way, other than generally having a decent view of the sky. Even if SpaceX is delayed, there are competitors working on simila…
> I'm surprised there isn't much discussion here about the similar capability announced by SpaceX and T-Mobile Because the Starlink satellites in question don't exist yet, and it's Elon Musk making claims about existing handsets working -- he has a spotty record when it comes to making accurate announcements. I enthusiastically look forward to more capability in this space. But I doubt very much that Apple is introdu…
What do you mean? Teslas started self-driving across country to deliver themselves in 2017 as he promised, regular Mars flights began in 2020, and this year he hit two goals: shipping the colony equipment and bringing comedy back to Twitter!
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First off, super glad to hear your friends are out of the field safe. Want to address one point however: "The SOS button is very expensive. Extremely expensive" In my experience on multiple SAR teams (Search and Rescue), this is almost never the case in North America. Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost uniformly free [1]. Thousands and thousands of volunteer hours every year keep it that way.…
As someone with a bunch of idiotic friends that always find themselves needing SAR in North America. The rule of thumb within the group that has generally held true is: if you're on federal lands it's fully free, but if you're in resort, city, or state jurisdiction they'll absolutely try to claw back the costs. The SAR might be technically "free", but they'll categorize as many things under "medical emergency" as pos…
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First off, super glad to hear your friends are out of the field safe. Want to address one point however: "The SOS button is very expensive. Extremely expensive" In my experience on multiple SAR teams (Search and Rescue), this is almost never the case in North America. Search and Rescue is one of the few services that is almost uniformly free [1]. Thousands and thousands of volunteer hours every year keep it that way.…
While this is great to know, the SOS button is still fundamentally potentially a completely open-ended liability if you haven't taken Garmin's 30 buck annual insurance option for it. Even with that, you are only capped at $50k to best of my knowledge. Your Utah example illustrates this. In a real SOS situation the cost is likely immaterial, but I can absolutely understand why people would wait a bit longer than they…
Not in Canada. SAR is completely free in Canada for the reason you've basically alluded to in your next paragraph.
> but I can absolutely understand why people would wait a bit longer than they should before pressing.
I've been to a number of presentations from the local SAR, and whenever they're asked about this, they say that the reason SAR has no cost is precisely because they never want people to hesitate before pressing the button or making the call.