Delorme inReach Lock Failure

[Richard Nisley]

packrafting.org

[Ken Thompson]

Abuse. Packed so hard as to crush the casing. User error. I wouldn’t pay either if I were Garmin.

[matthew k]

Whoa. Mine activates easily with the lock on as well. It’s never been dropped or abused and his ridden on my shoulder strap for less than 30 nights of hiking.

[Greg Mihalik]

We have two inReach units.  While “powered off”, constant moderate pressure on the SOS button activates the SOS process on both, even when the slider button is in the Lock position.

When I first got my inReach, while not in Screen Lock mode, and clipped to an outside pocket with the keyboard facing in, my “pack” managed to move the cursor from Preset to SOS.  I was one random click from sending a SOS. (Clearly “operator error”.)   So I know buttons can inadvertently get pushed.

“Locked” should mean locked.

Thank you Richard for the alert.

 

[Ken Thompson]

Who has more attorneys?  Consumer electronics built to a price point always have  something.

Don’t care for the new version. Perhaps they can get things right eventually.  But I think Roman’s admitted packing issue won’t do him good here.

Any info on how often this happens?

[Greg Mihalik]

I called Garmin.  CS said “Yep. That’s how it’s designed”.

Here’s my “fix” –

Hard plastic, taped in place, with the tape mis-aligned on the back for easy removal. The SOS button sits in a recess, the plastic sits above/on the shoulder. It will take an iteration or two to get it right. Time will tell if the plastic stays in place or if I’ve made things worse.

[Dan Durston]

I can confirm that mine does this too.

I have to press pretty firmly, but not so hard that I can’t be confident this wouldn’t happen accidentally. My outer plastic screen cover got cracked in my pack once, which surely took more pressure than this takes. Not good.

[Diane Pinkers]

yep, mine does it too.  I had to jam it pretty darn hard, using both hands for quite a while to make it happen. Happened with the unit powered OFF.

[Gunnar H]

Have a look in the bottom of page 27 in the manual:

http://static.garmin.com/pumac/inReach-SE-Manual.pdf

It is one of the ways you can send a SOS.

[Dan Durston]

Gunnar: The manual doesn’t specify, but I don’t think Garmin meant for this SOS method to work when the safety is on. Otherwise, what would be the point of even having a safety? If they really meant for this to be one of the ways to activate an SOS, surely they’d inform the user that they need to push extra hard, or turn off the safety.

[Greg Mihalik]

The manual doesn’t address the “Lock” slider –

– only that even if it is powered off you can activate a SOS.

Apparently the “Lock” slider just provides 3 seconds of “protection” against inadvertent pressure.

[Rachel P]

Yeah we’ve had this problem before, but at least we never had a rescue come, I guess there was a way to cancel it. I remember when my daughter was 3 she pressed the button when it was locked. After that I put it where she couldn’t access it! At the time I thought our old Delorme was defective but it sounds like this is actually a “feature”. Its crazy, lock should mean lock.

[Gunnar H]

As I understand it not everybody had to push hard, just hold the button, and it seems to be only when turned off it happens. This is all consistent with the manual, so I think it is the intended function.

However I also think they got it seriously wrong when they decided that you don’t have to slide the lock when its turned off. And its almost criminal to fail to mention this “feature” clearly in the manual. But interacting with mankind doesn’t seen to have been Delormes strongest side, given the interface, the buttons and the rest of the manual. But it is still a great product, it works above the polar circle.

[Greg Mihalik]

^^^

“… and it seems to be only when turned off it happens.”

Nope.

When the device is On (powered up) and the slide is in Lock position, pushing the SOS button for three seconds will activate the SOS function.

Lock should mean lock.

[Dan Durston]

Saying this is what the manual describes is being too generous. If you try to do the second option described in the manual for sending an SOS (with device on, unlock, then press SOS), this option too actually works without unlocking it (as Greg describes). So the lock is simply not doing its job.

If Delorme merely wanted the “lock” to make it harder to press the button, they would have used a stiffer spring under the bottom, not a tab appears to prevent the button from being pressed, but actually doesn’t.

[Gunnar H]

OK if the problem occurs for many when turned on as well – that was not my understanding – it is clearly not working in a way consistent with the manual. Not a “feature” then, but a malfunction that far to many of the devices develop. Bad to have, good to know about.

[BCap]

Whoa.  Definitely not the behavior I would expect.  Next time I use mine I will be taping a guard on the device.  Not hard to do, but unacceptable to have that behavior on such a device.

[Jens Hallermann]

Thanks for making me aware of this problem – I found out that my Inreach SE has the same bug…

A cheap and light (8 g) idea: I cut off the lower third of a shampoo flask, it fits perfectly over the buttons and the SOS can’t be triggered as false alarm.

 

Nice extra feature ;-): The shampoo flask has a flat base, so the InReach can stand alone on the ground with the antenna pointing to the sky.

hth, Jens

PS: Please excuse my English…

 

 

[Michael Ray]

Mine will NOT activate with the lock engaged.

[Kenneth Keating]

In looking at the Inreach Explorer and Inreach SE manuals I downloaded in 2015, neither mention activating the SOS mode in a powered off scenario.  The Quickstart Guide clearly states to keep the slider in the locked position to prevent false alarms.   I’m wondering if this was not really designed into to the unit, rather it’s a failure mode, and the the manuals later updated to reflect this rather than having to recall the units.

 

[Eric B]

That’s a great idea! I’ve often stood around holding my Inreach to the sky, wondering why they didn’t make it with a flat base.

P.S. Dein Englisch reicht sehr gut!

 

[Anton Solovyev]

Frankly, the device has always been crappy. With market this small, probably no hope for it getting better. Especially once Garmin owned it (Garmin is good at finding creative ways to charge money, not so good at innovation and design).

Perhaps the solution is to stop messing with things and get a real Iridium sat phone. They are not that expensive.

 

[Greg Mihalik]

^^^

A 9505A is $500.  A monthly subscription for 10 voice minutes and 10 texts is $50

My SE and subscription is less than half of of each of those.

Got a link to some bargains?

[Anton Solovyev]

$50 is comparable to what people spend on a cell phone. The functionality is much more. Many places will require a sat phone, not a communicator anyway (float trips, adventure races).

I see little hope for Garmin to radically improve DeLorme, too few buyers and too little competition.

BTW, based on the look and feel of the DeLorme software, it’s some sort of a crude rip-off of a sat phone firmware. Looks unmistakably similar to the UI of an Iridium phone I had used. There’s probably no code base commonality with anything in house Garmin and probably no hope for improvement. That is, if anybody in the world can even compile this thing. We are stuck with it. Will be glad if I am mistaken.

[Greg Mihalik]

^^^

I don’t use a cell phone and nothing I do Requires a sat phone.

The inReach is far from perfect but more than adequate for backcountry communications.

My Mileage Does Vary.

 

[ Interesting time-stamps of these recent posts.  4:47pm on my desktop.]

[Author]

Posts