mep1811
Gentleman Adventurer
I have one of these I wore in Iraq and AFG. What is the logo on the watch face?
Garmin In-Reach Failure
- Thread starter ChasingOurTrunks
- Start date
Trail Talk
Well-known member
mep1811
Gentleman Adventurer
Nice
Kevin108
Explorer
I wonder if it's frozen but not dead. Have you tried to force a reset on the device?
www8.garmin.com
inReach Mini Owner's Manual - Resetting the Device
www8.garmin.com
Bill Ruttan
Member
Even if your inReach Device is working perfectly there can be failures of the SOS notification system. Below is a post from Garmin about an outage that lasted 1 hour and 43 minutes.
My conclusion is that ‘dissimilar redundancy‘ is still best.
Iridium Messaging Delays
Incident resolved
The networking hardware issue at our hosting provider has been resolved. All queued messages have been delivered and services are back to normal.
Time posted
Oct 25, 12:35 EDT
Components affected
My conclusion is that ‘dissimilar redundancy‘ is still best.
Iridium Messaging Delays
| SMS/Text Communication |
|
| Email Communication |
|
| SOS Communication |
Alloy
Well-known member
I'm not saying a PLB are bad but be aware of the limitation. The accuracy can't be tested until it is needed. I use my InReach every time I go out so I've got an idea of the accuracy and what it needs for a signal. When the GPS signal is no good I can text my location.
Is 100m for the GPS or 121.5Mhz to an airplane/helicopter that may not be in the air? Gov. agencies were discussing a minimum standard for the GPS in a PLB but is there one? Is the GPS part of the self test in a PLB?
PLB will run for min. of 24hrs but I don't know if that includes using the strobe.
The benefit of carrying a PLB and a communicator is they use different satellite systems.
A rescue call can be made with a PLB and confirmed with a communicator which is better than the rescue center spending time calling the people on the contact list.
ChasingOurTrunks
Well-known member
I think that's the takeaway for me, Alloy. The two-way communicator works most of the time and it works great and its' worth carrying, but redundancy is best.
Thank you Kevin - I did try that a few times but no dice. I just got the replacement device so I'll reply in-thread in a moment to close out my experience.
Fully agree - and modern technology allows us to have a few layers of redundancy for under a thousand bucks. That's something most humans throughout history could only dream about.
I wonder if it's frozen but not dead. Have you tried to force a reset on the device?
inReach Mini Owner's Manual - Resetting the Device
Thank you Kevin - I did try that a few times but no dice. I just got the replacement device so I'll reply in-thread in a moment to close out my experience.
Even if your inReach Device is working perfectly there can be failures of the SOS notification system. Below is a post from Garmin about an outage that lasted 1 hour and 43 minutes.
My conclusion is that ‘dissimilar redundancy‘ is still best.
Iridium Messaging Delays
Incident resolved
The networking hardware issue at our hosting provider has been resolved. All queued messages have been delivered and services are back to normal.
Time posted
Oct 25, 12:35 EDT
Components affected
SMS/Text Communication
Email Communication
SOS Communication
Fully agree - and modern technology allows us to have a few layers of redundancy for under a thousand bucks. That's something most humans throughout history could only dream about.
ChasingOurTrunks
Well-known member
So, I figured I'd post an update as I just got the replacement from Garmin.
I am well rested and past my initial feelings of irritation when my Garmin failed -- it happens, no device is perfect. And as the discussion in this thread has highlighted, every device can fail, and redundancy is best, and thanks to modern technology with some of the cool options shared by some Expo members, it's easy for a traveller to have multiple layers of security for a fairly reasonable price these days.
I also wanted to share in the thread that as I was going through transferring devices, I started backing up my messages from over the years, and I came upon a bunch of messages from an adventure last year that was a bit tricky, and those messages made all the difference. This thing is worth it's weight in gold, truly, and I think anyone doing remote travel should carry one (or something similar). But, it's not a bad idea to also carry something else, too, just in case - I'm going to evaluate my options and bring a backup.
