Iridium Go! Marine Bundle with 400 Mins/180 Days SIM Card

I purchased this product in order to help people in remote parts of Puerto Rico connect with loved ones. After successfully setting up the unit and connecting via the mobile app on both iphone and android, we had poor outcomes. The unit starts our searching for available satellites (as expected) begins to register and then starts the process all over again searching and then registering. We were able to successfully stay registered to make one phone call over a 5day period.

Very disappointed as I thought this could be a solution we could replicate in many parts of the island that to this day have no power and no cell service. We are trying it for a few more days thinking that perhaps we have done something wrong but if it does not work by Sunday I will just send it back.

So I bought this through Amazon because of the return policy. I tested it and love it. The system is not a true WiFi as most people understand WiFi, but if you know the limitations and uses it is a very good unit. Still haven’t figured out crew feature.

We used one of these for a sail from the Pacific NW to Hawaii to download wind/wave data on the go. I would not suggest this product, especially if you are an iPhone user. The base station when plugged into the antenna would take a while to connect, and was somewhat flaky, even in the middle of the pacific. It was okay to be able to text with – web browsing, even with their compression browser was impossible. If we wanted wind/weather data, email was the only way – I could not find a way to configure an email client on Windows, or Mac, so instead decided to use a cell phone + USB for the GRIB files — one of our crew tried with his iPhone to receive the email with attachment. It took about 8 minutes or so for 32kb grib file, but he couldn’t do anything with it! He also tried to download a photo, and not even that would display. Luckily it worked on an android phone which could transfer to our charting laptop. If you consider the iridium go for their advertised ‘twitter/Facebook’ you will be very disappointed.

Would not recommend buying the product, the hardware was acceptable, but the software made it hard and in some cases impossible.

I purchased this for my son and he loves it. He has rentred satelite phones before and this is the product he prefers.

SOOO complicated to use it.

Phone worked ok, but still haven’t been able to get the email app to connect successfully.

The concept is nice — just turn on the Go and your smartphone is a satellite phone. But the implementation is just ok. Three things you need to know:

1) The Go is compact but heavy; heavier than a satphone, in fact. That takes away a lot of the attractiveness.
2) Your phone connects to the Go via WiFi, and you have to “login”. On my Android phone the login fails about 20% of the time (even when right next to the unit).
3) Just in case you’re hoping for data connectivity, forget it, this is for calls/text. Data is super slow (4kbps!) and super expensive.

So, not sure. If you want coverage in remote areas, buy an Iridium phone, it’s lighter and more reliable.

I’m a first-responder. I got this to replace my old sat phone which is about 12 years old. The concept of this sat-fi system is awesome. I bought it based on the ads. I can honestly say I feel the device is so incapable of almost everything it’s advertised to do, that a customer might be able to actually sue for false advertising. I’m trying to return it now, after 2 weeks of trying to connect to it with my smart phone. I have ZERO successful connections in two weeks. This will NOT be reliable in a pinch AT ALL. I can honestly say I don’t know how it will perform because I can’t connect to it!! I’ve been reading lots of reviews since being placed on hold repeatedly waiting for customer service. The ads make it look like you can use your phone to make calls and texts, etc. But that’s not true at all. I was going to not write this review, hoping to just get my money back. But so far I haven’t had any luck. I’ve never sued anyone before, but I’m actually researching how to sue the company I bought this through (Network Innovations). If they don’t let me return it, I’ll go on a campaign to give them bad reviews everywhere I can, and sue. I paid over $1,000 for this junk. Avoid this product. My 12-year old sat phone actually works still, and I’ll just keep that old thing rather than keep trying to make this work.