As a software developer, I had a cool idea to fool the InReach in being able to communicate with the internet.
The way the Inreach works, is: 1) Inreach must initiate communication with a phone number. 2) phone number can then reply back to the Inreach.
In other words, you can't randomly text an inreach device, the inreach must establish communication first. So you have to integrate a trusted intermediary to forward messages.
I made a simple proof of concept where I bought a phone number on Twilio, sent a text to it from the Inreach, and replied back to the inreach. It works.
Now comes the fun part... what functionality to build into it? I could program preset commands, e.g. send text: "weather" and it would reply back with the weather.
Some ideas:
The way the Inreach works, is: 1) Inreach must initiate communication with a phone number. 2) phone number can then reply back to the Inreach.
In other words, you can't randomly text an inreach device, the inreach must establish communication first. So you have to integrate a trusted intermediary to forward messages.
I made a simple proof of concept where I bought a phone number on Twilio, sent a text to it from the Inreach, and replied back to the inreach. It works.
Now comes the fun part... what functionality to build into it? I could program preset commands, e.g. send text: "weather" and it would reply back with the weather.
Some ideas:
- Make sure my business web server is up and reboot it if needed
- Some sort of vehicle breakdown SOS.. help needed here. How could it work? Would be cool to post to a regional Expo forum such as OverlandBound or here, asking if anyone is available to recover a vehicle, but I don't think I can do automated forum posts
- See if I've received any email with "URGENT" in the subject line
- For business, Gmail autoresponder that includes a link to a portal to escalate request, they'd fill out a message, and the web server would SMS my inreach.
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