I am well rested and past my initial feelings of irritation when my Garmin failed -- it happens, no device is perfect. And as the discussion in this thread has highlighted, every device can fail, and redundancy is best, and thanks to modern technology with some of the cool options shared by some Expo members, it's easy for a traveller to have multiple layers of security for a fairly reasonable price these days.
I also wanted to share in the thread that as I was going through transferring devices, I started backing up my messages from over the years, and I came upon a bunch of messages from an adventure last year that was a bit tricky, and those messages made all the difference. This thing is worth it's weight in gold, truly, and I think anyone doing remote travel should carry one (or something similar). But, it's not a bad idea to also carry something else, too, just in case - I'm going to evaluate my options and bring a backup.
ChasingOurTrunks
Well-known member
Is your unit updated?
.Full Reset of the inReach Mini | Garmin Customer Support
Garmin Support Center is where you will find answers to frequently asked questions and resources to help with all of your Garmin products.support.garmin.com
I wanted to reply to you again, @mep1811. I'm not sure that I did have my unit updated after all; I thought I did but I noted in my smartphone app when pairing the new one that I was still running version 2.xx on my old device; when I plugged in the new one it went up to 3.80, so either I was doing it wrong, the device didn't take the update, or perhaps some part of the reset process did work, but the Garmin tech mentioned an update to address this issue so perhaps this is the explanation.
mep1811
Gentleman Adventurer
Great. I hope this fixes your issue . I always use a wired connection to update my InReach with my desktop.
For what it's worth, I noticed on my last trip that my inreach mini wouldn't charge from my portable battery bank, but it would charge just fine when plugged in to a USB adapter plugged into my vehicle.
Best guess it draws so little power my power bank shuts off.
Other than that, my unit has faithfully tracked me, sent and received messages for years.
Best guess it draws so little power my power bank shuts off.
Other than that, my unit has faithfully tracked me, sent and received messages for years.
Fishenough
Creeper
Early 2019 bought an inreach mini from a local retailer. Battery would go from 100% to less than 10% on 6 to 7 hour hikes. Phone call to the retailer, within a month of purchasing, later that week they gave me a second inReach without checking the returning unit. Last week kept it on maybe half the time during a 6 day remote hike, and was at 43% when we returned to Cell service/civilization.
Sent from my SM-G981W using Tapatalk
Sent from my SM-G981W using Tapatalk
DaveInDenver
Middle Income Semi-Redneck
That's unlikely if the battery is fairly depleted, however you are right that those battery banks are more aggressive about turning off as the load approaches full. I've seen where you have two algorithms competing such that you can get oddity with some devices.
Anker and similar profile for typical stuff like phones and such but not all devices work the same, especially if the company isn't an Apple or Samsung and chooses to implements their own charging rather than just using an off-the-shelf option.
In my experience you need on the order of 100mA to 200mA at duty cycles of 1% to 5% to reliably keep them on but some go reasonably low with higher duty cycles. So I'd believe the Mini might not get to 100% reliably with every battery bank but I'd have thought it would have no problem getting well above 90% without drama with just about any of them.
BTW, this issue is known to people who want to use those battery banks as small power supplies, like bicycle touring folks who try to run lights with them. So if someone's trying to get to the bottom or perhaps research which are better or worse about this that's who I'd start with. Plus they use InReaches and Spot X so would know of serious incompatibilities.
Alloy
Well-known member
OEM Lithium batteries for my Garmin GPS will charge off an Anker battery pack but 2 different brands of aftermarket batteries don't.
X-plorenow
Adventurer
I am currently going through the same this with mine. No matter what I do, even through Garmin support, I can't get it to turn on. My last discussion with them this afternoon, try charging it plugged into the wall for several hours and see if that works. I had mentioned to them that my device had gotten hot when charging. They said warm is normal, if it gets hot that is a different problem, which is the case for me it looks like. I am betting a bad battery. I need to send it back now, I am interested to see how it turns out as I believe I am outside a year owned.