I don't know why this would even be a subscription. I'm not hiking into the wilderness on a regular basis. I'd be happy to pay $20 to activate the feature for 30 days ahead of any adventuring I have planned.
By only offering you it as a longer-term subscription, they can likely capture that recurring revenue from more people as a "just to be safe" type offering, perhaps off the back of something existing like another level of iCloud+.
They'll then not cancel it, and they've successfully raised their annual/monthly recurring revenue for a fair % of their users.
Not only that a PLB let you send a distress signal to low orbit network of satellite, it sends its 406MHz signal to three types of networks: low earth orbit (LEO) , geosynchronous equatorial orbit (GEO) and medium earth orbit (MEO), as well as 121.5MHz signal which is monitored by private aircrafts and can help to home SAR responders.
Garmin InReach on the other hand uses Iridum (LEO only as far as I know) which is used to report to IERCC (a private emergency response coordinator).
The reason you might want GEO and MEO are:
1. While LEO (unlike GEO) cover the poles as well due to their North-South orbit, they have 60-90 min orbit period, which means more latency, where as GEO covers 70% of earth at all time.
2. Even if there multiple overlapping LEO around you which shorten the orbit period and hence the max latency, you might have limited view of the sky (especially if you happen to be in a North-South canyon) in which case it's good to have an increased chance of delivering that distress signal.
LEO satellite strength, as far as I know is in their ability to receive signal even in severe weather.
The first downside of LEO applies only to COSPAS-SARSAT, but not e.g. Iridium.
Iridium has inter-satellite links and the satellites accordingly don‘t need to store a message until they are in view of a ground station again – message delivery is effectively instant, globally.
Unlike PLBs, Iridium devices require a paid subscription, though.
It is my understanding that inter-satellite links makes communication effectively instant, not ground to satellite delivery in challenging environment, such as deep canyons (especially north to south ones) with narrow view of the sky. GEO might fail under these conditions too, but when it suceeds, delivery is immediate.
Moreover, GPS can be flaky under such conditions too, in which case MEO satellites might be able to provide fast Doppler detection to approximate the device location to few miles area and responders can further reduce the search area.
On the other hand, satellite tracker (such as Garmin InReach) advantage would be that it can be configured to try and send its location every 10 minutes, therefore, even if at the current location there's no signal, your last tracked location might be not far away.
Yes they do. These are 406 MHz Emergency Distress Signal devices: "Distress alerts transmitted from ELTs, EPIRBs, SSAS, and PLBs are received and processed by the International Cospas-Sarsat Programme, the international satellite system for search and rescue (SAR). These beacons transmit a 406 MHz distress signal every 50 seconds, varying over a span of 2.5 seconds to avoid multiple beacons always transmitting at the same time." [0]
It doesn't let you send a message but it does communicate (one-way only) by satellite. They're the hiker version of the emergency locator transmitters on airplanes.
My read of the marketing materials is that it supports the "Find My" feature which you can use to share locations with friends/family?
This is really a killer feature for me as an outdoor enthusiast who hangs out in places with no reception every other weekend. I'm also a weight weenie and really care about how heavy the stuff I carry is. I'm going to keep an eye on how well this works in the field for sure.
I've been considering a Garmin InReach Mini, its roughly $350 for the device and $300 for a satellite subscription for 2 years.
If the satellite messing works well, this phone just added $650 worth of value for me on top of a regular iPhone. Basically, it doesn't matter how much a continued subscription will cost after year two. I'd be completely happy to buy a new phone in two years just for this one feature.
Assuming your use case is very light? An inreach is significantly more durable than any phone, has better battery life, and is very battle tested. I'd not be putting my life at risk by relying on an iPhone.
“Let friends know how remote you go.
If you’re on an adventure without cell service, you can now use Find My to share your location via satellite so friends and family know where you are.“
1. Whatever fees the satellite network charges them.
2. The cost to maintain the call centers they're routing your contact with the nearby emergency services through. (They say they'll put you in direct text contact if the emergency department supports it, but otherwise they'll be intermediaries.)
This suggests to me that how much this costs in an ongoing way is going to be heavily dependent on how much it's used, such that locking themselves in to a pricing structure before they have any idea how much use it'll see is a bad idea for them.
> I hope this supports location report to closed friends like how Garmin did
They mentioned in the presentation that you can make a non-emergency use of this system to ping your location to their Find My network. So it's at least a way to keep your Apple-ecosystem friends updated on where you are when you're out of cell range.
As a garmin inReach user, I hope this supports location report to closed friends like how Garmin did. But it's not. It is only for emergency.