Garmin inReach Mini 2, Lightweight and Compact Satellite Communicator, Hiking Handheld, Orange – 010-02602-00

So far it’s been great! Lightweight and superb connectivity.
I’ve had this inReach for over a month now and it’s done great! The battery lasts seemingly forever and it connects very quickly to the Iridium network. There is a lot of talk about how iPhones now have satellite SOS functionality but you are limited based on your location if it actually connects to local emergency services. It also doesn’t use the robust Iridium network like Garmin does.I use mine to keep in contact with my family when going into the mountains of Colorado with absolutely no issues. If you are going outdoors, buy an inReach mini. It will give you peace of mind and work flawlessly.

I love my garmin!!!
I purchased my Garmin on amazon because these are expensive and I needed to pay in installments. This garmin is amazing! Paying for the monthly subscription is not bad at all! Very affordable, you can pick different packages. It is heavy duty. I’ve dropped it plenty of times on accident and never broke. Using it is really simple. I can set up messages to send to family and also receive messages back from them. Get to stay safe out in the wild.

Overpriced, slow
This is old-school performance on high-tech equipment. I bought this for outdoor adventures in areas that have no cell coverage. It is functional, but you have to imagine that you are living in the 20th century to meet performance expectiations.First, the setup and activation took nearly 2 days. Yes, 2 days. I set up my account, put the InReach outdoors with full view of the sky, and then waited… and waited… finally after numerous power cycles, and more waiting, it activated. The instructions said that the long activation time is not an indication of normal performance. Yeah, right.Then I went camping in a remote area for a week. I sent a preset message, had InReach in full view of the sky, sitting on a small table. I waited… finally the message showed as Sent after 20 minutes. Not impressed. Other messages took anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to send; judging the replies was more difficult, but the quickest reply from a friend was about 30 minutes (this could have been due to the friend taking time to respond). Despite the slow performance, it never failed to send or receive a message.The subscription plans have Gotchas that are not advertised. The Freedom plan, aka “pay as you go” does not offer much Freedom. First, you have to pay $35 for each year you use the plan; so if you only use it one month every year, then it isn’t $15, it’s $50. And, contrary to what’s advertised on the Garmin site, you DO get charged for the months that you do NOT use it (as of June 2022), I believe $5/mo. For those reasons, I just did the Annual plan. The short of it: For ONE month, you pay $105 over the course of a year – that’s $105 for ONE MONTH of usage. For the Annual plan, you pay $178 over the year, which is $14.86 per month.For the type and amount of service you get, InReach can seem like a total rip-off. You need to decide for yourself if having ‘service anywhere’ justifies the cost. For me, it is, and it fits my budget.There are a few strong points of the Garmin InReach2 over other platforms. First, it is small. I mean tiny. It’s easy to pack and carry, and you do not need anything else – no phone pairing required. Battery life is good, and it uses a built-in rechargeble battery. The phone app is decent, and you don’t need service / internet to use it or pair it. Of course you need to have already downloaded the app, but that’s obvious. The screen is small but easy to read, unless you have poor eye sight. Still, let’s say you are older or farsighted and lose your reading glasses, the SOS button can be found and operated by feel, so there’s always that.Some downsides: Preset messages require setup on a computer via the InReach portal. The rechargeable battery means that you can’t use common batteries in a pinch, like AAAs or similar; and you need to have access to a USB-C charger.Complaints aside, if I knew all this before I bought it, I probably would have still bought it, mostly because I’m an electronics nerd.

Don’t go out of cell service without this
The mini 2 is a vast improvement over the original mini. The original mini has the worst GPS performance. It couldn’t hold a lock if there was even a sliver of tree cover. This one has a much better GPS hardware and satellite hardware too, so it works really well. I feel much more confident going out in the wildnerness with this as my safety lifeline.

It’s a Garmin. Nuff said. Got it for back country camping and hiking when we lose cell service

Tal como se anuncia. Llego rápido y en buen estado. Solo recuerden que al activarlo hay que comprarle una suscripción mensual o anual que ronda los 20-40usd mensuales para poder utilizar el GPS y los mensajes satelitales.

This item is very useful and a must have if you plan on hiking in the middle of nowhere with no cell service like on mount snowdon or ben nevis as it has a sos capability for it you get injured or lost and need to be evacuated/rescued as this small device will sure come in handy when you are out on your adventures