iPhone 14 emergency satellite SOS and text...

[goldenboy]

This seems like as good a place to put this as anywhere. I'm no Apple fanboy, in fact I own zero Apple products, but having an emergency SOS on my phone instead of my Garmin inReach sounds somewhat appealing if the service is reliable. There are a ton of articles about it, here's one decent one: https://www.outsideonline.com/busine...te-sos-garmin/

So what say ye?

[EWG]

This seems like as good a place to put this as anywhere. I'm no Apple fanboy, in fact I own zero Apple products, but having an emergency SOS on my phone instead of my Garmin inReach sounds somewhat appealing if the service is reliable. There are a ton of articles about it, here's one decent one: https://www.outsideonline.com/busine...te-sos-garmin/

So what say ye?

I think it's great to be able to have an emergency satellite service casually in your pocket. I'm in.

But for anything serious, the in-reach is coming along, at least for the foreseeable future.

[ex-powderbroker]

This seems like as good a place to put this as anywhere. I'm no Apple fanboy, in fact I own zero Apple products, but having an emergency SOS on my phone instead of my Garmin inReach sounds somewhat appealing if the service is reliable. There are a ton of articles about it, here's one decent one: https://www.outsideonline.com/busine...te-sos-garmin/

So what say ye?

2 years service included with a new phone. only works in mainstream north america so if you're going to baffin you might want to bring the inReach.

I'm in.

[cat in january]

Yeah I have been reading about this too. In

[wannabe]

I’m super intrigued by this,but honestly I will not be leaving my inreach at home anytime soon.

This feels to me like going back to the 1st gen spot, which for the time was great but not as reliable as I hoped. This would be good for maybe a bike ride or something short that I didn’t bring my inreach with.

Any true adventure the inreach is going.


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[Hacksaw]

Even if you have an inReach on Baffin Island it will take awhile for help to arrive. We only had the plane radio and ELT.

[HellgateBasement]

I’m super intrigued by this,but honestly I will not be leaving my inreach at home anytime soon.

This feels to me like going back to the 1st gen spot, which for the time was great but not as reliable as I hoped. This would be good for maybe a bike ride or something short that I didn’t bring my inreach with.

Any true adventure the inreach is going.


Sent from my iPad using TGR Forums

It uses the same Globalstar satellite network as the Spot I think, so that makes sense.

[LHutz Esq]

I am in - that being said until apple allows for text over satellite I’ll be keeping my garmin as well.

Having another “oh shit” button is nice but being able to text friends and fam is worth it for me.

[Ørion]

T-mobile and Starlink are partnering to provide similar functionality, curious to see how they stack up in the real world: https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/25/t-...ing-next-year/

More importantly, how will everyone having a PLB in their pockets over stress our wilderness emergency response systems?

[cat in january]

I was hiking the Appalachian Trail terminus at mount Katahdin and it seemed like most through hikers had a satellite device so I am guessing there is a sense of how the system will be stressed. Certainly a lot more inexperienced folks out since Covid.

Apple service is not functional yet, but as I understand it you are walked through menu choices. Perhaps that will lead to better information going out. But yes to your point SAR will be additionally stressed

[Jonathan S.]

[...] More importantly, how will everyone having a PLB in their pockets over stress our wilderness emergency response systems?

The new iPhone feature will not have a simple "HAAAALP!" icon but instead will guide the requester through some sort of iterative sequence of q's to filter out would-be frivolous requests.
(Plus the proliferation of PLB, Spot, inReach, and other satellite devices doesn't seem to have led to increased strains on SAR resources, especially since for however many unnecessary SOS signals, those devices are saving hours or even days of the "S" part in SAR -- I'm not aware of any attempts to quantify the net savings though.)

[Jonathan S.]

This seems like as good a place to put this as anywhere. I'm no Apple fanboy, in fact I own zero Apple products, but having an emergency SOS on my phone instead of my Garmin inReach sounds somewhat appealing if the service is reliable. [...]

Same here!
I've gone through the sequence of PLB > Spot > subsequent generation Spot > inReach > subsequent generation inReach > inReach Mini.
My Mini sits buried in my pack on any tours that stray from cell reception, but the last time I sent a message was July 2015 while skiing in Chile after a business trip.
(Since of course I wanted everyone to know I was skiing in Chile -- although I could have simply waited until I was back in civilization to just email a few pics...)

The new iPhone feature has far less functionality than the competition:
https://backpackinglight.com/garmin-...view-vs-zoleo/
... but all that add'l functionality is of no interest to me.

So far the best info has been at BPL:
https://backpackinglight.com/apple-i...armin-inreach/

If I needed a new phone right now, I would definitely get the new iPhone.
But since I don't, I'll wait until the functionality is enabled and the reviewers can chime in ... although might be difficult to test if the only communication is for an emergency?
I'm also concerned that the feature is free for the first two years and then after that the fee will be ... unspecified, but likely to be comparable the indirect competition.
Give that years ago I carried PLB, camera, GPS, and phone, amazing to have all functionality condensed to just "phone" now!

[406]

hopefully next pixel will have something better and on the Iridium satellite network...and not be the size of a tablet.

[Jonathan S.]

