Steve Cole Photography

I think photographers are a solitary breed; perhaps it’s a conscious decision. There have been a few times when I’ve been out with someone taking photos and then wondered if my friend was getting bored while I did my thing. I don’t venture out solo as much as I have in the past but it’s not THAT uncommon for me to still do it. Solitude is a great experience but what if…..what if I fall and can’t continue? What if I’m just running later than I had intended? Will my girlfriend get so concerned that she contacts the authorities and initiates a search & rescue operation?..

These are questions that have been more and more on my mind. Granted, I haven’t really had any close calls but that’s no reason to be unprepared. Cell phones are very spotty in the mountains and just can’t be relied upon. In the last few years, a company named Spot LLC developed the Spot Satellite GPS Messenger, which is a satellite messaging and emergency communicator. Utilizing the Globalstar satellite network, it allows you to send predefined or custom messages (depending on the model) from just about anywhere in the world. If you find yourself in a situation that requires emergency assistance, the unit sends a message to the GEOS International Emergency Response Center and they will notify the appropriate emergency responders.

The SPOT device has been a huge success and their latest advancement was the SPOT Connect, a Bluetooth enabled device that, when paired with your smartphone, allows you to send custom messages to your predefined contacts. I was really thinking hard about this unit but I have read stories of users having problems pairing the device with iPhones (with I own) as well as the lack of any clear indicator that messages were sent successfully.

About six weeks ago, I stumbled across a new device called the Delorme inReach. Functionally, it works exactly like the SPOT Connect but on the Iridium Satellite network (a different network). It also has one major difference- the inReach device has the ability to send *AND* receive messages. If that wasn’t good enough, the physical unit still has the ability to function even if your smartphone dies. I knew that this was the unit I was looking for. There was just one problem- it only worked with Android smartphones or Delorme’s PN-60w GPS unit!

Three weeks after discovering the inReach, I read a rumor that the device had received FCC clearance for use with iOS devices and about 10 days after that, Delorme released a version that was compatible with iOS devices. I immediately ordered one when I heard this and had it in my hand a few days later. After a few outings with it (including a 4-day trip), I thought I’d pass along my initial impressions about the unit and its use.

You can learn more about its capabilities on Delorme’s website but, in a nutshell, here’s what you can do with the inReach device-

• Send 3 (user) predefined messages via the physical unit or custom messages (up to 160 characters) using the iOS app connected via Bluetooth to designated contacts.
• Post a status update to Facebook and/or Twitter
• Send a distress call to the GEOS International Emergency Response Center
• Share your location and progress to others via a web map called a Map Share

The inReach device for use with Smartphones retails for $250 but the app for the Smartphone (named Earthmate) is free. In addition to the initial cost of the device, a monthly subscription is required to use the device. Delorme offers several different tiered plans depending primarily on the number of monthly messages included. The full details are on their website but I decided on the middle tier plan which runs $25/month and includes 40 messages/month.

The first step towards activation is creating a new account online and this was pretty straightforward. After selecting a data plan, designating an emergency contact, and providing the serial number of your inReach device, you’re basically up and running. Through your online account, you also add “contacts” that are available for use when you’re out and about. I initially found this confusing since your phone’s address book is available when crafting a custom message in the Earthmate app. Here’s the difference- the three predefined messages (these are messages that are sent by pressing a specific physical button on the device) can ONLY be sent to contacts you have added to your account’s address book.

After setting up my account, I sent my girlfriend one of the predefined messages and within 2 minutes, her cell phone received the message. Successful on the first try- not bad! Bluetooth pairing with my iPhone 4S was a breeze (and continued to be with all future use as well). The next thing I wanted to test was the tracking (or breadcrumb) feature. I pressed the tracking button on the device (this can be turned on via the app as well) and then took a drive. I placed the inReach device on the dash of my car pressed up against the windshield and that seemed sufficient to log and report back my position at the interval I had selected (10 minutes).

Although the unit has been designed to operate without a smartphone, you’re going to want to use the smartphone app. Prior to developing the inReach product, Delorme was well known for its map atlas products. Thankfully, Delorme has decided to include 125k scale topographic maps available for download within the Earthmate App. The map tiles available for download include hydrography, contours, roads, cities, and hiking trails. I found this to be a great, unpublicized value.

