InReach Mini – Fail or User Error?

re battery. The following is conjecture as I do not have a Mini.

These things are often more complex than you think. Many of them try to maintain a link with the other end with periodic ‘pings’. If they don’t get an answer, they push the transmit power up and increase the frequency. That starts to draw a lot of power. Well, dropped into the bottom of your car, it may have been sufficiently screened that It could neither transmit nor receive properly.

What to do then? You have to turn the unit right off, completely, when you stop using it.

Conjecture.
Cheers

The following page from Garmin explains how to adjust settings to maximize battery life.   They make a massive difference.  Leaving bluetooth on (whether connected or not) is a big drain, I’d guess that’s the most likely culprit it it went completely dead in a few hours.  With the settings optimized, and occasional use you should be able to set it up to get at least a week out of it.

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/inreachmini/EN-US/GUID-47AF89E8-43F5-49C4-8017-2DEDEEEA73C7.html

The fact that it has much more functionality than the SPOT device is, in fact, a drawback if you are relying on it as an emergency device!   You do need to take great care to remember (for example) not to leave bluetooth on after you use it, or the battery might be dead when you really need it.  I think one of the settings on the page above ensures that bluetooth is automatically put so sleep after a brief time.  When I’m on a trip where it could be a life-or-death matter if it didn’t work, I leave it switched off altogether, and just do without the luxury of exchanging more routine messages.   The fact that it has an integrated rechargeable battery saves money and physical space in the device – but again, that’s really a drawback for emergency purposes.   If a device uses AAA’s, on a remote trip I can carry a spare set of new batteries for minimal weight, a set of batteries that I keep sacrosanct while I’m using the device for routine purposes, and which can also double as emergency batteries for other devices.

I do think the InReach is a really cool device, but some thought and care is required in how you use it.

As for messaging – yes, I’ve found that’s just a bit flaky, sometimes they go in seconds, sometimes they take a long time, and I don’t know why.  It was probably coincidence that you reached a clearing in the woods, I have seen no pattern like that.   But I think the satellite network that SPOT uses is also unreliable, possibly more so.   I also don’t know if it’s a question of the message not reaching a satellite at all, or if it’s a problem with message handling afterwards – if the latter, one might hope that an emergency message would always get through quickly, but we have no way to test that.

I don’t have a mini, but I’ve used a first generation SE (the boxy one) for years and have no issues.  Sometimes it does take a few minutes to send a message, and the fact that you were moving probably didn’t help.  I’ve never tried to send a message moving, but messages generally go out in about 15 minutes or less while stationary.  Sometimes they go out within a minute or two, and sometimes it takes longer and I’m not sure why.

As for battery life, that does seem odd.  I generally do a week long trip and use 10% of the battery or less sending a couple of messages a day.  I do keep it off except when I want to send a message though.  I’ll also add, that I carry it on some dayhikes and on shorter trips but rarely do I ever turn it on or send a message and it holds a charge the whole year. On short overnight or weekend trips, I turn it on, check the battery and send a test message before the trip, but don’t generally send a message. After a year’s use, I generally just charge it once a year, before my “big” trip and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it with less than 60% battery life.  Of course my SE is a larger, heavier unit, but I would think the Mini should last a lot longer than that.

I’ve had mini for almost year – similar experience to you

It is annoying that it takes 30 minutes or an hour to acquire satellite and send message.  Regardless of sky cover like trees.  But still usable.

I turn it on once a day to receive and send message.  30 minutes or 1 hour.  After a week about 50% battery remaining.I accidentally left it on one night and it was about 50% discharged after 6 hours.

I carry a USB power bank to recharge phone, so I could recharge the mini if I accidentally left it on and discharged.

I just got a Garmin InReach Mini for Christmas and have been messing around with it
since then. I think that I will just use it the same way I did my SPOT Gen3. That is I’ll just turn it on at night to send my wife a text message that I’m still alive and OK and she can message me in return. I don’t need to have it on during the day. I don’t care a bit about the Tracking ability of the device.
There is a Garmin App called Earthmate that allows you to use your Smartphone to send out a message from your Cell phone (by satellite). Earthmate also acts as a GPS using your phones gps Location and shows your Track if you want to. Earthmate will download free maps to use during your hike. I don’t know yet the actual quality of the maps. I looked at Isle Royale and they seem to show all the trails but the Terrain dats is kind of limited. ie; no elevation contours or elevations shown. But I will have a good paper map that will have that.
I just took a look at the Wind River Range in Wyoming map and it seems to show a lot
of the trails, for instance the CDT main route but not the Alternates, but again no Elevation data.
Larry S
You can do all this in Airplane mode to extend your battery life. I don’t know how much yet but it looks like 3 days use between charges ? With turning off at night.

