[BarryL]

Hello,

I just finished a 5 day passage from Bermuda to NY. I had my SPOT X communicator on board which was used for position tracking and simple text communications. I was very disappointed in the SPOT performance and I wonder how it would compare to InReach or something else. The battery performance was way worse than advertised. The unit stopped working a few times. It also frequently missed position tracks.

Here's the track. The device was set to broadcast the position every 30 minutes. At least once a day I needed to reset it or it would not transmit .

According to SPOT, in 10 minute track mode the device should last for 10 days. I had to recharge the battery 2 times in 5 days, with a track interval of 30 minutes (but with 2-3 messages sent and received each day).

If you have an inreach product, how does your performance compare?

I plan on an offshore trip to Maine in August and I want more reliable communication.

Thanks,
Barry

PS - I will create a write up of my Bermuda trip in the next few days.

 

[capta]

When my wife sailed Skipping Stone up from Carriacou, we communicated using the Iridium GO, which had the added feature of giving her weather gifs. We also had text, email & voice.

 

[AndyL]

I have an InReach but I haven't used it on a long trip so can't answer your question directly. But when I was looking to buy a device a few years ago, my Google research suggested that it was more reliable than a Spot and worth the extra money.

 

[MikeOReilly]

I've had an inReach for going on a decade now ... before they were bought out by Garmin. It's performed quite well. We've done a few longer passages, although nothing far into the Atlantic. It's managed to keep spitting tracking points most of the time, although it does drop a few now and then. Battery life seems pretty good. It can go for multiple days without a recharge. It is efficient enough that I haven't really noticed. Of course, the real benefit of the inReach is it's global texting ability. This too is pretty reliable, but there are times when it can't find a satellite. In these cases it holds the message until it can send.

I have never used a SPOT, but I have been pleased with the inReach since we got it.

 

[JoeDunn]

I would be interested in the write up of your trip...Do you have a shoal draft? Thanks

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

I use Iridium Go. That and everything else will be obsolete the moment Elon Musk can build a marine antenna for Starlink

But I doubt it will be available by august.

Maybe you can rent Iridium Go?


Mark

 

[MikeOReilly]

I use Iridium Go. That and everything else will be obsolete the moment Elon Musk can build a marine antenna for Starlink

But I doubt it will be available by august.

Maybe you can rent Iridium Go?


Mark

Hasn't he just announced this Mark? I'm not following it closely because I can't afford it anyway, but a friend here just ordered the system for his boat. I think it's coming fast.

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

No. He announced you could now register to have it on a boat. But not a special marine antenna gimbles etc to work at sea.
Unless i have missed something in the last few weeks.

 

[Killick]

My experience with the SPOT tracker comes from long distance back country bicycle racing, where it has always performed poorly. Every issue you had, we would have - loss of signal (for no accountable reason), poor battery life, entire tracks missing, etc.

Since switching to my little Inreach Mini I have had pretty much flawless service. You have to deal with Garmin's 1985-level computer interfaces and web sites, but as for product reliability and dependability, it's great.

 

[MarkofSeaLife]

Yes, the 1985 computer interfaces are common to them all. The latest 9555 sat phone is like the first Nokia and quite unusable. Iridium Go with Predict Wind says you need 1 WEEK to learn to use it. Yes 1 week. And it took me that full week.

The lack of advancement of UI shows none of these companies care about their products.
The moment Starlink becomes effective all current suppliers will abandon their useless Rip-off platforms.

 

[Killick]

I've found that Inreach works great, and the interface works dependably, just not necessarily logically. Once you're used to it, and it took me maybe a solid hour of tinkering to be able to understand it, I have no fear of it not working. You can text with it anywhere in the world, and it records a dependable track that others can see easily on the internet with one link they can click on. But it won't do gribs or email obviously. You can receive pretty good, decently informative marine weather information for any points on the globe that you want to inquire about.