The Delorme Inreach Explorer is a pricey but very versatile GPS package.
$350 purchse (they've offered $50 rebates in the past) and $12/month subscription fee (lowest fee possible). But for what you're paying, you get:
- Emergency SOS capability (utilizing the GPS satellite network).
- Messaging capabilities (text's sent via GPS network to emails or phone numbers).
-Allows family and friends to track your progress on Delorme Webshare online mapping application.
- GPS coordinates, tracking, waypoints, compass functionality.
- Can be paired with apple or android mobile device (bluetooth) to provide location on a variety of digital map layers (satelite, topo, digital maps downloaded for free via Delorme's earthmate app). The inreach itself can't display digital maps, but your phone or mobile device can and uses the GPS signal from your inreach to determine your location.
- Weather updates.
The big downside is that it doesn't offer traditional navigation features (think Google Maps giving you turn-by-turn directions) but you do have the ability to set up routes and waypoints on your pc and upload them to the delorme and paired mobile device.
Like I said, its pricey, but its the closest thing to a complete package (GPS, digital maps, SOS and messaging) that you can find in the market. Perhaps not the optimal GPS navigation tool for driving (due to lack of navigation features), but you can use the Delorme inreach to serve as your phone or device's gps signal for other programs (like Hema's 4wd map app).
