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Comment by subsubzero | Hacker News Reader

It does, I have the fancier inReach - the one that can make calls and texts without being tethered to an iphone. The service runs $15 a month for the basic service and scales up depending on how many texts a month you want to use. I wouldn't ditch it for an iphone 14 as it is way more rugged and in really cold climates(I live near the mountains) a iphone will rapidly discharge its battery and will be useless.

I finally broke down and got my inreach as I was exploring a canyon way out in the desert and a rockslide almost took out my ankle. I told my Wife when I got back and she made me get one as I most likely would have been in serious trouble as cell signal was not working and nobody was in miles of me.

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The Garmin inReach cannot make phone calls in any way or configuration.

It can send & receive text messages either by itself (that's a pain since you have to select letters one by one with arrow keys, but it works) or paired to a supported external device like a tablet.

Which Inreach model allows voice calls?

None of the Inreach devices can make calls.

you are correct, inReach devices can text by themselves(with no cell signal) and can be paired with a cell phone to make calls(I have the 66i), but not make calls by themselves.

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-6E5DFD2E-EEE4-4...

Are you sure of that? I can find no info nor claims of inReach devices doing anything voice-wise, even when paired with a phone.

I think I didn't write that clear enough :) I haven't used mine like this so far.. but you can pair the garmin to a phone(via the connect app) and make a call from the phone using the garmin as an antenna so to speak, you cannot talk or hear anything on it(the garmin inReach).

Can you point me to the docs on that? As far as I knew the inReach is a data-only thing, even when paired to the phone.

That's definitely not a thing.

You can pair the Garmin to a phone. You cannot make calls from that phone over the inreach network.

You've linked to the DriveSmart 66 doc which has nothing to do with Inreach. The DriveSmart is a car computer: https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/721098

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