Planning to return my inreach mini - or am I missing something

[Mark2457]

So bought this strictly for tracking and emergency. no interest whatsoever in paying to send map updates

the emergency stuff is fine, but what it doesn't seem to do is allow me to track with a cell phone disconnected, turn on cell phone, open earth mate and sync that track

I have to set to track on power on and even if I end tracking manually, nothing ever appears in Erath mate. hiked this weekend and had it pared with earth mate, saw the tracks on earth mate. Go to routes or history - nothing.

Aren't I supposed to be able to sync my tracks?

I can still retrun to REi and would consider "upgrading" to inreach explorer, but not getting sucked into map upgrade charges

Is there an inreach that allows you to sync tracks recorded offline to earthmate (or elsewhere) or have maps on the device without upgrade charged.

I really don;t want to carry two devices and be dependant on batter life of an iphone

Thanks

Mark

 

[Old Tanker]

The inreach is more a SATCOM communicator that leverages a cellphone's GPS. Take a look at the GPSMAP 66I or the Montana 700. Both are pricier though.

 

[DaveInDenver]

What do you mean by track? The term "track" has a couple of meanings.

The first being a continuous track of GPS locations that you use to build a fairly detailed "track", e.g. a line on a map, of where you've gone. GPS itself updates every second and your receiver can record a cookie crumb record up to that resolution. If all you want is a high resolution track to download later then any GPS receiver made ever can do this, all the way back to the early 2000s and before. This is what I think you want.

The other way "tracking" is used with respect to satellite communicators. Periodically a GPS location is taken and transmitted via satellite and displayed so that someone else can find you, e.g. track you as in find and follow you. This is quite a bit more involved and knowing your position every second is not practical nor really necessary. InReach and SPOT pick intervals like 5 or 10 minutes. When you go back and look it'll be a record of where you've been but it's not high resolution like a GPS receiver recording a track.

The InReach Mini is designed to the second kind of tracking. It can when linked with a phone do the first kind but that's not it's intended primary use when in stand-alone (e.g. not linked to a phone).

If you don't want the periodic kind of satellite tracking and just want an SOS then a PLB like ACT ResQLink might be an option. Those only do an SOS when you need it and have no 5- or 10-minute satellite update or any of the other fluff. Then use any GPS receiver you wish, even a $100 eTrex 10, to record a GPS track you download later.