I spent one more morning doing a test run with the device in my vehicle before putting it through its paces on my four-day trip down to Oregon’s Mount Hood and Columbia River Gorge area. During my trip, I used the device with tracking enabled for roughly 15 hours each day while I either hiked trails or drove from trailhead to trailhead. Most of my hikes were located under a forest canopy and the inReach device worked extremely well. The unit has an indicator light that indicates when it is busy sending/receiving messages. Oneonta Gorge (photo at the top of this post) along the Columbia River Gorge was the only location I visited where the inReach unit failed to transmit a location due to the terrain. Oneonta Gorge is a very narrow, slot canyon with a limited field of view so this isn’t that much of a surprise to me.

The device is primarily a communications tool but I really found the basemaps helpful enough to monitor my progress along the trail. In a perfect world, the basemaps would be of a better resolution (1:24k ideally) but there was enough information to locate myself, even without a paper map backup. Seeing as how Delorme is a U.S. company, I don’t know how well this would translate outside of the U.S. and Canada. The inReach device uses its own internal GPS for positional fixes (as of this writing the Android version uses the smart phone’s GPS unit. It will fall inline with iOS use after the June 2012 firmware update). Thankfully, the engineers at Delorme designed things so that other apps on your iOS device can utilize the GPS information from the inReach unit. So- although you can’t set a track and navigate to waypoints directly using Delorme’s setup, you CAN do this in a third party app like Gaia GPS. On my hike out from Ramona Falls, I set a new track using that app to record the last part of my hike. Once it’s recorded, you can export your track out as a GPX file or KML file like I’ve shown below.

LIKES-

• Fairly reliable signal across varied terrain (forest, open areas, etc)
• Easy to use
• Good, free basemaps are included with the purchase (download via internet connection)
• Visual indicators of what the unit is doing (current modes, messaging status, etc)
• Can be used independently of your smart phone should it become inoperable
• Long battery life (longer life coming in June 2012 via firmware update)
• Map Share can be password protected
• Can post to Twitter and Facebook, if desired
• Predefined messages (messages sent using the unit’s physical buttons) do not count against your monthly message quota
• Notifications of low battery strength on device and through the Earthmate app

DISLIKES-

• Subscription Plans are a bit pricey ($9/25/50 a month)
• No direct way to know how many of your monthly messages have been used
• Difficult (perhaps not possible at all) to cancel sending a predefined message
• Map downloads through Earthmate app is S-L-O-W
• No way to delete old tracking information in your account; you can only “hide” it using a date range option
• Map Share page doesn’t display well on mobile devices
• Icons on the Map Share aren’t customizable and are a little confusing since they are too similar; I’d prefer the ability to use different colors to indicate different types of events/messages
• Map Share URL isn’t very user friendly to share (alpha-numeric combination path)
• No Ability to customize what information does or doesn’t appear in a tracking point callout

Battery life is estimated at 60 hours using the 10 minute interval of tracking using Lithium Ion batteries. I don’t know exactly how many hours of use I had with my first pair of batteries but I believe it was in the neighborhood of 40+ hours. The upcoming firmware update in June 2012 will increase the estimated battery life up to 120 hours.

So there ya have it- the inReach device is a pretty solid device, worthy of the praise it has received from sources such as Backpacker Magazine. The positives are really positive and I believe the negatives can (and will) be worked out in the future. DeLorme has set up a discussion forum for the inReach and it even includes a suggestion forum where users can suggest new features or changes. My limited time spent there and on their blog has shown me that they do care and are receptive to feedback that their users provide. Case in point- the original inReach was only compatible with Android devices due to differences in Bluetooth protocols. Some folks who bought the unit just before the iOS compatibility announcement were dismayed that they couldn’t also use it with iOS devices. Delorme has agreed to upgrade their devices for a $50 fee. Sounds reasonable to me and a good move on their part! If there’s something I haven’t addressed here, leave a comment and I’ll try to answer!

[DISCLAIMER: I was not compensated in any way by Delorme or any other company/organization to write this review. The unit I tested was the unit I purchased for my own use]