Garmin’s inReach Messenger Plus Review
It’s an overused cliché to say that a photo is worth a thousand words. As someone who makes his living in the word business, I can pontificate ad nauseam about powerfully crafted prose (see what I mean?). But getting a smiling selfie from Karen and our four-month-old Caleb while she was back at home and I was well offshore and outside cell range made me rethink my stance—if only for a moment. Knowing things were going well on the home front while I slaved away at my day job offered a huge relief.
This impressive level of connectivity came courtesy of Garmin’s inReach Messenger Plus ($500), a new and improved version of the device that has been required equipment for offshore cruisers since it debuted in 2017. I remember being on a delivery almost seven years ago where an inReach provided peace of mind to our families back on land. This newcomer to the Garmin family still does what made InReach so popular: namely, using the Iridium satellite network to allow family and friends to track your travels and alert the authorities in case of emergency—from anywhere on the planet. But of course, there are new features now.
It’s funny how life and technology seem to evolve so quickly. While once, I relished the idea of totally unplugging, going off the grid and being unreachable, that doesn’t quite jibe with this more responsible era I’m desperately trying to enter. The inReach has been a marriage saver recently while testing boats in southern waters by delivering global connectivity to my smartphone so I could send and receive 1,600-word texts, photos, videos and voice messages to anyone with Garmin’s free messenger app.
I found the device exceptionally easy to install and learn. In fact, the hardest part was trying to remember my Apple password, which I’ve had to change 100 times. Once connected, I could share my location and begin messaging. If I needed it, I could also access SOS functionality which would send a distress message to a live Garmin employee (way more reassuring than an AI bot) and then receive a message confirming that both my distress signal and location were received and passed on to authorities.
Peace of mind. That’s what the original inReach set out to offer and that’s what the newest iteration delivers in spades. Being able to run offshore and receive that smiling selfie with a message that my four-year-old’s daycare drop-off went well still isn’t worth 1,000 words. To me, it’s worth one: Priceless.
This article originally appeared in the February 2025 issue of Power & Motoryacht magazine.
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Source: https://www.powerandmotoryacht.com/gear/garmin-inreach-review
