I'd rather have no exposed antenna, no subscription fees and no separate device.

For emergencies, having to point at the sky isn't a big deal.

But it IS a big deal!

There’s been a lot of research into emergency UX. Basically, it needs to be dead simple or people die. In an emergency, people are usually panicked, injured or in shock. The tool needs to do its thing simply and effortlessly to cut through the panic and confusion of a real emergency. I have an avalanche transponder that is one big button because when you friend just got buried under 20 tons of snow and rocks, you have the leftover brain for one button.

From the demo, I think Apple is very aware of this which is why they give you a series of canned prompts. They’ve probably already used up a significant cognitive load by having you point the phone for signal that having you type as well was considered dangerous.

There's also the fact that canned prompts use dramatically less data.

Note SOS service is just free for 2 years.

> I have a Garmin InReach with a 1 inch antenna and it works fine

Your definition of the word “fine” is apparently rather generous. Be in an actual emergency situation and the InReach is down right frustrating as hell, but “better than nothing”. I don’t have optimism for Apple’s offering either for the record.

It's a bit slow to get a message out, but at least you can send a message. A traditional PLB might be faster but you can't transmit anything so the responders know zero about your situation. What the problem is, where you are exactly, how urgent it is, etc. I'll take InReach any day.

> It's a bit slow to get a message out, but at least you can send a message.

Tell that to a someone I know who had a broken leg and not only was the location way off, it took multiple hours to send. He was around a half mile of a well trodden hiking path too, so help took no time to get there once the message was actually broadcast (while the location was way off, he was visible from that wrong location). He wishes he’d had a loud whistle instead.

> I'll take InReach any day.

I’ll take my Inmarsat based phone any day. Sure, the monthly fee is 1.5x higher, but I know my message AND my call will go through as long as I have a clear view of the sky.

Ok I didn't realize it worked that badly sometimes :( For me it has always sent them within a couple of minutes.

I had a GEO satphone myself (Thuraya which is really cheap for airtime in Europe) before but as I hike through the mountains it's very hard to get a line of sight. So I didn't deem it useful enough for emergency.

Maybe I'll get a PLB too then, I'll think about it.

> I had a GEO satphone myself (Thuraya which is really cheap for airtime in Europe) before but as I hike through the mountains it's very hard to get a line of sight. So I didn't deem it useful enough for emergency.

Yeah, the iSatPhone2 is fairly forgiving on line of sight as long as you aren’t in a canyon or hiking up the north face of a mountain. Given they are in geosynchronous orbit, targeting is much easier (just point antenna south). My iridium I had back in the late 00’s was a PITA to get signal on a hike where we had to call for an air ambulance for emergency evac.

I see, the Thuraya had a bit of a hard time because it has only 1 sat covering Europe and it's all the way over Saudi Arabia. So it's not only up a long way but also quite far away geographically. I guess this is why it's so cheap in Europe (2 years airtime - not including calls - was about 40 euro IIRC, whereas with Iridium you would pay more than that every month!)

So it was a bit tricky to reach the sat especially in hilly or built up areas.

Modern PLBs send your location to both LEOSAR, MEOSAR and GEOSAR, as well as 121.5MHz homing signal for SAR responders that need to find you exact location (since you might not even have good GPS signal or GPS signal at all if you're in a canyon for example).

I've been using PLB for years and unless I'll only switch to Garmin InReach if I really need to communicate with people back home. Yes, it can be very handy, not just for that, but also to communicate with other fellow thruhikers in ways other than trail registers, but in some cases LEO might not be good enough for sending distress signal.

Could you recommend a PLB model? Like the other poster I didn't realize InReach can take hours sometimes. When I've tested it, it was always fast (not immediate but a couple minutes max)

I have the ACR ResQLink 375. It's the second one I own, the previous one I lost in the Pyrenees (attached it to by shoulder straps in a bad way and could not hear it fall due to the winds). The reason I mention it is that NOAA (which register each device) were extremely responsive when I reported it to them in case: 1. It somehow activates. 2. In case someone finds it and report back to them (they agreed to inform me if that happens).

While it might have been possible for me to retrieve it (I spent a day searching it) if it were a tracker device (such as InReach), I found that even if you find a Garmin device, Garmin support won't disclose any details about its owner or contact them on your behalf. I'm not sure if for privacy or commercial reasons but I just found it awkward (I didn't find a device myself, but learned about it through Garmin support forums).

If I were to buy a new PLB today, I would have considered the newer models with Return Link Service (such as ResQLink 410 RLS). It doesn't let you communicate, but notifies you that your distress signal has been delivered to.

Just read the other comment. While I guess hours response is an outlier in clear sky conditions, I really wish that Garmin would have made stats publicly available

Thanks for the feedback! I didn't realise or even consider these aspects of lost devices etc. I live near (well, sort of) near the Pyrenees and I walk through similar areas.

Because I already owned the InReach (I also used it as a backup for business travel in "less than safe" areas) I never really looked at PLBs. I will look at the ACR range. The prices look pretty OK considering the InReach has a fairly high monthly cost and these don't.

Want to know another great safety measure that only costs you around $100 w/ no monthly fee? Pick up a handheld ham radio. When you enter areas with rangers, stop and ask the emergency frequency they use.

Best to get a HAM license to be safe (it’s trivially easy to pass the General exam), but if you are only using it in an actual emergency, I highly doubt anyone will judge you too harshly for not having it.

> While I guess hours response is an outlier in clear sky conditions

It definitely is an outlier, maybe partially due to conditions (I wasn’t there, just was someone who received the other party’s messages way late), but that’s the point. An emergency situation is already an outlier as is, the last thing I want is to trust a device which has a definite probability of failure again. Screw “me” over once, shame on you. Twice? Shame on me.