Pinging an InReach location from an InReach device

Former Member over 7 years ago

Hi everyone.

I own 2 InReach Explorers - one for me and one for my wife. We ride motorcycles around the world in the most remote places and are usually never within cell signal range.

I bought the InReach devices to be able to locate each other when we lose each other. However, it seems that there is one significant emergency feature missing in the InReach devices - the ability to ping the location of another InReach device from an InReach device.

Imagine my wife and I are riding in a remote area without cell signal. We are separated by 2 kilometers when she drives off a small cliff and is lying unconscious on the cliff. After 10 minutes of waiting on the side of the road for her, I realize that something must have happened. I message her InReach device but get no response because she is unconscious. In order to locate her, I need her location, but I cannot ping her device from my InReach (because this feature is missing). I have no internet access on my phone to ping her location online, so I'm helpless to find her.

This is a very real threat for us and has happened before. The only workaround it to message someone else and ask them to ping her location online and then send it back to me. However this workaround requires valuable time in which my wife could die of her injuries or hypothermia. It also requires the person that I text to be available to help.

If anybody else here can see the benefit of having the feature to ping another InReach location from an InReach device, please would you submit a feature request here:
https://www8.garmin.com/contactUs/ideas/form.html

I'm hoping that with enough feature requests, someone in the InReach dev team will sit up and take notice.

Thanks,

Bruce

0 twolpert over 7 years ago

Good idea.

Unfortunately, the entire emergency response mechanism is predicated on the idea that the person, or someone with them, is in a position to trigger an SOS. I can't speak for motorcyclists. But high tech or not, this is one of the reasons that hikers never hike alone, and never allow one hiker to become isolated. Not an excuse for missing functionality. Just sayin'...

In the meantime... If, on the basis of no response from her inReach, you are convinced that there is an emergency, your best bet is to trigger an SOS on your device. Since you have bi-directional messaging with emergency response, you can explain the situation. They can either ping her device or use her tracking information for a recent approximate location. Keep in mind, however, that a lot of things can cause that lack of response - your message might not have gone out because of your location, her device might not have received it because of her location, or whatever. Better safe than sorry, though.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Additionally, if you're laying down track points on your map and you have it open for people to look at, you can use that home based person to look at the map and indicate where the last track point is noted. You'll at least know where to start your search from.