Message Sending via inReach Mini and 5XP during activity tracking

WD over 6 years ago

I wanted to throw this out and see if anyone else had a similar setup, or noticed this. I was hiking over the weekend. I have a Mini, 5XP and iPhoneX. All three were connected and communicating. I was just wanted to build a reference on battery life, features, etc.

I have the 5XP tracking a Hike activity with default setting. The Mini had tracking enabled, default settings. iPhoneX Earthmate app, defaults.

On the 5XP there is a widget to connect to Mini. I chose to send a Predefine Message. The 5XP indicated it was talking to Mini, but I never saw the Mini's arrow to indicate uploading the message. I tried this three times. Finally, I stopped, and paused my tracking on the 5XP, attempted the same, and it worked. I re-enabled(unpaused) the 5XP activity, and again attempted to send a predefined message, and failed.

The failure is not a hard failure... it all looks likes it works, just no messages is actually sent. If you were just walking, and not really listening for tones, or watching the screens, you would have assumed it was working.

iPhoneX was able to communicate the message OK. However, I continue to see Earthmate lose credentials to inreach.garmin.com, so I always have to re-enter those for sync.

And yes, battery life was about 50% of what has been indicated... all the chatter of those devices... lol

I have opened a case with Garmin.

0 twolpert over 6 years ago

Based on experimentation, it does appear that the second and subsequent preset messages sent from the watch during an activity are delayed (not sent to the Mini) until you end the activity. It has nothing to do with elapsed time. I suspect you might get the same effect (messages break loose) by briefly breaking the ANT connection, but I don't really know.

0 WD over 6 years ago

I did break ANT yesterday, and my messages sent... and those were actually duplicated(4 sent instead of 2). I had a complete test scenario documented but the forum deny deleted it all.

In my testing, I am able to send multiple messages, but only until about 10 minutes have past, then nothing else will be sent.

0 jsla7527 over 6 years ago

I did break ANT yesterday, and my messages sent... and those were actually duplicated(4 sent instead of 2).

I've seen this one too. I had one message delivered 10 times because the connection between watch and Mini was breaking up. I was just glad it was preset message and Garmin's money.;) It actually shows on my invoice at the same time (see bellow), so I assume all 10 copies were part on one batch sent to the satellites - it just got initiated multiple times. I thought it was a one off and I rarely send messages from the watch, but seeing this, maybe it's more common than I realized.

6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    System                13    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00
     6/29/2018 3:18:52 AM    Preset Message                15    $0.00

0 WD over 6 years ago

I've seen this one too. I had one message delivered 10 times because the connection between watch and Mini was breaking up. I was just glad it was preset message and Garmin's money.;) It actually shows on my invoice at the same time (see bellow), so I assume all 10 copies were part on one batch sent to the satellites - it just got initiated multiple times. I thought it was a one off and I rarely send messages from the watch, but seeing this, maybe it's more common than I realized.

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So for me, this is routine if I have Activity Tracking on, on the 5XP. I just sat about 20 minutes with tracking off, and it all works fine. So, I think Tracking and ANT are blowing up, and all these funky message issues are due to it. While I'm not glad everyone has the issue, I am glad to see what happened to me is confirmed elsewhere.

Garmin asked me to remove the custom watchface, as they have seen issues with those. My problem got worse... lol

0 WD over 6 years ago

So I thought I would provide an update on my Mini/5XP issues with the latest (non-beta) firmware on both. Things have improved quite a bit for me. While there still seems to be some issues between MINI - 5XP - iPhone Earthmate, its much better.

I have followed a route, while the watch was tracking, and been able to send and receive messages. I've not had the issue with reading messages on the watch, yet the MINI indicating unread(though I have seen Earthmate do this, as of this past weekend).

I did read an article earlier about someone having SMS issues. I have not been sending to SMS, but to email, so I will test that.

And, Garmin did offer to allow me to return my MINI, but since the new firmware has improved my use, I'm holding off on that.

I'll be testing again this weekend on another hike. I've been hiking the same trails, so I can have a good baseline of improvements.