GarmininReach Mini 2, Lightweight and Compact Satellite Communicator, Hiking Handheld, Orange - 010-02602-00

I have always been a fan of Garmin products. I have used them throughtout myilitary career and in my civilian career.We watched alot of YouTube hikers and did alot of research prior to our hike which is and kept us out of cell service for several days. Several of the seasoned hikers had the Mini clipped to their bags and spike highly of it.You do have to pay for the service. I don't remember which one I subscribed but it allows for limitless check in messages. There are pre-determined messages. You can select the individuals you want to receive the messages when you set up. I would send a message prior to starting my day and another when I was done for the day.You can also send out perusal message and get weather updates.But the sole purpose of the Mini is to be able to call foe emergency services when needed. There is an SOS button. I never pushed it nor did I ever need to so I can't give details about who receives that message. I felt confident having it and my loved were able to track my progress. I would recommend clipping one to your bag before heading out.

Awesome product the short time I had it. Was super excited to use my Inreach on my dad and I’s fishing trip. Worked awesome and was loving the features and the peace of mind that the SOS button provided all the way up until I forgot to clip the Carabiner onto the back of the inreach from the cheap chest mount that I bought. At no fault of the garmin Inreach mini 2, it went tumbling out of the mount completely untethered into the river rapids below never to be seen again. I will definitely be ordering another and will be securing it to the carabiner first thing!

This is a great tour. If you know someone who’s going to be going out of cell phone range it needs a satellite phone. We paid for a Cell Phone plan for this one, and are very happy with it. When our son was up in the mountains with no service, he was able to contact us via call and text. When his truck broke down he was able to get help. Well worth it all the way!

Very reliable in areas without any mobile phone reception. It makes me feel a lot more safe on long solo back country hikes! The breadcrumbs feature is also extremely useful to backtrack to known waypoints. I bring the InReach on every hike. The setup was very easy, but it takes about 24 hours post activation to fully register and provide reliable connectivity.

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.

It's worth it to stay in contact with family/friends when you're off the grid out in the mountains. The app allows you to text people easily through your cell phone. Your text message is routed from your phone thru the Garmin mini2 satellite link-up. Pretty awesome. Monthly service is less than $15/month.