Just returned from a Lake Superior trip. The guide had a InReach along.

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While it's batteries held up it worked great. Last he looked it showed 82% battery life left, but it was dead the next day. Guessing it was left on by mistake. We also had our Spot and 2 VHF weather radios.

While it's service is more expensive than a Spot I was told you can put the service in hibernation. It seems to do much more than the Spot. We used it to help get some hikers evacuated. After that experience we learned the email server seems to scan for messages every half hour, so wait for your replies. It does show messages sent and received.

It would be nice if it took AA batteries, or else plugged into a portable photocell.

I'll be looking into it more. But does anyone have anything to add?