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Comment by NotSammyHagar | Hacker News Reader

Pixel 9 also says satellite emergency support ("Satellite SOS"). Search for info gets you to https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15254448?hl=en&...

It looks like it's coming "later this year". Lots of chatter about it, see a few details at https://www.androidauthority.com/pixel-9-satellite-sos-34676...

* apparently coming with android 15, but they are shipping android 14

* turning on satellite sos later, but this year

* us only

* free for 2 years on pixel 9 phone, but probably would cost more later?

If you go on a lot of backcountry trips, maybe you already have something like a Garmin device with paid in-reach service with texting and emergency service button - no voice support. I have this, it works well. You can do 2 way texting, also you can have your location uploaded as you travel if you wish.

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TBF that’s what Apple did, basically.

It wasn’t in the initial release. Needed a software update 2 months later or so.

You were only supposed to get 1 year (?) of service. But they extended that by a year.

Because of that everyone with a qualifying phone is still in the “free” stage so we still don’t know what it will cost. Or when that will start.

If ever.

I’ve never used it but I like that my iPhone has it. I would never carry a Garmin (city/suburb life, no point) but I know the satellite is there if needed.

I think Apple is expanding it to iMessage this year (text only) though for all we know that will cost extra.

It's doubtful they'll ever charge for SOS. The "one year, one more year" thing is likely to make the accounting and liability work out. If they had just said "free for the life of the phone" it would have locked them into providing the service for many years, and required revenue deferral for many years. Easier to just under-promise.

That’s kind of what I expect. It will simply be free forever but maybe the other services that they might add in the future, such as iMessage over satellite, will cost extra.

“A man got lost in the woods and died because he didn’t pay Apple two dollars a month“ is probably not a headline they want to see.

It’s also possible they didn’t know how often it would end up getting used and so they said that is a hedge in case it ended up too expensive on their end. Now that they know it’s not they don’t really worry about it.

I mean they they don't have to choose between "100% free forever" and "not free and literally kill the people who didn't pay in advance."

They could just leave it enabled for everyone, and then retroactively charge them for a (moderately hefty) 1 year subscription if they end up using it.

Charging a fee for using it is a bad idea because then people will delay using it until it's too late.

That's why in New Zealand, at least, there is no fee for a rescue callouts in general.

> You were only supposed to get 1 year (?) of service. But they extended that by a year.

I suspect they wanted to gauge what the usage (and therefore cost to them) would be like before making any promises.

I would not be surprised if satellite messaging ends up costing after the first year, but that satellite SOS remains free forever. After all, who wants the reputation hit when someone ends up dying in the wilderness because they didn't keep up their satellite payments?

They can charge you after you get rescued. Or does that come out as a negligible amount?

Even if you managed to charge people (or their SAR insurances) tens of thousands of dollars per rescue, I'm not sure that would entirely pay for running such a service.

But I suspect their actual business model will be to charge for non-emergency messaging, which might just be able to subsidize the emergency use case.

Are there cases of people actually being charged for their backcountry rescues? I know it's theoretically allowed many places but I'm not aware of anyone actually being billed.

Generally, SAR teams would rather the R continue to stand for Rescue rather than Recovery (of a body).

As soon as SAR involves a helicopter, I remember hearing you're looking at a hefty bill in many places, even if the SAR teams themselves don't charge anything. (Not sure why/how that is the case – maybe the helicopter is often operated by a for-profit company, essentially taking the SAR crew as passenger?)

Yeah, I'd imagine the helicopter is where the big expense lies and those are mostly private hires. The SAR teams around me are first responders already on duty or volunteers. They still have expenses when launching a mission but driving a dozen people to a trailhead is cheaper than a chopper.

As someone who’s been rescued via helicopter, I can state at least in my case there wasn’t a large bill. The only thing I was charged for was the out of network ER visit.

In Alberta and BC, helicopter rescue is free if you contact emergency services (Parks or RCMP).

New Hampshire regularly charges for backcountry rescues when they determine the person being rescued was negligent: https://www.backpacker.com/stories/essays/opinion/new-hampsh...

Outside of the US all bets are off. Plenty of rescue services that charge.

They could.

