Earthmate Reviews

I use Earthmate on my phone for navigating backcountry snowmobiling. I always carry my inreach in my pack for emergency use only. I use this app on my phone for navigating. The downloadable topo maps have saved me many times, and have also helped me find new rideable areas as well.

It seems many people have given negative reviews due to the inreach not linking up properly to their phone. I don’t usually ever mess with that. I keep it powered off in my pack. Using it for nav would be clumsy compared to using this app. I save it incase my phone battery runs out or if I need to communicate while out of cell service for some reason.

My only complaint about it would be that it only saves a certain amount of tracks. I’m not sure if it’s time or total mileage, but after a while old tracks will disappear. That said it stand by my five star rating, just for the fact of how many times it has helped me either get out of trouble or find new areas to get into more trouble. (Haha)

The Bluetooth connection to the InReach device is dropped by Earthmate , not the phone, very frequently. Typically a connection is maintained for less than 1 hour. Sometimes less than 15 minutes. Best workaround so far is to turn Bluetooth on the phone off and on periodically and before sending a text. The problem with this is that it sometimes results in duplicate messages being sent. That can get expensive. Also, turning Bluetooth off and on is a bad hack at best. I reported this problem to Garmin several times. Most recently 3 months ago. They almost seem to be taking it seriously this time, but no real progress. No useful suggestions from Garmin. I think this is a stop-ship bug. They seem to see it is a way to increase revenue by charging for duplicate messages. I have met many other InReach users experiencing the same problem. None had any good ideas for a work around. This problem has been consistent for me across two iPhones and several releases of iOS. I doubt it is any of user error, my phone or iOS.

On a small screen, the map the map can be difficult to use because in order to see detailed features you’re forced to zoom in very far.

Also, as others have mentioned, Earthmate sometimes sends messages to the wrong contact (which can be embarrassing or even dangerous). Occasionally messages received to the inreach mini never show up in Earthmate , and you have to scroll through on the inreach to mark them as read. Also, sometimes messages which you did read on your phone still show up as unread on the inreach.

Finally, one of the most frustrating features of Earthmate is that it doesn't handle message notifications in a proper, native way. Most of the time I have to open Earthmate to receive notifications of messages, even though notification sounds and badges are on for Earthmate . I realize that this may be a battery saving feature but it should be optional. If my inreach is outside and my phone inside my pocket, then when I receive a message my phone should make a notification sound, and I should be able to read the message on the Lock Screen, like I can when I receive a message in any other messaging app.

If you haven’t bought an inreach yet, let me suggest a ZOLEO instead. They have more reliable message delivery and a much better app experience.

The only reason I even have Earthmate is that it works well for messaging while Bluetooth tethered with my inreach. Tracking works ok tethered to the inreach but creating routes and waypoints and syncing to other devices or to the Garmin website is about as unintuitive as it gets. Importing and exporting gpx files is the worst. I have so many problems I would not know where to begin. I know you can do these things but it’s always a major pain. It might be that my go to apps, Gaia and Avenza, are just so much easier to use for creating routes/tracks or importing/exporting routes/tracks. The inreach is an indispensable tool for outdoor adventures and I love it for the peace of mind it gives me for emergencies and the ability to communicate with friends and family while I’m in the backcountry. It’s a good thing for Garmin that they offer the inreach because if Garmin had to rely just on the this app app, they could never stand up to the competition.

I have loved the Garmin inReach. My work is primarily out of cell service and so I use it to keep in touch with work and my wife. The only thing that I want improved is the frequency that it checks for messages without having to manually check for them.

My suggestion would be to either have it check every five minutes or allow the user to set a timer in Earthmate or on the device to send out a manual check for messages at specified intervals. I would love to be able to set my inReach up to check for messages every 5 minutes or while hunting set it up to check every 30 minutes. Long story short I think it would be a huge improvement to allow the user to specify the frequency of how often it checks for new messages.

The Garmin this app app is no longer being updated and lacks even basic features like exporting tracks.
The InReach+ device itself would be ok, but you are forced to use Garmin’s idiotic website to manage and download data. The website is poorly designed and broken most of the the time. For example exporting tracks to .gpx files has not worked for a long time. And Garmin’s help website is useless because the help pages do not actually provide descriptive information for topics covered. You can check out the useless help website to see for yourself.
This product is a great example of what happens when a reasonable piece of hardware ends up being garbage because the company is too myopic to develop good software to support the device (and instead hires temp “script kiddies” to run a stupid website). Sad, very sad.