I just looked at it again and you can download the USGS Topo maps you need. You need to zoom in to an area you want to investigate and download the maps for that area. For instance, I navigated to the Northern Wind River Range area and it shows 4 USGS maps available to download , WY Big Sheep Mountain, WY Fish Creek Park, WY Green River Lakes and WY Union Peak. 39 MB of download that will be stored on my 128GB SD Card. It looks like scans of old Topo maps. Depending on the map it may not be fully up-to-date.

Larry S

My wife will go with me, but she prefers a more casual pace than I normally do, so I generally so most trips by myself.  Most importantly however we have two kids in sports year-round that someone has to taxi them to games and practice.

I just got a Garmin https://www.rei.com/product/140110/garmin-inreach-mini-2-way-satellite-communicator?cm_mmc=aff_AL-_-152258-_-189374-_-NA&avad=189374_c188a1bd5 for Christmas and have been messing around with it
since then.

Your wife is so sweet to give such a gift, easier for her to make sure you get in touch ;)

I use an older InReach and have used the Garmin tips to extend battery life.  I leave it on when I dayhike so that in a worst case scenario, SAR would be able to access my track online.  For longer trips I turn it on to send a message, then turn it off; the most I’ve done is a week and I had about 75% battery power at the end – and I could have sent fewer messages.

I haven’t changed to the Mini because then I am dependent on two batteries and two devices and I prefer my good old-fashioned Garmin GPS with preloaded maps for routefinding, recording tracks, etc.  I have experimented with smartphone apps and they just take too much battery power.  If you have to carry a power bank and a smartphone and a Mini, I think your weight is going to be pretty close to my old-fashioned approach.

Oh, and I have a paper map and a compass in case my electronics don’t work.

One of the advertised uses is to have the Garmin (or Spot) send out regular “breadcrumb” messages so that if you can’t get an emergency message out your family or friends will notice you stopped reporting and where you were on the last report. Seems like most use it as a nightly reporter instead. I’m sure battery life is better. That’s what I’ve done.

I have the 1st gen explorer and have also had trouble getting messages out quickly.  I usually get impatient and get to the clearest sky I can, but it still takes time. I sometimes get a return message overnight from my hammock amongst the trees, so maybe just a satellite protocol delay. It doesn’t instill a lot of confidence that I could get a message out if incapacitated.

i know someone that uses breadcrumbs on an inreach.  Sort of cool for his relative to see where he’s going.

it confuses my wife to get lots of messages.  one per day is fine.  if something bad happened i could turn it on and send sos or a message

My Wife couldn’t read a map to save her life.
I’ve actually seen her looking at a map upside down
and not knowing it.

I have warned my wife that sometimes technology fails and that if she doesn’t get a message from me one day, it doesn’t mean that I am dead.  No news is not bad news, just no news.

I find it easier to take my wife with me.

Cheers

Sounds like my experience if fairly par for the course. I really bought the thing to be an emergency/SOS button, after hearing/reading about the value of two-way communication in those situations. So, for my use case, this all seems acceptable, if not super awesome.

I am curious though – if it has enough GPS connectivity to track location continously (even at 1 min interval), why not enough to get a message out. Is it different satellites?

if it has enough GPS connectivity to track location continously (even at 1 min interval), why not enough to get a message out. Is it different satellites?
Totally different.
The GPS system only transmits to your receiver: it cannot receive from you itself.
Messaging is done through a clutch of different satellites, possibly Intelsat.
You may be able to receive signals from 6 GPS satellites and get a good fix, but if there is no Intelsat bird high enough in the sky, you cannot get a signal out.

Cheers
PS: ignore the out-of-time-sequence of the last few posts … bugs.

Roger,
Different Wife, different Life.

Larry

@Larry

:)  :)  :)

Cheers

I just searched the online User Manual for the Inreach Mini and it uses the Iridium Satellite Network for messages.
From another web search:
“About Iridium Satellite. The Iridium satellite network consists of a constellation of 66 satellites situated in 6 planes in low-earth orbit. Each plane is populated by 11 satellites in polar orbits, giving the Iridium network excellent coverage in high latitudes that equatorial satellites often cannot reach.”

Larry