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I was just looking at the Garmin inReach on REI’s sale a few minutes ago. $350 for the device ($50 off right now), $30 activation fee, and $12/month for two years is $668. Upgrading my 3 year old phone is $800. Kind of a no-brainer to use the phone I’d be carrying anyway.

I’m not looking to use it for weeks-long trips. Mostly trail running and maybe a few days in the back country.

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I've looked at the InReach. If I were doing a lot of solo remote backcountry travel (whether hiking or something else), I'd probably feel that buying one and getting a subscription was the prudent thing to do. However, for occasional use for mostly day hikes with patchy cell phone coverage? That's hard to justify whereas I might consider (though won't) upgrade my phone a bit sooner than I might have otherwise for this feature.

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