Professional plan better for device sharing?

I recently bought an inReach Mini 2 which I plan to loan out to family members when needed. I'm currently signed up for the expedition freedom plan. My son will be going on a 10 day backing trip and is planning to take the device. When looking into how to share it, it appears to me that the professional plan would actually be better for this, as you can share a device between different garmin accounts. Also, I assume mapshare, the explore app, pairing with garmin watches, etc would all work the same on a pro plan. Is that correct? If so, is there any reason not to switch to a pro unlimited plan? Needless to say, I am very new to this and just want to make sure this will work as I expect/hope.

Thanks for any feedback.

0 twolpert over 2 years ago

IMO, it does not make much difference if there is only one user and one device at a time. There are some beneficial professional plan features when more than one device is involved. But that's just my opinion. I don't have access to a professional plan, so I might be missing something.

One thing to watch out for on the personal plan. If you have one of the extra-cost SAR coverage plans, it applies ONLY to the registered user. Not to some other person who happens to be using the device. This is likely true of a professional plan as well.

0 2256066 over 2 years ago in reply to twolpert

Thanks twolpert. I talked to someone at Garmin about this, and they also thought that for one device there was no real benefit to a professional plan over a personal. As you indicated, they said the pro plan is useful when you have multiple devices shared by multiple people. So I'm going to stay with the personal plan and just edit the map display name and maybe the emergency contacts when loaning it out.

Thanks again!