Even though we pay Garmin for the service, Garmin now requires full rights to use/sell your content ...

“8.3 Content License from You. You agree ... that inReach has no responsibility to you or to any third-party for ... any content that you create, transmit or display on or through the inReach websites ...
Content which you submit, post or display ... you give inReach a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any such Content. Furthermore, you agree ... for inReach to make such Content available to other companies”

Also, one our Inreach devices were stolen. I asked Garmin to let me know when the new party registered the stolen unit. I was told the only thing they would do is block activation but only as long as I paid to keep it registered with them. This adds value to people stealing units and makes Garmin complicit in the thefts. Unfortunate, I used speak highly of the service. Shopping other companies now.

And no way to stop emails from Garmin asking you repeatedly, for access to our Facebook.

As has been pointed out before, by far the biggest problem with Earthmate is the inability to mange preset messages. Earthmate desperately needs to be able to:

1) modify present messages, and
2) modify preset message recipients.

It would also be very helpful if the contacts list could be manually changed within Earthmate . No apps get access to my address book—period. Every company, I repeat *every* company, is eventually hacked and that information spilling out is just too much of a risk.

The InReach devices (I have the Mini) are remarkable technology and the Mini works amazingly well, but Earthmate is (and frankly all the Garmin interfaces are) dreadfully awful. I mean, come on. To use an InReach device you have to manage the configuration online, then to sync that configuration you have to download and install an app on a PC or Mac, and to update the firmware you have to download and install yet another app on a PC or Mac. And on Earthmate you can sort of do some of that stuff, but not all of it. Could someone *trying* to make it convoluted mess things up any more?

Very frustrating last two years when through hiking Earthmate losses connection with my IPhone. I’ll have to go to the phones settings and disconnect it from the iPhones Bluetooth connection . At first I would select forget this device and then re-pair the Garmin in Earthmate . This still only worked for a few minutes before the IPhone Bluetooth would again connect which drops app connection. I found disconnecting it gave me about 2-3 minutes to send a message or quickly view my location on the map. Anytime I wanted to use my Garmin I had to do this time wasting ritual. May as well just use Gaia to navigate.

New Dark mode seems half done. Can’t see text white on white when I type. Hopefully they do a proper dark mode. Still the easiest way to stay in touch.

I have been using the inreach with an external antenna attached. Near real-time texting. Amazing and great to stay in touch while in the middle of the gulf of Alaska.

Really liking the new look on the iPhone X.

By far the easiest way to stay in touch when there is no cell phone service.

It would be great to have a dark theme as well.

I love the InReach and the ability to easily stay in touch with my family while away from home.

One thing I wish Earthmate did is remember when I edit which icons are accessible.

It always seems to rest to the default layout. Please fix.

It’s annoying to have to rearrange every time I open Earthmate .

I believe it happens when my phone looses Bluetooth connection.

How many of these supposed companies are going to phone it in when it comes to app development. You know the whole point of having an app that works with an inreach device is to simplify and make it easier, not more complicated.

The text box for the messenger section is white, the font is white too! Which means, can’t see what you’re typing. It’s also super buggy and doesn’t connect half the time and likes to send messages to the wrong contact. Yup, completely shot messages to a different contact than the one selected.

There’s a reason apps like these have low ratings, because these developers don’t know what they’re doing yet still have a job.

I have been in IT 20 years and to see how poorly Earthmate is built is an absolute shame. Limited message capabilities and storage. No warning when you are about to max the data and Earthmate locks up. The primary use of Earthmate is when you are off grid. If you are off grid and the message is “Delete Earthmate and reinstall to unlock it”, can you see the problem? You are off grid with no access! The farming tool is very limited as well. Take the high rates for service and apply them to product development, quality and customer service. Please help the users that rely on your tool.

Earthmate is generally very good, but it fails catastrophically on one critical element: it deletes you waypoints. After spending an afternoon collecting waypoints for work, I went back to look at them on the map - GONE! Earthmate either didn’t store them or just decided it was going to delete them on its own. Thank goodness I didn’t rely 100% on this piece of crap and had the forethought to write the coordinates, or the entire afternoon would’ve been wasted. Fatal flaw. Go with another app if you actually want to do something other than just look at maps, like Gaia GPS. It’s better in many ways and actually records your data, unlike this piece of crap.

