Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Like it or not, if you bought a satellite communicator such as a ZOLEO or Garmin inReach Messenger; you might not use it everyday and want to lend or share the device to a family member or a friend to use on their outdoor adventure.
So how easy is it to lend your device? Well, lets break it down.
Sharing Your Garmin inReach Messenger
This applies to all inReach devices, but since the inReach Messenger is so similar to the ZOLEO, might as well go through the steps- and there a lot of them.
Step 1 – Reset your device
First thing is to reset the device as we’ll need to assign a new inReach user to the device, then pair the device to the new user’s smartphone. Since they’ll need to create a Garmin Explore account to use the Garmin Messenger app (or probably already have one if they use a Garmin outdoor device), you probably won’t be sharing those credentials to your friend.
Step 2 – Add New User From Garmin Explore
Due to recent privacy laws (after July 2022), Garmin inReach users under a personal Freedom or Contract plan can no longer add users to their Garmin Explore account. If you have added users in the past, they will remain but unable to add any further. (Link)
Since I have two Garmin explore accounts I can still show you the screen if you happen to be on the Pro inReach plans.
Step 3- Assign New User to inReach Device
Once you have the new user created, just assign to the inReach device and your friend is ready to pair and sync.
Step 4- Pair the inReach Device to New User’s Phone
At this point the device is ready to get paired to a new smartphone and hopefully everything will work.
Sharing Your ZOLEO
Luckily the process for ZOLEO is much simpler.
Step 1- Download the ZOLEO messaging app
This one is simple, have your friend download the ZOLEO smartphone app and sign in. Added bonus of doing this is being able to send app to app messages up to and over 1000 characters.
Step 2 – Open App and Pair
Turn on the ZOLEO device and with it nearby, tap on the ZOLEO app icon in the menu tray and they will see the IMEI number of the device and simply pair the ZOLEO to the new smartphone.
Give it a few seconds to associate the dedicated SMS & email to the new smartphone/device pairing and once done you will see the weather & SOS icons indicating that you are now paired with the ZOLEO device.
And that’s it.