Iridium Email Services?

[goboatingnow]

Does it work inside the cabin

Dave


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[pbiJim]

Spot tracker gen 2 & 3 both work from inside the cabin while crusing the east coast of the US. I'm curious about the performance of the other devices & performance in other places.

[henryk]

Originally Posted by CarlF

I have recently purchased an Delorme Inreach to augment the satphone but am now considering getting rid of the satphone.

The Inreach:

Costs $300 and $15/month for service (and the $15 can be turned on or off as desired online). There is no SIM. The $15 gets you 10 monthly messages and $0.50 for each additional ($69 gets you unlimited messages)

It sends 160 character messages to any email address (and recipients can send messages back). Longer messages are combined into one email. But as any teenager knows, you can say a lot in 160 characters

Ocens offers a limited weather service that gives you 72 hour weather for $80/yr but I just have a shoreside friend send me a 160 character forecast as needed.

It uses the Iridium network, has a staffed emergency center, and confirms both satellite availability and message successfully sent (messages seem to go in less than 60 seconds). It is "always on", you don't have to check for messages and it beeps when one arrives. There's no screwing around with USB or computer connections or even a login.

It connects by bluetooth to my iphone. I leave the Inreach under the dodger (seems to work through the dodger fine and it goes four days on a charge) and then use the iphone from inside the cabin. The Inreach is waterproof and could go in a liferaft.

I really think it's the biggest step forward in offshore safety/communications since the EPIRB.

InReach

Panbo: The Marine Electronics Hub: Two way testing DeLorme inReachSE, plus new Explorer model & OCENS SpotCast Weather

I like it.

[Matt Johnson]

Not sure that the Inreach is such a good deal. We paid $400 for an Isatphone Pro from Inmarsat. Incoming text are free (you are charged on the Inreach for incoming I believe), and you pay about a buck a minute for voice or data...or $.50 a text for outgoing. Seems cheaper in the long run with no monthly contract, and I have the ability to make real calls or real emails.

For compression software, I use Onsatmail which comes free with our minutes purchased from Ashbury.

Matt

[kiltym]

Originally Posted by funjohnson

Not sure that the Inreach is such a good deal. We paid $400 for an Isatphone Pro from Inmarsat. Incoming text are free (you are charged on the Inreach for incoming I believe), and you pay about a buck a minute for voice or data...or $.50 a text for outgoing. Seems cheaper in the long run with no monthly contract, and I have the ability to make real calls or real emails.

For compression software, I use Onsatmail which comes free with our minutes purchased from Ashbury.

Matt

Onsat mail is free for anyone with an ISatPhone, or any other phone actually.

It's not the easiest to set up, but it's free, and is one if the best compression services available, much better then GMN for the ISatPhone and comparable to UUPlus, which is a good pay service and easier for some to get working.

[4music3]

Originally Posted by pbiJim

Would you mind explaining the problems that you ran into?

Thanks,
Jim

Well the use I had intended was a a way to make calls when there is an accident with my motorcycle club. We ride hard and in remote arias so I wanted a way to get help when not in cell phone coverage. What I have found is it is very susceptible to cloud cover--much more then I would have expected.

Voice quality and volume are also not stellar.

I understand now that you can check a web-site and find the times of day when you should have the most success but I can't pick and chose what time my motorcycle buddies are going to wreck.

It also did not work in the Bahamas and it seemed like I needed to sign up for a service in the Bahamas to make it work. I decided not to mess with it and gave up because my brother had an iridium with him on the trip.

Not saying I have done a bunch of research just my experience so far?

[Adelie]

What happened with Rebel Hearts Iridium service? This I hadn't heard about.

[msponer]

Originally Posted by Adelie

What happened with Rebel Hearts Iridium service? This I hadn't heard about.

SatellitePhoneStore.com apparently mailed Eric a new SIM card, then, while he was at sea, turned off the one in his phone. According to this Latitude 38 story, Satellite Phone Store denies they did this, but another boat on the way to the Marquessas says their SIM card was also turned off.

[CarlF]

I have the InReach SE. Like this:

Amazon.com: DeLorme AG-009871-201 inReach SE: GPS & Navigation

I never thought to try the InReach in the cabin since my satphone is so picky about sky view. Maybe it would work. As I mentioned, I put the InReach on the coachroof under the dodger and use the bluetooth linked iphone inside the cabin to operate it. It feels like just another way to do SMS on the Iphone (but will work with email addresses as well as phone numbers).