This pending feature:
https://9to5mac.com/2022/09/27/ios-1...emo-iphone-14/
... seems to imply that the "demo" will allow you to see whether you're actually able to establish a satellite connection in various locations (which means it's almost more like a "practice" feature).

[summit]

If they run good interference like GEOS, this will be a good thing. The beauty of Inreach or PLB is those are purpose made emergency communicators, while the iphone may die because you left its flashlight on while you listened to music over bluetooth, but it is still a tool for faster emergency notification for people who don't have the better tool. But they almost need to run it a little better than GEOS. There is a small subset of Spot/Garmin users who think they have a magic "summon helicopter" button for whatever whim they have. I suspect a higher portion (but still a small minority) of iphone users will suffer from this misconception. It is mitigated by the comm center triaging and passing comms:
"no being out of food won't get you a helo."
"yes we talked to SAR because you are tired, but they advise it will take 3-4 hours to reach you, but they aren't going to carry you just because you are tired, so you might just wanna keep walking."
"understand you are lost. proceed 400m west and you will cross the trail."

If Apple does a shit job of that, it will be result in much gnashing of teeth and grinding of gears.
If they do a good job of that, it will probably result in only a small increase in rescues that didn't need to be, but it will likely save life and limb as well!

[Supermoon]

I'm excited for this feature, also. I don't own an inReach, so this will be a good addition to just a phone for anything I'm doing outside of phone service. Having it as a backup to an inReach would be nice as well. Always good to have redundancy for no penalty in weight or space.

I think that as phone service continues to get better, the areas where casuals can get to without the ability to text people is going to go down dramatically over the next five to ten years, making it even less likely someone will need to use the service. This is speculation only, but the amount of places I frequent that don't have cell service anymore has dropped probably 95% in the last ten years.

[goldenboy]

This is speculation only, but the amount of places I frequent that don't have cell service anymore has dropped probably 95% in the last ten years.

Honestly I haven't noticed anywhere locally that I get service now that I didn't get service 10 years ago. I would estimate that I have no service 75% (maybe even more) of the places I ski and bike, and that includes the ski area.

[Supermoon]

Honestly I haven't noticed anywhere locally that I get service now that I didn't get service 10 years ago. I would estimate that I have no service 75% (maybe even more) of the places I ski and bike, and that includes the ski area.

Huh. Wild.

[Jonathan S.]

Curious what providers the various posters are citing for service getting better -- or not -- in various locales?

In New England, with Verizon, since 2006 I haven't experienced any improvement in the roughly half-dozen different places I frequently ski in the backcountry. Although coverage was already about 75% in the good sense. Coverage along interstates and major secondary highways has stayed about the same, roughly 75% too.

But a ski area I often skin up has gone from about 10% reliability to 90% reliability -- very important for work calls and emails during the "workday"!
(The prior dead zone was also very ironic since the summit has massive radio tower arrays, but apparently they weren't for cell service.)
Unfortunately the reliability of my home office and another place I frequently visit has declined, even though both locations are fairly dense residential neighborhoods, very strange!

Out West where I often ski, Hood has stayed the same (Palmer generally good, Zig Zag not-so-good), and Adams South Climb & SW Chutes have stayed the same too (only a few good spots).

[Eluder]

Honestly I haven't noticed anywhere locally that I get service now that I didn't get service 10 years ago. I would estimate that I have no service 75% (maybe even more) of the places I ski and bike, and that includes the ski area.

Cell coverage and quality has actually gotten noticeably worse here in the last 10 years. Booming population/tourism with no new infrastructure.

[goldenboy]

Cell coverage and quality has actually gotten noticeably worse here in the last 10 years. Booming population/tourism with no new infrastructure.

Ha, true. There is basically no service during the 4th of July for example.

[snowaddict91]

Verizon coverage improved noticeably in the Wasatch when I was there (2014-2020).

But I agree with Goldenboy, in the Gunnison Valley and Western Slope, I typically plan to have no service except for maybe a high point here and there. I picked up an inreach mini soon after moving here.

As far as a burden/stress to SAR resources, the initial one-way communication devices definitely felt that way. But two-way comms are a game changer for so many reasons.

[Tele 'til You're Smelly]

Ok it's live and I just tested it with the test feature. Update your OS and then test as per here- seemed to work well: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426

[ex-powderbroker]

Garmin blogpost about incidents:

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/blog/sa...sos-incidents/

[Jonathan S.]

Ok it's live and I just tested it with the test feature. Update your OS and then test as per here- seemed to work well: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT213426

Thanks for the heads-up. I've been wondering when it would be available.
After reading up on the details, and watching four videos, I'm sold -- seems even better than the earlier descriptions.

This was the most helpful write-up and video:
https://www.dcrainmaker.com/2022/11/...explainer.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2m89XASOdo

I haven't watched this one yet though:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sKeuWd3vzU

The other three I watched didn't add any info, and the presenters didn't have much outdoor cred, although the pleasant-looking young lady who requested that the SAR team bring band-aids was quite entertaining (especially since she was pretty much laughing at herself the entire time for her aforementioned lack of outdoor cred).

I definitely won't argue with inReach users who point out the lack of functionality compared to inReach, but I've never had an anticipated need for that kind of add'l functionality.
(And consider my inReach Mini for sale now!)