Inreach Mini 2 Questions

[packer58]

For those of you that use or have used the Inreach Mini 2 I thought i'd throw this question out there before calling customer service. First of all i'll give you my take on the Mini 2, acquiring satellite reception was pretty fast and the unit was easy to navigate using my cell phone after pairing and syncing with the garmin messanger and garmin explore apps. The other thing i really liked was the ability to put my phone on airplane mode (big battery saver) and everything still worked as it should.

So, before i left on my trip (N/W Nevada) i told my wife and 3 other buddies that i would check in once a day with a "free" pre-set text (just checking in, everything is ok), this was sent via group text. They all received the text just fine but 1) The senders number was a number none of them recognized. 2) Each of them say a different number and 3) I sent the message out as a group text but all the recipients received an individual text. Also each of the text recipients saw a different senders number. Basically, they would have had no idea who the text was coming from if we hadn't talked about it before hand.

Long story short, is there a way to identify myself as the sender when using this thing ??

 

[ODB]

from garmin:

The number that the message comes from can change based on what region of the world the recipient is currently in, and can also change from recipient to recipient. These numbers should not be shared with others as a way to reach the inReach user, and messages sent directly to these numbers will not be delivered.


I just sent a test to my kid's phone and it has the message, the link to reply, the lat/long and my name.

 

[bpurtz]

For those of you that use or have used the Inreach Mini 2 I thought i'd throw this question out there before calling customer service. First of all i'll give you my take on the Mini 2, acquiring satellite reception was pretty fast and the unit was easy to navigate using my cell phone after pairing and syncing with the garmin messanger and garmin explore apps. The other thing i really liked was the ability to put my phone on airplane mode (big battery saver) and everything still worked as it should.

So, before i left on my trip (N/W Nevada) i told my wife and 3 other buddies that i would check in once a day with a "free" pre-set text (just checking in, everything is ok), this was sent via group text. They all received the text just fine but 1) The senders number was a number none of them recognized. 2) Each of them say a different number and 3) I sent the message out as a group text but all the recipients received an individual text. Also each of the text recipients saw a different senders number. Basically, they would have had no idea who the text was coming from if we hadn't talked about it before hand.

Long story short, is there a way to identify myself as the sender when using this thing ??

All three of your questions are normal operation for the Inreach Mini, Mini 2, and Explorers. The unrecognized phone number is just the way the Inreach satellite communicates with cellular. If I'm sending a message to somebody not familiar with the system, I just start the message with: "name here"

One issue that I've experienced but haven't asked Garmin about is why some messages will be extremely delayed in receiving - like a buddy will send 3 messages and I'll get 2 within 30 minutes, but the last message will show up 6 hours later...

 

[ODB]

All three of your questions are normal operation for the Inreach Mini, Mini 2, and Explorers. The unrecognized phone number is just the way the Inreach satellite communicates with cellular. If I'm sending a message to somebody not familiar with the system, I just start the message with: "name here"

One issue that I've experienced but haven't asked Garmin about is why some messages will be extremely delayed in receiving - like a buddy will send 3 messages and I'll get 2 within 30 minutes, but the last message will show up 6 hours later...

That's odd... I've never had a long delay with any of my messages. hmmm

 

[JF_Idaho]

Yeah. Just put "Hey, this is _____ " at the beginning and they will know it's you.

 

[BBob]

Long story short, is there a way to identify myself as the sender when using this thing ??

Before I leave on a trip I send an individual sat message to each of my safety persons or people I’m sure I’ll be communicating with during that trip with a note of who this is. I tend to send a normal text before to let them all know I’ll be sending an ID message from the sat device. That seems to take care of the identification of who I am while on the trip and beyond.

 

[bpurtz]

That's odd... I've never had a long delay with any of my messages. hmmm

The Inreach Explorer app (android) had an issue that if I had previously received and viewed a message on the app and then a 2nd message was received by the Garmin, I often wouldn't be able to view the second message until I closed and reopened the app.

It's possible that the delay that I've experience on the Mini 2 is a similar app issue even though its a different app - when the issue occurred last fall, I didn't look at the Mini 2 to see if it had received a message that wasn't downloaded by the app. I've tried to be in the habit of just closing the app after reading a message, but sometime forget...

 

[ODB]

The Inreach Explorer app (android) had an issue that if I had previously received and viewed a message on the app and then a 2nd message was received by the Garmin, I often wouldn't be able to view the second message until I closed and reopened the app.

It's possible that the delay that I've experience on the Mini 2 is a similar app issue even though its a different app - when the issue occurred last fall, I didn't look at the Mini 2 to see if it had received a message that wasn't downloaded by the app. I've tried to be in the habit of just closing the app after reading a message, but sometime forget...

Ah -I see. I use an older InReach SE and dont use the phone app at all. I just use the presets or click to make a custom message.

 

[packer58]

Thanks fellas, adding my name to a text or a pre-set message would be easy enough ...... I talked to a buddy about this issue and after we checked area codes on the random numbers they all came from the same area, our thoughts then turned to ........... When you send a message it transmits to a satellite then back down to a communication hub then to the recipient ........ Hell, IDK ......