inReach Location integration into Garmin Group Ride Location Sharing (on Zumo XT / Tread)

Is it possible to use inReach to do location sharing for the Group Ride group tracking feature on the Garmin Zumo XT and Garmin Tread? My understanding is that the Group Ride feature currently only works when using the MURS radio. But if the group splits apart and goes out-of-range, the feature will not work. Is there a way to have it switch over to the inReach location when this happens? (I’m assuming the location updates would occur much less frequently, but that’s fine.)

The two larger Garmin Tread tablets have inReach built-in, so it seems like there should be a way to do this.

0 skyeye over 2 years ago

I know, that on our professional account with per byte charging it is possible to have group sharing data via inrech (Iridium) communication. This is obviously rather expensive, since all the data needs to be distributed to each single inreach device this way.

So far this can not be done the same way with current standard professional accounts with 'all inclusive' billing.

I have a statement however, that sales dept could arrange a special set up for group communication on a special agreement.

I am not sure how the new messenger app will work, but there are some functions of group communication in it.

0 CARLTONBALE over 2 years ago in reply to skyeye

Thanks for sharing. It’s good to know that it’s at least possible with some plans or workarounds.

Hopefully at some point inReach group location sharing could be included in the All Inclusive plans, at least for smaller groups and less-frequent update intervals.

0 skyeye over 2 years ago in reply to CARLTONBALE

well, it has to be understood, that when 5 units do this, each trackpoint needs to be sent also to all other units in the group making a message for all in the group. If this connected to tracking, and you have let say a point sent every 10min, then every 10min there is a message going to all the units in the group and as all are tracking all will be sending messages to all each time they make tracking point. This might result in many hundreds of messages in short time.

This will definitely not fit into any all incl plan.

Therefore there has to be a contract and payment arranged before it can be used.

Per Byte paid contracts can have this, as there is dealer and company associated with it, so garmin and finaly Iridium will get the money somehow.

0 CARLTONBALE over 2 years ago in reply to skyeye

30 minute location updates between up to 5 devices would be useful for many purposes. That could be as minimal as 2 additional incoming message per hour per device, but this assumes that the message contained location data for all the units in the group…which would require the Garmin cloud collecting and combining locations into a single message. This would result in a pretty minimal amount of data compared to the 30 outgoing location updates/hour on Unlimited. So I think it’s possible to scale “group tracking” to use reasonable amounts of data with unlimited plans, but it would require some additional cloud development on Garmin’s part to do so.

I completely get your point about the existing implementation of every location update going to every device individually, and using a bunch of data. I can see why a Pro plan would be required for that.

0 skyeye over 2 years ago in reply to CARLTONBALE

not quite correct: group tracking will result in 2 incomming messages from each other group member on each of the devices every hour

this will multiply kind of exponentially

0 CARLTONBALE over 1 year ago

It appears Garmin more-or-less released the requested capability - but only if you buy new hardware (Tread XL Baja Race and Tread XL Baja Chase navigators.) They require the $99/month/device Flex Team satellite subscription.

Baja Racing Teams seems to be an extremely niche segment. I think recreational riding groups doing a BDR are a much bigger opportunity. Hopefully the group tracking capability will be expanded to more devices and user types quickly. Given how quickly smartphones are moving into this space, the competition is likely to emerge quickly

0 skyeye over 1 year ago in reply to CARLTONBALE

OK, thanks for info.

It seems to include even a 30sec position reporting...hope Garmin will not loose too much money here ;-)

This will be lot of traffic in the team.