Satellite messengers: Spot, Inreach, Zoleo, Defy

[Jammer]

Planning some cruising in remote areas and have concerned family who want to stay in constant contact. I took a look at the major brands of cheap satellite messengers and find that the reviews are uniformly poor. What works?

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Jammer

Planning some cruising in remote areas and have concerned family who want to stay in constant contact. I took a look at the major brands of cheap satellite messengers and find that the reviews are uniformly poor. What works?

Most of them work roughly the same because they all just buy airtime from the same satellite network (Irridium). Defy and a few others use Imarsat which has significantly worse coverage because it is geosync sats so low on the horizon. That likely won't matter when in the deep ocean but in sheltered bays and if taken onshore it might.


I have used inreach (specifically inreach mini) for years when backpacking. The inrech mini is nice because you don't need a cellphone. Understand you absolutely will want to use a cellphone because trying to send any custom message on it is tedious. In an emergency though it can be used by itself. Most of the other devices have no direct communication capability beyond sending a one way SOS. All other communication is through cellphone. They are however smaller and cheaper as a result.

I used inreach when they were the only option and before garmin being garmin bought them and have no complaints. I think poor reviews are the result of unrealistic expectations or people not understanding the service plans/costs.

[sv_pelagia]

Zoleo has advantage of:


-Dedicated email and SMS... doesn't change (and user sets email, and can change it)

-app-to-app messages can be ~950 characters (app is free for anyone to use)

-"check in" messages are free/unlimited

[wholybee]

Originally Posted by Statistical

Most of them work roughly the same because they all just buy airtime from the same satellite network (Irridium). Defy and a few others use Imarsat which has significantly worse coverage because it is geosync sats so low on the horizon. That likely won't matter when in the deep ocean but in sheltered bays and if taken onshore it might.

I have used inreach for years when backpacking. I used them when they were the only option and before garmin being garmin bought them.

I think poor reviews are the result of unrealistic expectations or people not understanding the service plans/costs.

Spot uses Globalstar, and has no coverage in much of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. So, I would rule out spot as viable for a world cruiser.

For those that use Iridium, the technology is the same. But customer support and the customer experience might not be. I had an inreach when they were Delorme. The transition to Garmin was horrible and so I canceled it in 2018. I used an Iridium go after that. Pricey, especially compared to what Starlink offers. But if you want to be in constant contact, you can carry it in a backpack or liferaft and use it's internal battery.

[Mike OReilly]

Have been a long-time user of inReach — long before it was gobbled by Garmin. This is the one thing they haven’t screwed up (yet). Works as advertised. Can text/email people from anywhere, and reliably keeps track of where I go. Can put it into low-cost hiatus when not in use, and can ramp up to bigger plans as needed. Pair it to a device unless you want to go squirrelly key-typing, but otherwise is good.

That said, I’d definitely look at other Iridium-based options like Zoleo. How about Yellow Brick? Isn’t that another option out there?

[Jammer]

Some reviews indicate that the Inreach Mini 2 is not as good as the Inreach Mini (discontinued). Has anyone tried the 2?

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by wholybee

Spot uses Globalstar, and has no coverage in much of the South Pacific and Indian Oceans. So, I would rule out spot as viable for a world cruiser.

For those that use Iridium, the technology is the same. But customer support and the customer experience might not be. I had an inreach when they were Delorme. The transition to Garmin was horrible and so I canceled it in 2018. I used an Iridium go after that. Pricey, especially compared to what Starlink offers. But if you want to be in constant contact, you can carry it in a backpack or liferaft and use it's internal battery.

I had pretty good luck with InReach even after Garmin gobbled them up. Then again haven't ever really needed customer support it just works and significantly cheaper than Iridium Go.

For the boat I would consider a satphone over Iridium Go as backup comms.