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Garmin Inreach random text numbers
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Home › Forums › General Forums › General Lightweight Backpacking Discussion › Garmin Inreach random text numbers
- This topic has 6 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 6 months ago by Mike In Socal.
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Oct 15, 2018 at 2:58 pm #3559895
When I text to two different phones from the Garmin InReach, the originating number for the text is different. So, phone A and phone B have different numbers to reply to the same InReach. If i try to use the number sent to phone B in sending from phone A, i get a rejection text from Garmin. I understand this might be valuable in preventing huge groups texts and spam texts and i know that you cannot text a InReach unless the inReach has first sent you a text.  What i really want to know, will those numbers assigned to phone A and Phone B remain the same, or are the periodically changed?
I hope this makes sense because it took me a while to figure out what was going on in setting up my wife’s phone. Thanks
Oct 15, 2018 at 3:32 pm #3559898Garmin inReach Support: 1-888-442-7646
Oct 15, 2018 at 7:43 pm #3559939i asked here because I don’t have a week to sit on hold with them.
Oct 15, 2018 at 10:03 pm #3559967From my understanding, the inReach does not have a dedicated SMS number, only a dedicated inReach-to-inReach SMS address, so no sense in setting up phones with whatever SMS address you get from an inReach when receiving a message.
However, if you set up your Mapshare page correctly, then anyone you allow can visit that Mapshare page and send you a message from there without you having to initiate the conversation.
Oct 22, 2018 at 12:09 am #3560852So no point in adding the number to a contact as it will be different with each text or change at some undetermined point?
Oct 22, 2018 at 12:34 am #3560859That’s the way I understand it. I may not be correct though.
Oct 22, 2018 at 6:19 am #3560889The number is not different with each text message in my limited experience (just got my inreach last month). Once you send a text to a contact, they can reach you by replying to that same message. So, in practice, you can send them a “you can contact me here” text at the beginning of your trip. I don’t know if that number changes over time.
As Doug mentions above, if you set up your MapShare page to allow people to send you messages, then whoever you share your page URL with can see your location and send you text messages right from the web site without having a pre-established text conversation. You can also password protect that page so only those who know the password can access the page.
HTH
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