Serious issues with inReach devices - no information flow nor support from Garmin

SimonH

New member
Dear forum users

I am an IT worker for an international aid organization. We purchased more than 100 inReach devices as emergency communication equipment about 18 months ago. Since the purchase we've always had minor issues regarding the administration of the devices in the web portal. But at least we've been able to use the devices. Now, for the past several weeks, we've not been able to administrate the devices anymore at all. We're expertiencing:

- Serious issues when importing/exporting users
- Tons of error messages when using the web portal for creating/editing users
- Not being able to synchronize devices - thus not being able to use them at all

The problem affects a lot of devices - not every device but different ones on a daily basis. So we cannot rely on a single device anymore. Garmin support informed us three days ago that they have exhausted their options but might be able to solve the issue withing the coming weeks. They do not provide any reliable time frame, any information about the issue itself, any workaround, ...

Our employees are deployed to hardship destinations and rely on the devices. We now have to replace the devices in the field which is time consuming, complex and expensive, unless we find a solution to get the devices into operation again immediately. As there is no constructive support coming from Garmin, I am reaching out to you:

- Does anyone experience the same problem?
- If yes, how are you dealing with it (support contact, workarounds, alternative products)?
- Is the Garmin support equally helpful for you as they are for us? How come they cannot or don't want to solve an issue like this?
- Is there any insider information about what the cause of the problem might be and how we can speed up its solution?

I hope for your support as this is a very serious event which can become a life threatening matter to my colleagues in the field.

Thanks a lot

Simon
 

SARguru

Observer
I can't offer any help with InReach but can say that I have called Garmin Support and several times wasn't able to get my issue solved with led to simply abandon using half a dozen out of 100 hand held device.
Have you been able to get to speak with an engineer perhaps one from former InReach versus GPS tech support


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SimonH

New member
Thanks for your answer. I am in contact with the Garmin Enterprise support. It sounds like they know where the problem is. But they're not giving out any information and they're not willing to invest time into solving the problem. It seems that maintaining the emergency communication equipment they're selling is no priority to them. I am shocked about this fact. I really didn't expect something like this coming from Garmin. We're now scratching together GPS devices and sat phones to replace the most urgently needed devices in the field.
 

vectorsc

Adventurer
This is common in modern IT at large corporations.

Say the words "$10 an hour outsourced developer" and "let's all switch to Agile!!!" And there is your answer.

Translation - a bargain basement developer in an Agile framework developed a new "feature" that any testing whatsoever would have revealed was faulty.

And then you get this crap.


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Kerensky97

Xterra101
Ever since Delorme was bought and Garmin started moving their pages around I had issues getting back in (It wanted me to activate my device again).
I finally got it settled going to https://inreach.garmin.com/ and using my old passwords from when it was Delorme. Then it comes up just like the old page.
 

paranoid56

Adventurer
This is common in modern IT at large corporations.

Say the words "$10 an hour outsourced developer" and "let's all switch to Agile!!!" And there is your answer.

Translation - a bargain basement developer in an Agile framework developed a new "feature" that any testing whatsoever would have revealed was faulty.

And then you get this crap.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

lol, outsourced dev sure, agile? um no. poor QA sure.
 

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