Did Apple kill the in reach
Equipment
Seems like the might have? I like the idea, surprised it took them this long.
Refer back to the "SOS" thread. Nightmare for SAR everywhere.
I don't think so. I've had my Inreach for 4-5 years, have used it to communicate with friends and family and share locations on several elk hunts and have never used the SOS feature. SOS is a nice feature to add to the iPhone but it would have to also allow regular texting to significantly cut into the Inreach market.
I noticed the new Apple Watch has that capability, figures a new phone would as well. I was gonna try and sell my wife on the idea lol. That's perfect. Put her mind at ease for SOS, and still no one can text me when I go remote. That's half the reason I go there lol
I don't know the actual number but a guess would be that the SOS feature is less than 1/100 of 1% of the total usage of InReach devices. The other 99.99% is messaging via satellite. Would be nice if my iPhone could do both, but they're not quite there yet.
Yeah, not yet. Hopefully someday. I'd love to have the ability to satellite text or call from my iphone. Maybe someday. Until then I'll carry my InReach on adventure hunts.
I think the SOS would be nice honestly to have on my phone. I think I'm far more likely to get hurt at home hunting, falling from a stand or wrecking my bike. And I don't carry my InReach at home. And some of the places I'm hunting it might be hard to find me otherwise. I guess this assumes I'll be awake to hit the SOS . . . .
In 2012 my cousin and a friend of his drowned while duck hunting when their layout boat capsized in big water. I'm not sure why there wasn't more of an "official" search that night. But it ended up that myself and two friends spent the night on the water searching and hoping to find them alive on a riverbank. My cousin's wife was able to call their phone company and they tried to ping his phone but it didn't work. They had a last location where the phone had been pinged, and it ended up being almost a mile from where they were found submerged in the river channel (they were found upstream and upwind, so it wasn't that type of issue)
I don't know how you work around this problem when the phone was submerged as well. But it definitely would have helped shorten the search had we had a closer location and not spent so much time a mile away searching downstream.
No, but Starlink might in the next few years. This year while hunting I was camped in an area with no cell coverage for 20 miles. Happened to look at my phone and saw there was wifi??!!
Turns out there was a guy camped about 300 yards away with starlink. He was actually working remotely up in the boonies. He wasn't even hunting. He and his wife just liked to spend the fall camping in the mountains. But with the starlink he could set up his own wifi hotspot and be totally connected to the world.
Right now the antenna is pretty small but to big for use on foot. But I see that they are now available for trucks. I'm sure starlink is working hard on developing phone size units. It would replace cell phones and internet service providers in many areas with marginal or no cell coverage and/or ISPs.
"I don't know how you work around this problem when the phone was submerged as well. But it definitely would have helped shorten the search had we had a closer location and not spent so much time a mile away searching downstream."
A quality waterproof phone case would have helped. I dropped my iPhone in the Pine Island Sound while landing a tarpon. It was in a water proof case. A full year later that phone was still pinging its location exactly where I had dropped it.
Matt
Matt, do you think it was actually pinging the phone's current location or it's last location? Would the phone need battery power to be located?
Altitude beat me to it. The SOS feature, while arguably the most valuable part of the inReach, is not why I bought mine. I bought it to stay in contact with my friends and family. If I can only use a device for SOS purposes, count me out. However, if/when the Starlink/T-mobile integration takes place, I may ditch AT&T (and my inReach).
Here’s the screen that pops up automatically if you don’t have cell service ( from WSJ testing)
I just ordered a Zoleo at REI- $150 Some outfits rate it higher than the InReach.
Maybe I should have upgraded my phone instead.
Yikes. At this rate in 10 years I will not feel nearly as good about them taking a true emergency call nearly as serious as they did the last 10 years. This makes me lean towards a PLB even more.
Durability/reliability is still my issue with any phone. As much as I hate garmin and its clunky 25 year old software technology, they are bomb proof. I have to have the phone covered, can't drop it and certainly can't just dangle it off my pack when it is snowing, raining or 2 degrees outside. I still run into that darn moisture warning when it is snowing or raining and I have the phone stuffed in a pocket. I use my phone for most of my backcountry navigation, but my 66i is always with me. I have had to rely on it multiple times because my phone just decided to freak out. Phones are not made for reliable backcountry use.
20 years ago, I needed a calling card to call home from college, 5 years later you could call free anywhere in the US. Now you can pay a small fee and use your cell phone international. It's only a matter of time before cell phones will have satellite capabilities. I love being off the grid, but I do love having the in reach capabilities
In the offshore fishing community you'll have to look real hard to find a boat without an inreach and an eperb or p perb.
