InReach messaging was down for quite some time. It worked wed am, did not work at all after that (either sending or receiving) through mid day fri at which point sending was very spotty (messages sent to groups were not received by all group members). Appears to have improved by Friday evening but not 100% even then. Saturday 25th it seems to be working... no idea if SOS was similarly impacted but I would suspect it may have been.

They do use Iridium, but its not clear who runs the end-service...if you use the SOS feature, it contacts a Garmin center (i believe), who then dispatch the appropriate services. Its not an actual sarsat plb.

So if Garmin's system is down, there is a very real risk that these services won't have anyone on the other end to answer the call.

About two weeks ago, my wife, young sons, and father-in-law saved the life of a hiker in Colorado using an InReach. The messaging helped dispatch decide to send helicopter. According to doctors, she had less than an hour to live by the time she arrived.

Also, having the messaging functionality meant that we knew they weren't injured.

Beacons don't allow you to provide details, but they are better than nothing. Out of 30 hikers that passed by, my family was the only one with satellite-based emergency reporting capability.