Ultimately I purchased the InReach unit because of its ability to connect with my phone for added functionality.

After 1 year of use I can say I am near ready to throw this unit out the window due to the unreliable connectivity to my iPhone.

Countless times while on the trail I have grabbed my phone to check or send messages only to find that the this app app is no longer connected to my InReach. To correct, I need to grab my InReach turn Bluetooth off then back on again to re-establish connectivity.

Bluetooth settings on phone shows I am connected, and same with the InReach. However the this app app does not seem to know what is going on.

Sometimes I have connectivity for a long period of time, sometimes it immediately drops.

This is a major selling point of this unit, and thus far it is a major fail in my opinion.

Tried all the troubleshooting advice from tech support with no luck.

I would advise to stay away until Garmin fixes this issue.

I’m struggling to not write a nasty review now as I’m presently annoyed. It’s a pretty basic app for the price you pay to get an inreach.
The fact that I can’t remove track points is very frustrating. The one time you accidentally drive home while still tracking and that line will be one your map forever unless you delete the ENTIRE trip. Really upsetting.

Earthmate makes it easy to send and receive messages but it would be better if it would show up on my Jeep Wrangler CarPlay screen. I would then know when I get a text message and when off the grid with no cellular service, I could navigate to a waypoint without have to look at the handheld while driving. If someone knows how to do this, it would be helpful. I have gone into settings on my iPhone and general then CarPlay but the Earthlink app does not show up??

I really like how the Topo maps appear and would love to try navigating with Earthmate, but I simply can’t read the labels like street names. They remain the same tiny size regardless of zoom level and I just cannot make them out easily. There needs to be a USER adjustable font size. I am using this on an iPad Mini 4, maybe on another device they might show up better. I complained to Garmin a year ago, they blew me off then and I still can’t use it. Gaia is a a way better nav app, especially the Pro version with layers. This one is simply garbage for me and will be deleted.

We love our InReach Explorer we live off grid and have used it for a few years now to communicate with friends and family. It also gives our family a way to see where we are and know that we are okay, especially in the winter when we don’t go to town. It took a little getting used but not a big deal

Earthmate just downloaded 1.5GB of data on my 4G service plan!! No option for wifi only downloads. Watch out or you could get extra service charges like me on your phone bill.

It seems as though you can't turn off the iPhone GPS and only use the Garmin GPS as it bugged out when I tried to disable location services.

I really love be able to track all my hikes and have it available on my phone but Earthmate gets 1 star for selling all my data to third parties after I have spent $500 on this device + services. That's shady

Cool sat imagery. How come we can’t plan routes from a mobile device? How come waypoints don’t have elevation information? How come the contour lines don’t have any data to include labeling of numbers or intervals and change colors at various zooms making it impossible to read elevation? Seriously. A map has bold contour lines with an actual number on it. Then the 5 lines or so in between have an interval. I learned this in basic training. What good are those lines if the user can’t interpret them. Fix this immediately it makes Earthmate unusable in any real mountain terrain!

I will mainly use the garmin mini for sat messeges and the sos ability. the gaia app along with latest ipad and iphones that have built in gps and works off line after you first down load maps. works awsom . sometimes i use google map first do to its better satilite maps and get corodinants from it and transfer them to gaia app . gaia app works on smart phones and pc. I love it

I use this app almost ten months out of the year, out in the middle of the pacific. I love how easy it is to use with my iPad and iPhone for texting family back home from my Garmin Explorer+. It’s so easy to stay in contact with my loved ones now. Only wish it was easier to sync contacts. Other than that, I love it.

This concept is amazing. There are still some functionality issues and it’s not as intuitive as it could be but it is by far the best way to communicate while you’re off the grid. I would give this 4 stars but the updates are behind. For example, Earthmate doesn’t support the dark appearance iOS

Overall, I am very pleased with Earthmate paired with my inreach mini via Bluetooth, but would like to see the following additions:

1. Apple Watch notifications

2. Apple Watch app with Watch complication

3. Some kind of “push” notification on the phone when a message is sent/received. Push notifications may not be possible without cellular signal, but an app notification should be possible, along with a sound/vibrate alert?

4. Ability to import your own pdf map with coordinates, such as the national forest service “MVUM” maps.

These additions would make Earthmate 5-Star for me!

App without the related inReach device is very good with internet access. When used with the inReach device, Earthmate is fantastic, very helpful for navigation PLUS ability to text with contacts.