Sync contacts from inreach.com

I don't really understand how a product like this can come to market with such a basic feature missing. Literally the first thing you'd think would be tested, would be sending a message. At this point you'd realize that contacts are not being synced. It took me 5 minutes to discover this wasn't working, and then I wasted an hour trying to get it to work since I assumed it would be like previous InReach devices.

I just moved to the 66i from the InReach Mini, and contacts synced just fine from Explore app to mini.

The 66i needs two basic contact functions:

- Sync contacts using Explore app

- Add a menu item to "add contact" so that a contact can be added without having to send them a message. 

This later one is needed because often I am out with friends and I say "hey, what's your number, I'll message you later with my InReach" and you need to be able to just add a new contact without relying on having a phone with you. And also ideally without resorting to writing it down with a piece of paper and a pencil since I just spent $800 on this device...

Or they could just read the instructions about how to do it on the old InReach Explorer... https://support-inreach.roadpost.ca/kb/articles/adding-contacts-to-the-inreach-se-explorer 

I just can't understand how there isn't feature parity with old devices! It feels like a kick when you spend all this money and then longingly look at features on old and cheaper devices, wishing you had them.

ps. Does anyone from Garmin read and respond in this new forum?

Mostly, this is a peer to peer forum. Garmin employees do read the forums and will occasionally post. 

Although nobody knows for sure, I don't think this is a bug or an oversight. There are other, less important, features that are also missing from the 66i. For whatever reason, I think Garmin chose to bring the device to market without these features. We can only hope that they'll be added in subsequent updates to firmware and the Explore app.

With regard to your specific use case, do note that the Explore app allows you to send messages to any contact in your phone's contact list. The contact need not be on the device itself. On the iPhone, you must grant the app access to your Contacts. I don't know about Android.

This does not load your entire contact list onto the device. You probably would not want that in any case. But it does mean that those contacts are only available for messages that originate in the Explore app.

thx a lot Volker. Thats what I feared. The web page is saying something different when adding the contacts. It is a shame on such an expensive device.

@twoltpert: Thx for the workaround. I will use the explorer app to send some messages. What I saw is, that I have to send a short message first to my contacts that they are allowed to answer later on. I will do this for the most important contacts in the phone so that they can contact me while traveling.

That’s the accepted way to do it. For text message recipients, we all “prime the pump” before each trip. The ability to reply back to an iR device via text message has a limited lifetime. Limit is unknown, but is at least several weeks.

Found this new Garmin video on the 66i and the screenshot of the messages on the device has contact names. Maybe they are testing new FW where the contacts work (around 14:26), has a name vs just cell or email address? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQsC8TWiMTU

Is there an update on this? I don't see how to sync InReach contacts to my 66i.