Discontinued ability to add a user!

Garmin has just eliminated the ability to add a second user under the auspices of “privacy laws.” Interesting that this capability still exists under the more expensive “Professional” plans. This is outrageous! I bought an inReach Explorer+ three weeks ago and have already subscribed to a flex plan. I bought this unit for shared use with my adult son but had not yet added him as a user. Suddenly, I can no longer add my son as an additional user without paying a service plan increase of $120 per year!

Does anyone else have a problem with this?

0 twolpert over 6 years ago

I am not sure how you came up with the $120 annual increase?

The only difference in monthly price for personal and professional flex plans is for the lowest (Basic) tier. Personal is $14.95/month and pro is $19.95. The higher tiers appear to be priced identically for personal and pro. However, the pro plan does have a $5.00/month fee for months in which the device is inactive.

So, if you have the Basic flex plan, it comes to a $5/month increase for both active and inactive months. Total annual increase $60. If you have a higher tier plan, it's only an increase for inactive months. Maximum $55 annually. This is not to say that removing the feature from personal plans is not annoying, or that it won't cost you something more to switch to a pro plan.

It's not possible to tell from the Garmin support articles whether the change is due to the European Union GDPR regulations or something else. I don't know enough about GDPR or the Terms & Conditions of the personal vs. pro inReach accounts to know if that's a reasonable explanation or not. But a lot of organizations were required to make changes in order to be GDPR-compliant - which is a requirement for a global organization like Garmin.

0 SteveP over 6 years ago

Tom, you are exactly correct. I mistakenly added the two together ($5/month). Furthermore, the professional plan eliminates the $25/year fee so the actual difference is only $35/year. To make matters worse, I see that the lowest professional plan includes an additional 10 messages per month so one could argue that there really isn’t any difference in actual cost. I really hate it when I get all worked up and then turn out to be wrong! I will look into switching to a Garmin Professional plan later today.

I also need to add a second GEOS Medevac plan for my son before he leaves for Africa in two weeks. Do you have any guidance as to how to best set that up?

0 twolpert over 6 years ago

Sorry, no experience with GEOS Medevac or any other GEOS supplemental plans for family members.

0 georgem over 6 years ago

My experience is similar to SteveP, but I am just an old hiker and $17.40 including tax seems like a lot since I haven't sent a text this year and only use it to save GPS tracks and in case of emergency. However my son is headed out alone tomorrow. So I guess it will be set with me as the user. I can change the emergency contacts and sync. I have not recommended it to a couple of friends due to the complexity added by all the unused features. Being able to loan it to family members was part of the justification of the expense and now I feel cheated. I suspect this is a business decision on Garmin's part.

0 maak over 6 years ago

Assuming your preset messages are the same- all one really "needs" to do is change who those preset messages go to, and change the two main contacts.... yes? Takes about 2 minutes most. Am I missing anything else that would prevent me from loaning the unit to a friend or relative? (other than the account belonging to me, and all the potential legal ramifications surrounding that).

0 mad_hungarian over 5 years ago

Yeah, I'm confused by this too. Got one for Christmas that I intended on being a family device. If my wife or one of my sons take it out, do I really need to change anything vs when I take it out by myself?

0 twolpert over 5 years ago

You just need to be sure that ALL the information associated with the account - emergency contacts, preset messages and their target addresses, etc. are correct when you "change users". And you need to sync.

Although you can't tell from the web site in its current state, a lot of that information was user-specific originally. Simply assigning the device to a different user and syncing changed everything automatically.

Doing this stuff manually every time is error-prone. This IS a safety device. If you're going to do a lot of this, you might still want to investigate the costs of a "professional" account (or whatever it's called this week). That still gives you the ability to have multiple users.