DeLorme inreach users ??

Why would a company make a survival product without interchangeable batteries?

Three possibilities come to mind:

1. Easier to make a water-resistant / waterproof product if you don’t need a battery door with potentially leaky seals.
2. Follow the crowd. User-removable batteries are disappearing or gone from all kinds of consumer products – cell phones, cameras, laptops, toothbrushes, dustbusters, …
3. More follow-on sales. If your non-removable battery is good for only three or four years, then all those customers must buy a replacement for a much bigger profit margin than a replacement battery. And you can’t be undercut by third-party replacement batteries – or have more problems with flaming batteries.

Luckily almost everything recharges from inexpensive USB external batteries now, so it’s not the end of the world.

— Rex

Explorer all the way.  It has the minimal GPS functionality that I want and the battery life is incredible – I just hiked 10 days and tracked the entire hike (albeit at a 60 second interval) without recharging.  Finished at 30% or so.  So I got everything I need out of a GPS (i.e. a GPX file to play with later) at no weight penalty versus bringing just an Inreach SE.

That said, I almost never use a GPS except to record tracks to look at later.  Occasionally I might have a specific waypoint of interest that I’d like to navigate to.  I never use one just to figure out where I am.  I have maps for that and I usually hike in the desert where navigation is easy.  If I was a more serious GPS user I might consider waiting to see if they make an upgraded unit.

The Inreach battery life varies greatly depending if your Tracking vesus Logging.  Substantially less battery life when Tracking and this can vary depending on the send interval.   To confuse the issue between these two modes, Delorme’s nomenclature is not consistent throughout their literature regarding this as they refer to logging as being a different tracking mode.  This makes it difficult on forum posts  to determine what the users settings were when they reference tracking battery times, that is, were they in Tracking mode or Tracking Logging mode?  To me, Tracking is when the unit is  uploading points via satellite and these get posted to a web page for others to see where you are.  Logging is when the device is taking GPS location information and storing it to be downloaded manually at a future date.

Kenneth:  good point.  I was only doing logging (storing on the device), and not sending tracking points.  Except a preset campsite message each night.

Rex

#1  I agree.  Pathetic. Making potentially life saving equipment a certain way because it is easier to manufacture is a poor excuse for the low quality of the product and the company in general.

#2  I agree.  No excuse.  I come to this site because it does not follow the crowd.  My dad always said “just because everyone jumps off the cliff, no reason for you to follow”  (usually said that when I was in trouble!)

#3 I agree, pathetic again.

I wish Garmin made a similar product, no I do not work for Garmin.

Art