Great review of this product and covers a lot of useful information! There is one point that I didn’t see mentioned in the review that could be critical for users that relates to the frequency of the automatic checks for new messages (messages sent to the InReach).
Both the Mini and newly released Mini 2 will automatically check for new messages 10 minutes after sending a message, however once that period has passed, the device will only automatically check for new messages every hour. (The larger Explorer models will check for new messages every 10 minutes, regardless of whether you have sent a message or not, and thus avoids the problem I will describe below) All InReach units will allow a user to manually through the Earthmate App or through the device if a user knows that they can/need to do that.
I am a member of a SAR team in Colorado, and our team was noticing a pattern which involved some InReach device activations where we would receive responses from subjects for an initial period of time and then it would take a much longer period of time to get further responses and updates. Finally, someone on the team realized that there were differences between the automated message checking frequency between InReach units and that our subjects were not aware that they were being sent messages (and subsequently responding) because they did not know the automatic check frequency, nor did they know that they had to manually check for them to receive them before the next hour’s automated check.
For most users, most of the time, this will not be significant- HOWEVER…..for those who find themselves in an SOS type of situation, an hour could be a life changing length of time, and the significance of this detail is not highlighted or understood by many who carry the device.
A two-way satellite communicator is by far the most helpful device that people can carry for emergency response in the backcountry, as satellite phones need a much longer satellite window to communicate than two-way texting does (and also requires the subject to communicate coordinates verbally), and one-way communicators or geolocators cannot indicate the nature of the emergency.
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