Garmin’s Pocket-Sized Survival Tool Just Got a Game-Changing Upgrade

The new inReach Messenger Plus enables longer and more colorful off-grid messaging than its predecessor — which just so happens to boost its life-saving potential, too.

By Steve Mazzucchi

Published September 27, 2024

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Updated February 12, 2025

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A couple of years ago, Garmin introduced the InReach Messenger (and companion app), and it quickly became a backcountry staple.

The subscription-based, pocket-sized puck’s ability to let you send brief (160-character) satellite text messages when you’re out of Wi-Fi and cell service range offers not only peace of mind but the potential to save lives in emergency situations.

While the original Messenger tends to present as a no-frills survival essential, the upgrade shifts it toward being more of an everyday communication device. You can use it to send a beautiful sunset, epic summit or sweet powder slash snap to friends and family, for example.

The brand recently followed it up with a significantly augmented version that permits much fuller communication. The new InReach Messenger Plus lets users send and receive photos, voice messages and much longer messages (1,600 characters).

This upgrade dramatically expands the device’s capability as a more casual communication tool, but it also boosts its level of utility as an off-grid survival aid. Here’s what you need to know.

Garmin inReach Messenger Plus

$500 at Garmin

Color commentary

The inReach Messenger Plus is Garmin’s first satellite communicator to offer photo and voice messaging in addition to global two-way texting, location sharing and SOS capabilities.

Interestingly enough, it was introduced just a few days after Apple’s release of iOS 18, which taps the satellite capabilities of iPhone 14 and later to permit texting via satellite without cell service — and will be free for two years after the purchase of an iPhone.

Of course, Garmin’s product offers significant advantages over an iPhone. First off, while Messenger Plus permits sending as many as 250 photo and voice messages, iPhones still won’t have photo or voice message capability.

Second, and more important, the Messenger Plus’s battery can last up to 600 hours in low power mode, whereas your iPhone is lucky to last a couple days with cell service turned off.

garmin-in-reach-messengerplus-uses — This brand-generated image hints at all the different places where the InReach Messenger Plus could come in handy.

All of which means that, while the original Messenger tends to present as a no-frills survival essential, the upgrade shifts it toward being more of an everyday communication device. You can use it to send a beautiful sunset, epic summit or sweet powder slash snap to friends and family, for example.

You can also stay close by sharing the sound of your own voice during an extended off-grid adventure. You can even use the Messenger app to exchange send emojis, react to messages or create a group chat.

In another meaningful upgrade over the original unit, Messenger Plus uses a different messaging system called Iridium Message Transport (IMT), which supports messages up to 300 times larger. Photos and voice memos should go through in roughly a minute if the device has a clear view of the sky.

It should not escape anyone’s notice that one big beneficiary is Garmin itself, because these new capabilities also mean more (and pricier) subscription packages. The $15 per month package lets you send a total of 10 photos and voice memos. The $30 package ups that number to 25 photos, and the $50 package takes you up to 50.

Life-saving lift

That said, we should not overlook the fact that the Messenger Plus also improves your chances of backcountry survival.

After all, users can send photos and voice messages to Garmin Response, the company’s SOS dispatch center, when an SOS is triggered.

As mountain rescue experts have pointed out, having fuller details, including photos, of what a person is facing in an emergency situation can be hugely helpful to a response team in deciding how best to come to their aid, before they actually get on the scene.

garmin-in-reach-messenger-plus-features — Sharing photos and checking weather without cell service are just a couple things the Messenger Plus lets you do.

From a more everyday adventure standpoint, you can also share routes, tap into off-grid navigation and check the weather.

In any case, the unit is purpose-built to stand up to the rigors of the backcountry itself. It’s temperature resistant and water rated to IPX7, meaning it can endure submersion up to one meter for up to half an hour. Like its predecessor, the Messenger Plus can function as a standalone device that doesn’t need a cell phone.

And yet, should power run all the way down, the Messenger Plus can also be connected to a smartphone for enough charge to send custom text messages via the app. No matter what, we hope you only need it to send a 🤙, not an actual SOS.