I will preface this review by outlining what is most important to me with a device like the Mini. Being solo about 95% of the time, a satellite communicator and tracker has become an essential piece of gear in my kit. It travels with me on any route where I have any chance of losing a cell reception. The primary use of the device is for my family and friends to keep track of my whereabouts, to be able to have two way communication while out on a route and of course, the SOS feature in case things go awry. I do not use the device for navigation, choosing to use both Gaia on my phone or the ol' paper map and compass routine. Additionally, I have not downloaded the app to my phone nor paired the device with my phone.
Also, as a solo traveler, it is imperative for me that I have the device tracking me at all times. If I were to become incapacitated and unable to hit the SOS button, at least rescue teams would have a fairly small area to focus on. If I do not have the device pinging and don't check in for hours, that search area suddenly becomes a lot larger.
Out of the box, the device was reasonably easy to set up even for this only semi- tech literate dude. Your personalized homepage is fairly intuitive to navigate so I won't go into much detail on it. The device is limited to just four or five buttons, but again, it is easy to navigate through the various screens and find what you are looking for. With the ability to pre-load various messages into the device, I am able with some foresight, to load messages that I believe will be handy during a route so that I can easily access them and send them without having to type them out (which is a slow process with the limited buttons). This is all moot if you do choose to pair your Mini with your phone which will allow you to type messages on your phone and send them out.
The size of the Mini (or lack of) is incredible. Weighing in at just 3.5 ounces, it easily fits in the palm of your hand. It is so small that I can tuck it into the pocket on my shorts and not even notice it. A significant decrease in size over the standard device.
But the decrease in size has come with some negatives.
Battery life. I had read reviews that warned of a battery life that did not perform to the manufacturers specs. This gave me some concern as I decided on whether or not to purchase the device. In the end, the small size was enough for me to make the investment. It was my hope that the battery would at least last 35-40 hours which would cover the majority of my routes. Anything longer and I could charge with an outside battery source.
After eight weeks of using the device in a variety of terrain, I had very mixed results. In areas with heavy tree cover with pings set to every ten minutes, my battery usage was about 5% per hour, giving the device a 20 hour life before needing to be recharged. However, on my 100 km trip to the border and back in the North Cascades, I used 75% of the battery in just 10 hours even after switching it to 20 minute pings at about six hours in after seeing the huge battery drain. With it being a 20 hour trip, I was forced to charge the device while on the route.
On the other hand, in areas like the Grand Canyon, and Koma Kulshan where I had no tree cover, the battery usage was about 2-3% per hour, which would the user 33-50 hours of usage before needing charging. Much more in align with what I hoped to see when purchasing the Mini.
Second, reception. On my old device, even under heavy tree coverage, I found the reception to be consistent with very few instances of significant gaps between pings. This has not been the case with the Mini. Under heavy tree cover, I have gone up to four hours without sending out a ping. A tad bit concerning given that so much of what I do is under tree cover. Again though, in areas with no cover, the device has pinged consistently.
Some examples:
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| Device on Koma Kulshan. Consistent pings throughout the trip. |
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| The Brothers. As you can see large gaps in the forested section of the climb. |
At this point, despite my reservations about the Mini, I intend to keep using the device knowing full well the limitations and working around those. However, if you are looking at purchasing a satellite communicator and size is not an issue, than I have to recommend the standard device. If the size is important enough to you to accept some battery life and reception shortcomings, then the Mini may still fit your bill.
Update (05/26/2019)
Update (05/26/2019)
Yesterday I went for a walk around my neighborhood and decided to test the inReach Mini in extended tracking mode. I set the pings to 30 minutes, turned off logging and threw it in pocket of my Black Diamond Distance 15 and promptly forgot about it.
This is the result of 30 minute pings in mostly forested cover. The red is my exact route. While there are some gaps, this isn't too bad of coverage. Battery usage was a little over 10% in six and a half hours.
Will continue to test the device using these settings.
