[Slim]

[Navy salad]

Very interesting! Supposed to come out in April and pricing is $99 +$5/month.

[mike]

Anyone try this yet?

[dave allyn]

Personally I'd wait. The iPhone version probably works fine as a 2 way communicator but the interface between their call center and rescuers is poor. The Garmin or SPOT are much better. No idea how the Motorola will do, but until I can find out more about their emergency response, I'll wait. If you only care about 2 way communication and don't care about the red button response it's probably fine.

[Schroder]

Motorola Defy uses Inmarsat (geostationary) so it's going to have to look south to find a satellite. I know someone that uses a similar one, Zoleo, that uses Iridium - the same as an InReach - and they can activate and pay for only on the days they need it. With Defy you can only text someone with the same app but the Zoleo can use sms. The price of the Defy looks great if you can live with those limitations.

[zimmertr]

FWIW you're not just paying for the functionality of the device you're paying for the quality of the responders. My SAR friend says the InReach is still well regarded as the gold standard. And they find working with organizations like Apple significantly more difficult and slow.

[mike]

For now I'll stick with my ACR ResQlink PLB. For a simple SOS a PLB is still the "gold standard". The InReach and Zoleo have more functions but still go through a middleperson. The Zoleo looks pretty good if I ever have a need for something more e.g. worldwide coverage. The Defy relying on a clear southern horizon is a non-starter. That leaves out about half the NCascades.

[zimmertr]

A few weeks ago a hiker suffered a spinal injury. They were not carrying a satellite communicator but someone who came across them later on was and called for SAR. They did not have a two-way communicator so emergency services only sent two trail runners up to rendezvous with the the injured hiker. It was only then they realized how serious the accident was and called in a medivac. Which arrived a few hours later. (Many hours after the original request for help went out) If a two-way communicator was available, SAR would have been immediately aware of how serious the incident was and the injured hiker would have received medical attention hours earlier. This is why they're preferred. I was also informed that that specific SAR department prefers Garmin to Apple and other organizations because Garmin is far more responsive and willing to work with SAR while Apple routes them through a call center and they get stuck on hold and battle bureaucracy. I'm sure with time this will improve. Until then, I'll gladly keep carrying and using my InReach.

[kite]

SO I have the ZOLEO and it been pretty good, i like the weather option but I did get a notice that the SOS alerting service has been changed to to Global Rescue.