But “iPhone saves man’s life after he fell down a mountain” sounds a whole lot better than “worlds richest company charges man who nearly died $25 to save his life”.

When you're in SOS mode, you can use the satellite connection to manually update your location—separate of the emergency response service—so anyone who you've chosen to share that with can see it, as well as in Find My. I'm often out of cell service in the mountains and will usually push the location once I'm in the general area I plan to be for a while.

Oh that’s right. That’s the other thing you can do. I’d forgotten that.

Thanks.

While I never needed the satellite SOS it’s fun that there is a demo in settings that shows you how to find the satellite and everything just as if you used the feature for real.

I just used iMessage via satellite on the iOS public beta this past weekend. I forgot it even existed. The phone prompted me to update my location for "Find My" via Satellite, which I've done before. So I accepted, and got a screen that gave me the option of sending iMessage via satellite to. Sent one to a friend as a test. It's a pretty cool UI. It shows "Satellite" as the message type when writing messages, as you might see "SMS" or "iMessage" or "RCS". And then when you're in iMessage and connected, the dynamic island shows a green indicator. When not connected, the dynamic island is larger and shows you which way to turn to reconnect to satellite; presumably if you want to see if there are replies to your message, or whatever.

Thanks for the review. I have a Garmin inReach device that I connect to my phone when I go up in the mountains, but I would love to get rid of it. Sorry Garmin.

Plus Garmin devices use the Iridium network which has truly global coverage (as opposed to Globalstar which is only in select areas of the world) as well as other features useful for non-emergency backcountry travel. I won't be dropping my Garmin InReach any time soon.

Correct. Globalstar is a "bent pipe analog repeater" network. They have ground gateway stations that provide connectivity from their satellites to the public switched telephone network and internet. In order for your handheld to work, you need a satellite in view and that satellite must have a ground gateway station in view. Iridium doesn't have that latter requirement. I won't be getting rid of my InReach Mini anytime soon.

On the other hand, that "bent pipe" nature is what allowed Globalstar to support a (presumably) completely new type of protocol and modulation over existing, decades-old satellites!

Apple has also been adding new ground stations as part of their agreement with Globalstar, which has, among other things, added coverage to Hawaii. I'm pretty sure they have much larger plans for this than just emergency texting.

Plus the fact that the inReach has a mad battery life, and is a very simple and dependable device.

I know someone on our local SAR team that had mentioned they were having issues with folks using the Apple devices for SOS that resulted in long delays. This is for coastal British Columbia, so perhaps not a universal experience - but something to keep in mind.

Personally, I'd stick with the better known option, and like another commenter said - the battery life on the Garmins are pretty amazing, and it doesn't weight much.

I do a lot of solo hiking and use a Garmin with InReach in case of emergency and to reassure my wife, it can also send my position every N minutes (I usually set it for 20 when on the trails in an area with limited or no cell phone coverage). I wouldn't mind if similar functionality becomes common on cell phones.

And I rather depend on a PLB, whose signal can be picked up by an international network of receivers on 406MHz, and even transmits a homing beacon for first responders.

No subscription required either. You simply register the beacon with a government agency (in the US, its via the NOAA, and distress signals are handled by the coast guard or air force receivers)

Only works in the US and not even in all states. Ridiculous. What's the point of satellites to then be so geo-restricted?

Regulations don't much care about what's technically possible.

Apple was able to make it work in most "developed" countries (do we have a better term for these countries now?). I guess they're just better at the regulatory game?

Also why would regulations prevent them from operating in Alaska, for example? I'm sure the Alaskan government would be happy to provide better emergency connectivity, highly doubt regulation is the issue. People are already being rescued, this here happened in 2022:

https://www.businessinsider.com/stranded-man-alaska-rescued-...

Google presumably uses Skylo, and that's only available in some regions.

I believe they currently only use Terrestar-1 and Terrestar-2, with Inmarsat to follow some time this year for almost global coverage.

Terrestar-1 covers the lower 48 US states with one spot beam, and Alaska and Hawaii with another one each, but I believe the latter two ones are relatively new, so maybe Google isn't using these yet?

I suspect this because I've used a Motorola Defy Satellite Link for the past year, which uses IoT-NTN just like the Pixel's baseband, and it's only been available in Europe and the lower 48 at launch (i.e. also with Hawaii and Alaska missing).

