loaning out a mini

I have a friend that is heading on a trip this weekend and i'm going to loan him my inreach mini. Is there anything i need to do to let him pair it with earthmate on his phone and use it for messages? 

  • As far as Earthmate itself goes, I don't think so. But I don't have an active Mini to try it with. The real question is whether or not Earthmate will function (for message send) without being logged in. I believe it will, but I am not sure. You can try this yourself beforehand.

    The mini will only pair with one phone at at time. He will have to pair it, and you will have to re-pair with your phone when you get it back.

    I don't pretend to be a lawyer, but there might be contractual issues if he has to use the SOS function. I believe that the "coverage" is for a named individual, not the person using the device. Even then, probably not an issue unless there is a cost associated with the rescue.

  • This question was addressed during the Q&A segment at the end of the "What Happens When You Trigger an SOS?" webinar that aired July 27, 2019. I think I recall being pleasantly surprised when Chip Noble, the inReach product manager, responded that it was okay to share one's device with a friend, but I don't remember the specifics. Chip: could you weigh in on this and clarify Garmin's policy?

    Incidentally, I found the presentation interesting and very worthwhile to listen to. Emily Thompson, the Emergency Operations Manager at GEOS cleared up a lot of confusion in my mind, and the listener's questions were especially insightful (personally, that was the best part). Unfortunately, Garmin has chosen to delete the Q&A portion of the webinar on their YouTube channel, which can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch

    Request to Garmin: please post the entire inReach webinars, including the Q&A portions. You are doing your customers a disservice by truncating them.