Greetings all! I got my mini about a week ago and have had inconsistent success sending and receiving messages when paired with my iPhone 8+. The worst of it was earlier today when I had 3 messages that showed as “sent” on Earthmate- to myself, yet no messages came through. I decided to do a factory reset and never pair to my phone and since then- messages have been sending and receiving so much faster than when I thought my unit was working properly with my phone. Is there any science to why this might be the case? It’s making want to leave it as is (unpaired). Thank in advance and apologies for the long winded post
I just want to be sure I understand, did you test out the mini in an area with cell phone reception? Did the messages come though at all before you "undid the pairing"?
Yes I was in the middle of the city, full bars. I waited half an hour and did some test texts with my phone- all successful. The whole time Earthmate showed the texts were sent yet they were never received by me.
Having/not having cell coverage has nothing to do with inReach messaging. The message always goes from the phone to the iR, then to Iridium, then to Garmin severs, then out to whatever destination address(es). If anything is going to interfere with the send once the message reaches the inReach, it'll be the inReach's view of the sky.
Most likely, the problem was that the message never made it as far as the inReach device. I'd suggest having both the Mini and the phone "forget" the pairing. Both ends. Then re-pair. I don't remember if the Earthmate app still offers pairing from inside the app. Even if it does, DO NOT pair from inside the app. Instead, pair from iOS.
Since this is a mini, you can easily tell if the message made it as far as the iR device. Send your message from Earthmate. Immediately look at the status bar on the Mini. If it shows the curved up-arrow, the message arrived at the iR and the iR is trying to send. If you don't see the up-arrow, it probably didn't make it. Just to be sure it was not sent immediately, check the Messages widget on the iR. It will show one of three things - no sign of the message (never made it from phone to iR), send in progress (curved up-arrow on the message itself), or already sent (directional outbound arrow - point NW, I think).
I mentioned cell reception only to illustrate that my phone was indeed capable of receiving messages from the mini. Additionally, the mini’s curved arrow disappeared as if the messages were sent as well as in the messages app AND the earthmate app showed the completed circle icon by all the messages. I’ve had the unlimited plan this week just so I could test enough- and this type of failure was exactly what I was hoping to avoid. Having said that- now without pairing with my phone at all, every message back and forth is delivered or received so much faster than before- and so far with 100% success rate.
Did you check the Inbox tab on inreach.garmin.com? If the messages made it as far as the Garmin servers, they will appear in the Inbox. From that point on, a message addressed to a cell phone will go from the Garmin servers to an SMS gateway with which Garmin contracts, then to the cell network, and ultimately to the target phone. Gateway providers vary according to your location.
Did you enter the full cell number when you sent the message? Or was it sent to a "known contact" (entered as a contact on the inreach.garmin.com web site) which you chose from the list? The reason I ask is that known contact addresses are transmitted from the inReach as "contact ID numbers", not using the full phone number. The ID is then matched to the full number on the Garmin server. If you made changes to the contact list since the last sync, the message might have been delivered to the wrong party. Although I've never experienced it myself, I've also seen posts describing situations where even a wired sync did not sort out contact confusion.
Since you are sending from the Earthmate app, there is the possibility of confusion over what constitutes a known contact. Earthmate has been known to drag in the entire set of contacts that exist on your phone. I don't actually know what happens if one of those contacts happens to match one on the inReach itself.
Anyhow, by looking at the inbox, you'll be able to tell to whom the message was actually addressed as far as Garmin knows.
Just to be clear - when you say without pairing your phone - you are typing the messages directly ON the inReach, correct?
I did many tests and it's difficult to determine on inreach.garmin.com what was sent at the correct time and what was sent after my restore. If I go by my inbox, it's one message missing instead of 3. Inreach.garmin.com doesn't show the missing message at all, yet earthmate shows it as sent (circle icon) and my phone (a known contact) never received it. The other two messages came in a half hour later after my restore but were also "stuck". Now my device works great- and I'm doing all "typing" on the device. It's slow- but every message goes through much quicker than it did when I was paired.