[1] https://www.satbeams.com/satellites?norad=35496

It's available in 17 countries so far. That's a long shot from "all developed countries" by most metrics.

And this really does seem to be largely due to regulations (and probably also integration with local emergency services), as there is no geographic pattern to availability.

Not sure, but it may have to do with Apple using the Globalstar satellites.

One of the more popular terms is now the "Global North"[1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_North_and_Global_Sout...

As someone from a developed country in the southern hemisphere, I find that a pretty terrible term.

That's Google for you. I bought Pixel 8 Pro when it came out, after I had Samsung (never was into iPhone, my wife has those though). I regretted pretty much right away. Heavy AF compared to Galaxy, cool features US-locked, EU means nothing to that company since it looked like they haven't even applied for licenses for cool shit in EU - had to fake my SIM to be in US just to unlock thermometer etc.. I will not buy any device from them anytime soon.

> had to fake my SIM to be in US just to unlock thermometer

IIRC that's also available in some EU countries, the issue in this specific case isn't google but the fact that devices which could be construed to offer medical info tend to require certification varying by country

And yet somehow Samsung and Apple manage to bring most features here.

you're right, the issue being google hasn't even applied for certification. Aside from that, try buying anything google hardware outside of select core market. Somehow, Samsung and Apple (and a ton of smaller players) are able to have global availability with no issues.

How much is the subscription for the Garmin device? I'm curious because I bought my parents a personal locator beacon, since they are retired and hike constantly. It costs more up front but has no subscription, and I didn't want to gift something with a high recurring cost. There's no communication option, it's all or nothing - if it's activated they send the helicopters. On the plus side, it has a fixed 7 year battery life, so no need to worry about charging or it dying when you need it (if you remember the expiration date). I'm curious what Google will charge for their SOS feature and how it will compare to PLV or a satellite communicator.

It's not cheap, about $12/month is cheapest plan, https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461. Pay 0.10c for tracking points, you have 10 text messages a month.

If you use it a lot, you'll start to increase your fees, I'm on the next higher plan which I think is $35/m. I should revisit that, it's a lot over a year ;-)

They have the basic devices (connect with phone, or emergency button), I have the one with maps built in. That one is awesome, it has worldwide city and trail maps. Maps works without a subscription, but I do use it for trips where there is no phone service more to get text messages.

They also charge you for time spent with service suspended. We finally canceled ours when my wife got an iphone with satellite SOS - it was pretty expensive for something we would typically use (activate, not actually use - we've never had to SOS) one or two months per year.

I assume you meant 10c and not 0.1c.

(See https://verizonmath.blogspot.com/)

yes, sorry

It's $120 per year or $15 per month. That covers the SOS, 10 text messages and unlimited check-in messages.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/837461/pn/010-06003-SU

One thing to bear in mind is that the iPhone based satellite connection is highly directional, meaning whoever is using it needs to be conscious and able to follow the on-screen instructions to align the phone with a certain point in the sky (within a few angular degrees.)

Whereas, in contrast, the Garmin inReach devices need "only" a clear sky view.

Which device did you choose for them?

I bought the Ocean Signal RescueME PLB1. It was the cheapest model I could find at REI. Not what I would necessarily choose for myself, but since it was a gift I wanted to buy it from a major retailer. I also got a basic model since all PLBs work in the same way and have similar capabilities. Higher price models only add features like strobe lights or additional test functions.

Thanks!

PLBs are not all or nothing.

You are supposed to register it with the local government org. In the US, that is the NOAA. When the PLB activates, the receiver which is either the Coast Guard or Air Force will attempt to contact you before they send the distress call to whatever local S&R there is. Obviously if they can't reach you, they will send help anyway.

I'm aware they will attempt to call you, I still think it is fair to call it all or nothing because the only reasonable response to a PLB activation with no response from the phone call is to assume someone is in mortal peril. If you do respond to the call, why did you activate the PLB when you could have called?

What's going to be more interesting is what hardware is added for this, and what it can be made to do other than this service that's obviously part of Google Play Services. Can it be made useful in some way on AOSP?

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