PLB vs. IPhone Apple 14 for SOS

What are the advantages of a PLB over an Apple 14 SOS cell phone? I am in the Northwest in the San Juans and Canada Gulf Islands. The cons of phone is line of sight is needed to use SOS with no cell service. Also battery life is less with phone. I don't foresee that as a likely problem on the boat. Any comments?

I had the same question a couple of years ago. I asked the local SAR group for advice. Their answer was never to rely on the iPhone. A PLB is great as long as you are wearing it. If you’re boating alone, and particularly if you go out on open deck or use the dinghy, get into the habit of clipping a hand held VHF to your belt. It’s heavier than a PLB but has advantages. I got a floating one that activates a strobe if submerged. It allows me to call out an SOS and then talk to CG. I went with that solution.

So do you recommend both PLB and handheld VHF?

I have been mountaineering for close to 2 decades and boating for the past 5.

PLBs, and other satellite communicators like Garmin InReach (the one I own) also need a line of site to the sky. Coming from mountaineering where you are often under tree cover, I can say they kind of suck, you really need to get above tree line for these things to work with any sort of reliability. Any iPhone 14 or newer also has satellite SOS capability, they also need line of sight to the sky, and in fact the on screen instructions that help you guide the direction of the phone actually make the ability to pickup a signal even better. Given we are talking about marine use, line of sight isn't a concern for either device.

The difference between these 2 things is that an iPhone has a 24 hour battery life, and requires a lot of button presses in order to send a satellite SOS message (ever try to use a phone in the rain?). PLBs or InReach are built to be more rugged, have a longer battery life, and have 1 button SOS functions built right in. I have many friends in SAR, and they will say don't trust an iPhone because they also don't want some random urban walker to scale a mountain and have a false sense of safety. It's not the performance.

That being said, I've decided not renew my InReach subscription this year. The amount of mountaineering I do is significantly down, so most of my time is spent boating. I have a floating, waterproof, VHF radio with AIS and DCS distress (single button much like the PLBs and InReach). Most of my time is spent in the San Juans and Gulf Islands like you Mastercraft, where I feel pretty comfortable about VHF performance with relay stations that the US and Canadian CG have in place, and the number of other boaters that are typically in the area. My iPhone will be my fallback, and depending how much of an emergency it is, I have Starlink if I need to get ahold of someone as well.

If I intend to go offshore, I'll add a PLB or re-enable my InReach, but for now I think iPhone + VHF is a good combination.

I have been using Zoleo since 2020. Besides the ability to request SOS, I can connect my phone via bluetooth and send and receive SMS. They assign a US number phone to your device, and you can share w/ friends and family. I also pay for an additional feature that sends my position at every N [configurable] minutes. My daughter and friends have the zoleo app and they can see where I am. Very very useful.

Couple of thoughts.

1. a PLB is a purposed designed piece of safety hardware for the use case. its far more salt, impact resistant, and water resistant than a phone.
2. But its also likely not a device that you have on you all the time
3. both devices require a clear view of the sky to make a satellite connection.
4. Apple's built-in Sat SOS service uses Globalstar satellites - you have to manually connect your phone to the satellite connection to send and receive
5. T-Mobile has also built out a Satellite network and they announced on Monday that they are going commercial launch on July 23rd. T-Mobile's solution is based on Starlink satellites + T-Mobile network capabilities. It doesn't require a manual process to connect to a satellite. Your Android or Iphone will automatically connect to T-Satellite if the terrestrial network is unavailable. Basically any phone in the last 4 years should work with no changes. it supports messaging today including 911 and satellite data coming
6. You will be able to buy TMobile satellite as a standalone service even if you are a Verizon or AT&T customer or add it as a standalone service to your Tmobile account, or it is included in the top tier plans for free.