July 15, 2021

The Garmin 66i inReach tracking bug

Hopefully by the time you read this, this will be history and the bug will be fixed.

My 66i came out of the box running software version 7.2. I have not updated it (and the release notes with the newer version do not indicate any fixes to what I am about to describe.

What I observe is that I turn on inReach tracking so it will be sending my location via satellite at regular intervals (I choose 30 minutes or 1 hour). I works for a while, but then sometime later in the day, I check and find out that it has turned itself off. There it is plain and simple without any attempt at analysis and explanation.

I will note that Leslie from Garmin has offered to look into this for me.

What little discussion I stirred up on the forums suggest that Garmin somehow links inReach tracking and "activity tracking". I argue, and many agree that these should be entirely independent. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't. A suggestion is that with activity tracking active, that somehow causes the inReach tracking to get turned off, perhaps when I stop for a rest or lunch and the device notices that I am not moving. If so, I'll note that the activity tracking turns itself back on, whereas inReach tracking never gets turned back on.


Have any comments? Questions? Drop me a line!

Tom's backpacking pages / [email protected]