Ingest — Garmin® inReach®

Garmin® inReach® devices don't push directly to third-party endpoints; instead they publish to Garmin®'s MapShare service, and our backend polls your MapShare KML feed.

There is no direct API call you make for inReach® — once the MapShare URL is registered, points appear in your map automatically within a few minutes of each ping.

Setup

See Garmin® inReach® setup for the full walkthrough. In summary:

  1. In your Garmin® Explore web account, enable MapShare for the device.
  2. Make MapShare public (or password-protect it).
  3. In your Where Is Tereza? admin → GPS sources → Add inReach®, paste the MapShare URL and password (if any).

Polling cadence

We poll your MapShare feed every 2 minutes. If your inReach® is set to publish more frequently than that (e.g. every 30 seconds), the polling cadence dominates — points are batched and appear in 2-minute chunks rather than instantaneously.

Latency

Expect 2–10 minutes between device ping and point appearing on the live map. Latency is dominated by Garmin®'s update cadence and our polling interval; not something we can shrink further.

Data fields

We extract:

  • Latitude, longitude (WGS84)
  • Timestamp (UTC)
  • Altitude (where Garmin® provides it)
  • Course over ground / speed (where provided)
  • Battery percentage of the inReach® device

Additional fields (custom messages, SOS) are ignored.

Failure modes

  • MapShare goes private without telling us → polling fails silently. Watch the GPS sources page in admin for a "last update" timestamp; if it stops moving, re-check MapShare.
  • Garmin® satellite plan lapses → device stops pinging, no error surfaces here. Check your Garmin® Explore account.
  • Password change on a password-protected MapShare → re-enter the new password in the admin.

Garmin® and inReach® are registered trademarks of Garmin Ltd. or its subsidiaries. This page is not affiliated with or endorsed by Garmin.

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