User incapacitated ...

twolpert said:

If you want to know, test it.

I have and I'm unable to replicate this feature (or in your words; side-effect).

We do not use tracking and you did not say anything about this feature being related to tracking – only message check.

As I mentioned, this would be an involuntary update of position to MapShare.

I agree the functionality is poor, but it is a means to try under a user incapacitated scenario.  

There was someone on this forum who once stated that to avoid Tracking charges, his wife would just Locate him once a day. It would be even cheaper for him to just send his wife a Preset Message with location info attached, and she only Locate him when she failed to received the daily Message. 

I'm cheap, but not that cheap.

To my way of thinking, the worst case cost on any plan is $0.10 (US) per track point. $0.60 per hour. Maybe $5 for a day of tracking. This is cheap insurance against serious injury or death.

There ARE use cases where this might not be appropriate. For example, somebody who does trail running every day may not need to track. They're in well-known territory. They are out for a couple of hours, not multiple days. Family or friends know where they are and when they are expected back. For these folks, the ability to send an SOS is sufficient - no tracking needed.

But for true back country camping trips, there is no safe substitute for tracking. /soapbox

twolpert said:

A sent track point will always update the head pointer. As well as marking the track point location.

But that is not what we are talking about here.

twolpert said:

Nor sure why you emphasize "involuntary". 

Because it would mean that an inReach device shares a location without the input or consent of the user.

That would be unacceptable, if not made known to the customer in documentation.

You are acting as if location updates on MapShare are some wildcards that fluctuate with Garmin’s mood. That is not how software works.

As far as I understand, message-checks do not produce any location info on MapShare.

If you have updated info that shows otherwise, please share.

Agreed. 

I did conduct a small test of Locate User here at the house, and it worked fine. I waited a half hour from send time to manually check for messages. Checking caused my location to show up on Mapshare page.

Obviously, not truly representative of the backcountry, but a little encouraging.

My vague recollection about the locate request is that the Iridium network does not guarantee delivery. That is, it does not retry the location requests. I also seem to recall the that the frequency with which Garmin servers repeat the locate request falls off as elapsed time increases. So if it fails for a while, the servers retry at longer and longer intervals. I don't even know why I think this, let alone what the intervals might be. For all I know, it works entirely differently now.

When you request a locate, the pop-up says you might have to wait up to 20 minutes. Then it says the servers retry for up to 5 days. I have no idea what that means.

Other than testing in few real-worldish cases, I don't know of any way to determine what is really happening under the hood. One thing you might try is to power down, send a locate, wait until sometime the next day, power up and see what (if anything) you get.

Ok. I'll be on a hike this weekend and will test further. Thanks.

Out-of-date vague ideas and imprecise info is not something I appreciate when discussing emergency satellite communication services.

As far as I understand, message-checks do not produce any visible location info on MapShare. Nor does test device, message-receive or weather update.

If anyone has updated info that show otherwise, please share.

Because it would mean that an inReach device shares a location without the input or consent of the user.

That would be unacceptable, if not made known to the customer in documentation.

that is good point

and yes, I  will try this in next days

but there might be an issue, as iridium pagers have been created , with no transmitting device build in, so being receivers only with no feedback at all. Certain organizations prefer to be on the safe side....