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The reason for inreach mini poor gps performance compared to other units/phones

wildside
over 5 years ago

So like many people on this forum Ive found the time the Inreach mini takes to aquire a location fix to be ok but not great.  My mobile phone gets a location fix much faster than the mini.  (phone has all location assist services turned off and is in flight mode)

I think i found the reason.

The inreach has access to 34 orbiting satellites (GPS only)

My phone can communicate with 123 orbiting satellites to triangulate a signal (GPS, Galileo, BDS and GLONASS satellite constellations)

Thats a huge difference.

So can the mini be upgraded via software patch?  or can the garmin earthmate app be improved allow the mini to use the phones location for a fix when connected via bluetooth? 

This would speed up location acquistion time in an emergency and in general navigation and messaging.

It could make the difference between life and death in a scenaro where a person is located in a canyon and out of the line of site of the closest gps satelite orbit.  Then mini  would need to wait minutes or in a worst case scenario hours for another GPS satelites to pass directly overhead. 

In that time several of the satelites of the  other location service constelations like Galileo, BDS and GLONASS could have passed overhead but the mini currently cant talk to them.

Garmin says that adding just GLONASS 31 sats to the GPS's 34 sats decreases location acquisition time by up to 20%
https://support.garmin.com/en-AU/?faq=G ... ErPJevmbJ7

Imagine how much faster it would be if the inreach could talk to GPS, Galileo, BDS and GLONASS satelites either via a software patch or via the earthmate app using a phones location fix.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Pablo Cruz Navea
    Pablo Cruz Navea said:
    I stopped fighting with this issue because let's be honest. We cannot pretend such a small device to be used as a navigation tool. For me, the Mini IS NOT intended to be used as a standalone devide.

    Actually, the Mini is intended to be used stand-alone. The very purpose of the Mini was for users who can not be weighed down by larger, heavier, bulkier devices.

    And, the Mini MUST be able to calculate a satellite position accurately and reliably, otherwise its primary function, sending an SOS distress call in the event of a life threatening emergency, is rendered useless. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to atlas_cached

    Unfortunately (for us), Garmin promotes the device as a "Lightweight and Compact Satellite Communicator" in Garmin US ("Dispositivo de comunicación por satélite ligero y compacto" in Garmin CL, exactly the same in spanish). Other "inReach" devices are promoted as GPS navigators, which I think is a call for not using the Mini stand-alone.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Pablo Cruz Navea

    Slow acquisition times may be due to lack of an up to date almanac. That can be fixed. See immediately above.  If that does NOT solve the problem, open a support ticket. There may be something wrong with your hardware.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Pablo Cruz Navea

    I think you are reading too much into marketing-speak. This wording is (most likely) intended to stress the lightweight nature of the device. I do not believe you should construe the LACK of "GPS navigator" wording as implying that the device does not have GPS functionality.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to twolpert

    I have tried that and my Mini is quite fast in determining my position. The problem is it requires a "very clear" sky which is something I guess it won't be fixed by means of an up-to-date almanac.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Pablo Cruz Navea

    I have found that the way I carry the Mini makes quite a bit of difference here. Not sure if it's the antenna design or what. The best place for the Mini is high on your shoulder - for example, on the top of a pack strap. In so far as possible, this avoids signal blocking by your body. 

    If you carry the device in your hand, carry it out in front. Do not carry it down at your side. I once walked for 20 minutes carrying the device at my side, with the antenna protruding upward between my thumb and forefinger - without EVER acquiring a fix. 

    Which brings up another best practice (IMO). You should always make sure that the device has acquired a fix before you start moving. It seems to be better at maintaining a fix than at acquiring initially. Also prevents my kind of stupidity above - believing I am tracking when I don't even have a fix.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to twolpert

    That actually points to a very simple Garmin software fix -- shouldn't the app be sharing the almanac with the Mini over Bluetooth to speed all this up? If the device can connect to a phone with an app, then why would it need to stare at the sky for 12-20 minutes on end to download an almanac that the phone already has access to? That should only be the choice of last resort, for when there's been no phone connection recently

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to synosure

    What exists now is what you have to deal with. If you want to suggest this as an enhancement, you can do so here:

    https://www.garmin.com/en-US/forms/ideas/

    In reality, a better solution would be to change the Mini f/w to use an EPO file. There is already a framework in place to sync those to capable devices. Either way, though, it would likely require changes to the legacy Earthmate app - which is not being enhanced as far as I can see.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to twolpert

    Thank you. Yesterday I tested using the Mini in my shoulder (using my backpack) and reception improved a lot (to almost never losing signal even surrounded by buildings).

    Regarding the other best practice you mention, I agree, especially when traversing dense forest, my approach with all GPS devices is to enter the hard part with the GPS position already locked.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Another possibility might be to use the ANT+/BLE links to get the coordinates from a paired device (ex: phone or activity watch). Either to seed/accelerate inReach's fix, or to use this fix altogether. 

    My use case is to send/retrieve messages. I typically have access to several GPS devices. I would actually prefer a bare inReach that would be strictly a comm device, with a limited interface (send/receive; read/write)