My Opinions on Spot v Inreach

[dlovett]

I ave owned a Spot Tracker for several years and used it quite a lot intially and I now have a Garmin Inreach mini, which I have had for almost a month. After using the Inreach a few times, I can now offer some thoughts on the pro's and cons of the two systems.

I am comparing the Spot Gen 3 to the Inreach Mini, which perhaps isn't exactly apples to apples, but that's what I have.

Size and weight: Not a massive amount in it, the inreach is slightly smaller, but feels a tiny bit heavier. The spot has no LCD screen so it feels less fragile then the inreach.

Battery: Spot wins this one. On 4 AAA lithium batteries it lasts for a long long time, days. The same set of batteries last most of a year. The inreach is usb rechargeable so it's not a major issue, but a day is about the limit depending upon how you use it as some of the features like navigation and bluetooth can burn through power a lot quicker. You can however charge whilst in use,

Reliability: I am giving this one to the inreach, as so far it's sent and received everything when it should have. Modest tree cover doesn't seem to fox it, but I've not tried in a dense forest at the bottom of a steep valley. Both of my spots would sometimes, just not seem to upload tracking data even in open terrain.

Features: Hands done to the Inreach. Comparing the two isn't really a fair contest. The Spot has tracking, 3 buttons that allow you to send three present messages and the emergency button.
The inreach has the emergency button, tracking that you can turn on and off from the device or phone/watch linked to it via bluetooth. It also can send three preset messages and you can also type and send messages directly from it, or using your phone/watch linked to it via bluetooth. It also has the ability to perform basic Garmin GPS features such as navigation etc, although you can't download maps to it and the screen is pretty small. However it could save the day if your other equipment failed.

Sharing: Might, might not be important, but I use it mainly for friends and family to follow me on big rides and to be there incase of a serious emergency. In the few years I have had them, I have only once used the spot to get help for a mechanical in an area with no phone service via a preset message that was something like "I have a problem with the bike, but I am NOT injured. Please come and get me, I am heading for the nearest road. Check my position in a few mins to see the direction I am headed".
Spot allows you to share your tracking on a basic web page. To add a route overlay you need to use a service such as Spotwalla (now subscription) The Garmin map share does the same although it's a bit more sophisticated and it does allows you to display you tracking over a route overlay, which is handy for dot watchers. I also have the Protegear's web sharing included, which is more basic like the spot one.

Cost: Inreach. Pricing can get tricky comparing them directly, but a for mine Spot was going to come in at approx 179 euros per year for basic tracking. They do a service that you can start and stop on a monthly basis now. With the inreach I use Protegear, who have been great after some initial teething troubles and that costs me 49 euro's per year plus how ever much for how I use it. I am currently on the 2.49 per day tracking plan which you can turn on and off as you want, this gives tracking and the ability to send free preset messages every ten minutes. I can also send/receive messages/weather etc at extra cost if needed. They also have weekend/week/monthly/yearly plans for tracking or just messaging if you want to tx/rx lots of messages.

I know that the newer Spot devices have added messaging and there are some on off plans, but for anybody who uses Garmin products, the way it links in with say crash detection on a fenix watch, it really makes it in my opinion, a much better system. The new mini two adds a USB C port and slightly better battery life, but not much else, so if you can pick up a used inreach mini then its a great device.

Final note, although there is a new Motorolla device just out and emergency sat feature on the latest iPhones, neither allow tracking. I have now sold my spot as the device is certainly not as capable and for the limited use on big rides/random sports events, the inreach works out for me to be a much better, more reliable device for a much lower yearly cost.

I hope this post might prove to be useful for anybody thinking about getting a sat based tracker/communicator

[Lazarus]

Glad you are getting use out of it and enjoying it

[dlovett]

Glad you are getting use out of it and enjoying it

Yep its been ace many thanks. I've designed and printed some mounts for it now so it sits really nicely on my backpacks with the antenna skyward.

[Chrisps]

Wow, thanks for this post, I never realised you could get inReach without Garmin's subscriptions. The Protogear subscriptions look far better.

Just to make sure I understand you right, you are paying the yearly fee (£49) and then just pay £2.50 for each day you use it and get tracking... then pay £0.55 per message (I presume you go on their site and turn it on and off on a daily basis when needing / not needing)? No other fees, suspension fees or anything? That is way better than Garmin's offerings in my opinion, unless you are a professional guide.

I'm almost amazed Garmin allow this... I guess its just because its an Iridium handset so they can't do much about it.

Can you confirm I understand the fees you are paying correctly? Seems to be right from their site, but just want to check, as I think I'll ditch my Spot for this....

Thanks!

[dlovett]

Yea that correct, so far I have been billed the yearly fee, some daily fees and some extra message fees I sent during testing.

I did get them to email me the details before I signed up and they were happy to confirm this.

Once it is set up, you go to a webpage on their site and select the date you want the inreach to become active on. You then get a confirmation email for it and it becomes active. You then go to the same webpage and select the day you want it to become in-active, once it has become in-active you get a confirmation email. You can queue this up in advance, but only one on/off at a time I believe??

They are very helpful and reply very quickly to emails, customer service from them is a different planet to spot’s.

I am very heppy I have ditched the spot now as inreach is so much better and cheaper for me.

[dlovett]

This is how it look Egan it’s not active, on their website.

IMG_0307.jpeg (43.88 KiB) Viewed 423 times

Wow, thanks for this post, I never realised you could get inReach without Garmin's subscriptions. The Protogear subscriptions look far better.

Just to make sure I understand you right, you are paying the yearly fee (£49) and then just pay £2.50 for each day you use it and get tracking... then pay £0.55 per message (I presume you go on their site and turn it on and off on a daily basis when needing / not needing)? No other fees, suspension fees or anything? That is way better than Garmin's offerings in my opinion, unless you are a professional guide.

I'm almost amazed Garmin allow this... I guess its just because its an Iridium handset so they can't do much about it.

Can you confirm I understand the fees you are paying correctly? Seems to be right from their site, but just want to check, as I think I'll ditch my Spot for this....

Thanks!

[Chrisps]

Bril, thanks for confirming. Really annoyingly I renewed my Spot sub last week, and it turns out you can't get a refund; grrr... so looks like I'll have to do this next year when I can cancel my spot. Still, gives me a year to find a reasonably priced inReach! Ta!