Garmin Adds Multi-InReach Device Support (and LiveTrack Updates)

Yesterday Garmin released the inReach Mini 3 & Mini 3 Plus, but along the way, they also expanded support for having multiple inReach devices on a single account – which was a pretty big limiter once the Fenix 8 Pro came out back in September, in not being able to have both an activated inReach device and Fenix 8 Pro on your same account. More on that in a second down below.

However, also noteworthy, at some point in the last…ummm…while, they added the ability to use Garmin LiveTrack instead of Garmin MapShare for inReach devices. And even more interestingly, back in November, they removed the Garmin Connect+ requirement/feature for customized Garmin Connect LiveTrack URL’s (e.g. live.garmin.com/finddcrainmaker), as long as you have an inReach subscription. That was one of the features that was launched with Garmin Connect+, but previously didn’t require such premium payment with MapShare to have custom URL’s. Now, anyone with an inReach subscription or Outdoor Maps+ subscription can have a custom URL with Garmin Connect LiveTrack.

Anyways, point is, I never noticed the LiveTrack change till today, so, I figured I’d briefly cover it (mostly cause I hated MapShare).

Multi-Device inReach Support:

Garmin Messenger (the app) and the Garmin platform as a whole, now support multiple inReach devices on the same account. When the Fenix 8 Pro came out (which has LTE & satellite messaging), it required you to choose which device was on your subscription plan. Meaning, you couldn’t have both a Garmin inReach Mini 2 or Mini 3 and a Garmin Fenix 8 Pro activated at the same time. That’s important because for many people doing longer treks, the inReach devices are still a better option, due to both satellite coverage/types, as well as the continuous  livetrack over satellite capability that the Fenix 8 Pro lacks (it can do it over LTE, but not via satellite).

Point being, it was pretty annoying to have to choose which device to activate, especially because you couldn’t choose to just do LTE on the Fenix 8 Pro and leave inReach on your actual inReach device. It was all or nothing.

Anyway, that’s been partially solved. All you need to do is ensure you’ve got an updated Garmin Messenger app on your phone, and then you can start enrolling multiple devices. You can see this above where I have a Fenix 8 Pro MicroLED, inReach Mini 2, and inReach Mini 3 Plus all now activated on the same Garmin account. Previously, I’d have needed separate accounts for each one.

Now, as eagle-eyed readers might also notice from the above photo, as of today you need to have different subscription plans for each one. Thus why I have slightly different plans for the different devices. That’s obviously super expensive, as my credit card is currently attesting too – especially with Garmin’s insane $39 activation fee per device (especially for a brand new device).

However, back in September, Garmin stated by the end of the year that they were going to both allow multiple devices under the same account (which, is now done), but also, that these would be enabled under a single subscription plan. Here’s the exact quote:

“We are actively working on a solution that will allow customers to have multiple devices active under one subscription plan simultaneously.” [Garmin, September 4th, 2025]

Thus, with at least the technical side partially complete, I figured I’d check back on whether that’s still the plan. Garmin responded today (Dec 3rd, 2025) that “at this time we don’t have anything fully confirmed”. It’s unclear from my discussions from them if they’re sticking to the original plan without an updated date, or if they’re aiming for a new plan that would require multiple subscriptions per device, which…would properly suck.

But, hopefully, they’ll get back to the original plan.

LiveTrack on inReach Devices:

Now, as I said earlier, I’m not sure when the magic option to use LiveTrack instead of MapShare occurred. I see some vague references to it from earlier in May, some from September, and then many more from November. Either way, I hadn’t noticed it – but today I did.

For those that may be a bit perplexed as to the difference between LiveTrack and MapShare, here’s the quick and dirty:

Garmin LiveTrack: This is what you’ve always used with your watches & Garmin Edge devices, to share your current location. For watches with LTE/Satellite, it’ll do it without a phone. For all other watches/devices without, it’ll use your phone’s data connection to send to the inter webs, and your friends/family can follow along. Generally speaking, LiveTrack looks like the below screenshot, and includes sensor data too (heart rate, power, elevation, pace, etc…). It’s easy to use, and ‘just works’, but historically had been a bit more limited in terms of features and such (that’s changed recently).

Garmin MapShare: Meanwhile, there was also Garmin MapShare, which was connected almost entirely to Garmin inReach and other handheld devices. This was primarily/historically for satellite/inReach connected devices, and offered a lot of map overlay options. You could. Share out a URL that worked forever, no matter how many trips you went on. And you could embed it in websites (e.g. for really long treks). But it was also (in my opinion) absurdly complicated, and made it super easy to accidentally post your home/private locations, because it would show anytime you turned the device on, and then save that to the map (requiring you remember to apply more specific filters). To be clear, it had more powerful filtering/collection and web-based messaging options, but was ‘not beautiful’ in my opinion. Here’s what that looked like:

Again, some people probably still prefer MapShare, but I think that’s a much more limited number of people. And the good news is, you can still continue to use it.

With the updated Garmin Explore app, you can now choose between the two types: LiveTrack and MapShare. To do so, you’ll:

1) Open Explore app, choose your profile picture in upper left
2) Scroll down, choose “MapShare” from settings list (it’ll show “LiveTrack” if you’ve switched already)
3) You’ll now see the below option, to goggle between them (“Switch to LiveTrack”):

Within the LiveTrack option, you can create a custom URL (just like in MapShare), and you can choose whether or not past activities are private, as well as how current (live) activities are displayed:

On the LiveTrack side, you’ll see your current activity shown on your custom URL page. Plus of course your contacts will get a link to the activity directly, depending on how you have things configured. Here’s an example of the custom landing page, with an active activity:

If you enable past activity history, you’ll see a big list of those below it, like this (except mine are all locked as private, per the icon):

Meanwhile, if you decide you want MapShare, you can switch back to that at any time, as often as you’d like (see it at the bottom of the screenshots above).

The key differences are:

– MapShare supports adding a custom password atop the shared URL page
– MapShare supports only showing specific filtered Garmin Explore collections (your routes)
– MapShare supports a bunch more message filtering options
– MapShare shows routes with inReach devices, but LiveTrack apparently doesn’t (LiveTrack will show planned routes for non-inReach devices).

But Garmin does have a handy list of all the features:

Personally, I’d add two more line-items to the above:

– MapShare: Makes it super easy to accidentally share your life history with the world [Yes]
– MapShare: Feels like the 1980’s [Yes]

I know, I’m being hard on the poor MapShare team (which I’m assuming by now has long since retired and is enjoying inReach-orange themed fruity umbrella drinks on a beach somewhere), but I’m super glad to have a single streamlined LiveTrack option. Not really so much for myself, but rather, my friends/family that want to follow my journey. MapShare was just pretty clunky for them.

That said, I feel like with the Messenger Plus and now inReach Mini 3 Plus, Garmin needs to step it up a bit more on these features. Why can’t I show/post photos/audio notes atop my LiveTrack page? As always, they make incredible hardware, but there’s just so much they could do with software to really drive home the cool new hardware features. But, we’ll save that for my inReach Mini 3 Plus in-depth review.

With that, thanks for reading!