For me, it's a great advantage to have no contract or minute expiration (other than a $25 annual fee to keep the account alive). I only make offshore trips (beyond VHF range) about 3 months a year so I pay only for those months. You have an online user account to change or suspend the service level as needed.

If you cruised full time, the satphone becomes more cost competitive - but for me, the InReach is still much, much easier to use for email.

[pbiJim]

Originally Posted by CarlF

I have the InReach SE. Like this:

Amazon.com: DeLorme AG-009871-201 inReach SE: GPS & Navigation

I never thought to try the InReach in the cabin since my satphone is so picky about sky view. Maybe it would work. As I mentioned, I put the InReach on the coachroof under the dodger and use the bluetooth linked iphone inside the cabin to operate it. It feels like just another way to do SMS on the Iphone (but will work with email addresses as well as phone numbers).

For me, it's a great advantage to have no contract or minute expiration (other than a $25 annual fee to keep the account alive). I only make offshore trips (beyond VHF range) about 3 months a year so I pay only for those months. You have an online user account to change or suspend the service level as needed.

If you cruised full time, the satphone becomes more cost competitive - but for me, the InReach is still much, much easier to use for email.

I have one big question about that In Reach:
When someone sends you a SMS, what kind of number do they need to dial?

Sub questions:
Is it an off shore call? Can people in more than 1 country get a local number to send messages to? Do you need to pick a single area code where a base number will be located? Can you send SMS from the In Reach to cell phones in any country at the same rate?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by pbiJim

I have one big question about that In Reach:
When someone sends you a SMS, what kind of number do they need to dial?

Sub questions:
Is it an off shore call? Can people in more than 1 country get a local number to send messages to? Do you need to pick a single area code where a base number will be located? Can you send SMS from the In Reach to cell phones in any country at the same rate?

My understanding is that you cannot initiate a shore side SMS message. Inreach uses a pooled number and uses nexmo to actually send the SMS. Hence there is no valid iridium number unless you have texted from inreach first. This is different to both the iridium sbd or phone with does have a valid 088 number accessible worldwide ( but can be expensive )

I beleive the email is similar, you cannot initiate a shoreside side only a reply

In my opinion there is an opening to produce a simple text based iridium SBD service for mariners
Dave


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[svlamorocha]

Originally Posted by funjohnson

Not sure that the Inreach is such a good deal. We paid $400 for an Isatphone Pro from Inmarsat. Incoming text are free (you are charged on the Inreach for incoming I believe), and you pay about a buck a minute for voice or data...t

Let me point out that the Isatphone is much slower than an Iridium phone when sending email. My rule of thumb is that what takes 1.5 minutes on Iridium takes 3 on the Isatphone..

[Exile]

I thought the InReach could pair with a phone or tablet, making it much easier to text? If so, does this still require a different number, etc.?

[goboatingnow]

Originally Posted by Exile

I thought the InReach could pair with a phone or tablet, making it much easier to text? If so, does this still require a different number, etc.?

I do a fair bit with iridium sbd , and I beleive inreach is using iridiums sbd service.

Other then a fully provisioned voice service ,iridium does not in effect connect directly from sat device to end user. The message is loaded into the inreach and transferred to the iridium ground station and onwards to the VAR ( delorme ) and ONLY the Var as a email with the message as a binary MIME attachment.

What ever service you see is then a function of the VARs system software not iridium.

In inreach I beleive delorme unpack the email, and send it via the SMS gateway, so that it " looks" like a text message. BUT it's not a end to end text message like in cellular phones.

Hence you cannot arbitrary send texts from a land based phone to an inreach ( because the inreach does not have a telephone number , in effect )

Email can be two way, but I beleive delorme do not allow it to prevent spam , correction , email is pseudo two way, again you cannot email the device directly , only via the VARs gateway. , equally delorme " could " provide pseudo two way transparent SMS, but it requires either provisioning expensive trans national numbers, establishing a raft of local country numbers or , selected gateway systems. None of which it really does.

The text feature in a fully voice provisioned iridium phone is two way exactly like cellular phones, this is because the voice SIM gives you a fully provisioned international 08816 number . Costs to text that number vary dramatically around the world, so many voice VARs have set up email to SMS gateways or other local systems to avoid such high costs

Dave


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[Matt Johnson]

Originally Posted by svlamorocha

Let me point out that the Isatphone is much slower than an Iridium phone when sending email. My rule of thumb is that what takes 1.5 minutes on Iridium takes 3 on the Isatphone..

Very true. When I did the math for our use, even with the slow data, ISatphone was cheaper.

Matt