A Litany of InReach Mini Woes: Multiple Email Account Requirements

I activated my new InReach Mini under one of the Professional plans. In doing so, I received some cryptic advice that I should use a different email address for the "main" account and each individual device "account".

After setting up a new email address and registering the device that way, I discovered that the add on insurance protection I had purchased was registered to the "main" account and not the "device" account. So I deleted the "device" account and re-registered the Mini under the "main" email address (despite being advised not to do so).

Does anyone know what the consequences/risks are of using the same email address in multiple roles this way?

As an aside, I ran into challenges even registering for this forum because the forum software was aware of the email addresses used to register my account and my device but rejected the passwords I'd set up for them over in the activation site. Which strikes me as not a good design for a forum community.

Top Replies

Garmin-Heath over 5 years ago +1

ChairmanMAO Normally that suggestion if for the SuperAdmin sanity. At times, Professional Accounts are run for businesses/organizations/government departments/group of friends/families/etc. The list can…

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0 twolpert over 5 years ago

All Garmin properties attempt to use single-signon - with varying degrees of success. It is definitely NOT prepared for people with more than one Garmin account used simultaneously with any of the web properties. The conventional wisdom here is to be sure to log out of ALL Garmin properties before attempting to log in to any of them with a different account. If you absolutely must be logged in to different web properties under different accounts at the same time, you will have to use a different browser for each account.

I don't have a Pro account, so I can't comment on the non-unique email address issue. If you really want to know, you're going to have call tech support.

0 Garmin-Heath over 5 years ago

ChairmanMAO Normally that suggestion if for the SuperAdmin sanity. At times, Professional Accounts are run for businesses/organizations/government departments/group of friends/families/etc. The list can go on and one. Making one account for the SuperAdmin allows one account to handle the setup/billing/support contacts. Plus it would allow you to be group with other users on the account in case you have specialized settings set for your group (Example: Preset Messages). There are other advantages to with handing over the duties of the SuperAdmin when your role changes in the company or group. As twolpert stated if you want to talk to us about this more, feel free to reach out to our Product Support teams. All they have devices and must of them were put in a Professional plan too so they can speak from personal experience.

For insurance, I would suggest reaching out to GEOS. It would be worth asking if they can move it to your other account. If they can’t, no biggie, just keep using the Super Admin account as your main account but be safe for us. It always good to know GEOS is there for us, but I personally would not want any of us to ‘have to’ use their service.

On the subject of the forums. I'm happy to say that we are moving to a new platform. There are many users and people in Garmin that are super excited about this. This will fix many issues and get the forums on a more updated footing as other sites like inReach.Garmin.com.

0 ChairmanMAO over 5 years ago

I did talk to tech support about this issue, as an aside from dealing with yet another problem caused by the relatively high level of inconsistency of Garmin's documentation. What I was told is that there shouldn't be a problem using the same email as the "master" pro account email and a specific InReach Mini.

Interestingly, the tech support person told me the multiplicity of emails is a result of Garmin's software using email addresses as unique IDs (presumably within their databases). That's why "fake" emails will work in many places within the Garmin ecosystem.

Speaking as a website/software developer, I find that a rather odd architecture. Emails are generally used to identify a unique person, not a unique person's unique role. In fact, off the top of my head I don't know of any other site/system I use which is structured that way.