GARMIN inReach Consumer Subscription Plan Changes- Sept 2024

Titans

Titans

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FYI: Please note Garmin is switching plans in September 2024 (or in one year if you already have an existing old Garmin plan). Timing depends on your next annual renewal date.

After a call to their billing department I learned, we can stay on the old plan till October 2025 (our yearly renewal date), but after that Garmin will eliminate the old annual and monthly plans. One key difference is you cannot "suspend" the new style monthly plan, you need to cancel it and re-activation costs $39.99 EACH time. The new plans do NOT have an annual fee, only the activation fee. If you already have a plan with them, Garmin supposedly won't charge you a $39.99 activation to switch from old to new plans.

Frequently Asked Questions on September 2024 inReach Consumer Subscription Plan Changes | Garmin Customer Support

Garmin Support Center is where you will find answers to frequently asked questions and resources to help with all of your Garmin products.
support.garmin.com support.garmin.com

Changing an inReach Subscription Plan | Garmin Customer Support

Garmin Support Center is where you will find answers to frequently asked questions and resources to help with all of your Garmin products.
support.garmin.com support.garmin.com
 
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Seems like a fair enough change - maybe even positive unless you're someone who fits two criteria: 1) Safety/Essential Plan; and 2) suspends/cancels at least once per year. To be fair, I do imagine that is a decent number of users and will equate to about $40 extra per year.

But for me - as a Recreation/Standard user that exceeds my messaging/forecast allowance multiple months a year and does not suspend/cancel regularly, it looks like I'll save money at best and see no change at worst.

Still one of my favorite backcountry tools. (I was pretty annoyed last year when my older model got stolen and I could no longer use custom messages for my 'free' check-ins though.)
 
I'm switching to the inReach Enabled plan for $7.99/mo. My inReach will now be the backup SOS device to my iPhone. I tried out the iOS 18 satellite text messaging service with my iPhone 14 Pro and was able to sent messages via satellite with no problems. I mostly just used my inReach to send messages to my family when out of cell range, going forward it'll now be the iPhone.
 
Look like good changes, and another sub I can either greatly reduce or kill off. Death by a thousand cuts with all these subscriptions.
 
SEAlpine said:
I'm switching to the inReach Enabled plan for $7.99/mo. My inReach will now be the backup SOS device to my iPhone. I tried out the iOS 18 satellite text messaging service with my iPhone 14 Pro and was able to sent messages via satellite with no problems. I mostly just used my inReach to send messages to my family when out of cell range, going forward it'll now be the iPhone.
Click to expand...
I think we'll see a lot of people going this route. I don't have one personally, but I similarly wouldn't trust the iPhone messaging for SOS purposes. (Limitations on the respective satellite networks mean this will probably be the case for the foreseeable future.) Anecdotal observations seem to say it works pretty well for backcountry messaging though.
 
SEAlpine said:
I'm switching to the inReach Enabled plan for $7.99/mo. My inReach will now be the backup SOS device to my iPhone. I tried out the iOS 18 satellite text messaging service with my iPhone 14 Pro and was able to sent messages via satellite with no problems. I mostly just used my inReach to send messages to my family when out of cell range, going forward it'll now be the iPhone.
Click to expand...
I'm glad you mentioned that, I totally overlooked it when I read through the changes. I mostly use my inReach to send morning/evening check-ins so this could be a way to save a little bit.
 
SEAlpine said:
I'm switching to the inReach Enabled plan for $7.99/mo. My inReach will now be the backup SOS device to my iPhone. I tried out the iOS 18 satellite text messaging service with my iPhone 14 Pro and was able to sent messages via satellite with no problems. I mostly just used my inReach to send messages to my family when out of cell range, going forward it'll now be the iPhone.
Click to expand...
How do you do that? The basic/lowest price option I saw was $14.99 per month
 
SEAlpine said:
I tried out the iOS 18 satellite text messaging service with my iPhone 14 Pro and was able to sent messages via satellite with no problems. I mostly just used my inReach to send messages to my family when out of cell range, going forward it'll now be the iPhone.
Click to expand...
wow thanks for pointing out the iOS 18 thing, that's pretty cool!
 
Correction: It does NOT look like every person can keep an old plan till Oct 2025- we happen to have a yearly renewal in Oct. Timing depends on your yearly renewal date or .... GARMIN: "We will not begin migrating Freedom subscription plans until December of 2024".

"Existing customers with inReach Freedom subscription plans will still be able to suspend their service and move up or down within Freedom plan tiers until their next annual renewal date. Upon reaching the annual renewal date, the plan will be migrated into the closest equivalent new plan (e.g. Safety migrates to Essential). We will not begin migrating Freedom subscription plans until December of 2024."

Frequently Asked Questions on September 2024 inReach Consumer Subscription Plan Changes | Garmin Customer Support

Garmin Support Center is where you will find answers to frequently asked questions and resources to help with all of your Garmin products.
support.garmin.com support.garmin.com
 
So.... not sure if more people experienced this recently- BUT I activated the old Freedom plan yesterday, got confirmation via e-mail that service is back on- but it did NOT actually happen! Tried hardware update, sync, setting update, etc. Placed the inReach Mini under open sky- tried to do a test- nothing. Mixed messages on the Garmin Explore website and also the Earthmate App : both website & app say "service suspended", but one layer deeper it says plan was activated yesterday. But it's not been activated. :oops:

Called Garmin support and they just confirmed, indeed "sort of activated, but not activated", there's an IT issue. They will follow up with an e-mail to confirm when IT has resolved this issue.
 
well, this is a bad deal for those of us who only use the Garmin a couple times per year. For the last decade I have typically paid $34.99 annual fee plus 2 x 14.99 (two months per year that I turn it on) = $64.97/year. Not that will cost me 12 x $7.99 = $95.88! Quite an increase.
 
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