Garmin
1989 — two engineers named the company after themselves, and thirty-six years later it is the reason a search party knows where you are.
Garmin is not an optics company and belongs here for one reason — it is the most consequential navigation brand in the world. GPSMAP handhelds, inReach satellite communicators, fenix and Instinct watches and Alpha dog trackers are the devices that answer where am I and, more importantly, tell someone else. What you need to understand before buying is that the good part requires a subscription and a working satellite network, and that a device that always knows where you are is also a device that has a record of everywhere you have been.
- GRMNPublicly traded on NASDAQ — a technology company, not an outdoor brand
- $627.6MOutdoor segment net sales, Q4 2025
- $2.125BTotal Q4 2025 net sales across all five segments
What we'd reach for
- GPSMAP 67iHandheld GPS with inReach satellite messaging and SOS built in. The one device that does mapping and rescue without a phone.
- inReach Mini 2The pocket satellite communicator. Small enough that there is no excuse not to carry it, which is the entire product argument.
- inReach Messenger PlusMessaging and SOS with photo and voice, for people who already carry a phone.
- fenix 8The flagship outdoor watch — maps, multi-band GNSS, and enough battery to be useful on a multi-day trip.
- Instinct 3The rugged, simpler one. Longer battery, fewer features, and harder to break.
- eTrex SE and eTrex SolarThe cheap handheld that will not die. Solar variant runs effectively indefinitely in daylight.
- Montana 700iLarge screen, glove-friendly, and the handheld for a vehicle or a boat.
- Alpha 300iDog tracking and training with inReach on board. A niche that Garmin owns almost entirely.
Gary Burrell and Min Kao founded the company in 1989 and named it after themselves — Gar and Min. That is the least interesting fact about Garmin and it is the one everybody knows, so it may as well go first.
The interesting fact is what the company became. Garmin is the reason a helicopter can find a hiker with a broken leg in a canyon with no cell coverage. Nothing else on this site does that.
It is not an optics brand and that is fine
Garmin is here because Optics & Navigation has two halves and this is the other one.
Silva and Suunto answer where am I with a needle in a fluid-filled capsule that will work in fifty years with no maintenance. Garmin answers the same question with a multi-band GNSS receiver and answers a second question the compass cannot: where am I, and does anyone else know.
Both answers are correct. Carry both.
The number people get wrong
Garmin publishes revenue by segment, and in Q4 2025 it broke down like this:
Fitness $765.8M. Outdoor $627.6M. Marine $296.9M. Aviation $274.2M. Auto OEM $160.4M. Total: $2.125 billion.
Outdoor is $627.6 million of a $2.125 billion quarter. Just under thirty percent.
We are spelling this out because “Garmin does $2 billion a quarter” gets quoted in outdoor contexts constantly, and it overstates the outdoor business by more than three times. Garmin’s biggest segment is fitness. Its most profitable historical business was aviation. A chartplotter buyer, a fēnix buyer and a Cessna panel buyer are three different customers, and the company is genuinely large in all of those directions at once.
The part that requires a subscription
This is the caveat that belongs on the front of every inReach listing and is usually three clicks deep.
inReach SOS and messaging do not work without an active satellite plan.
The hardware talks to the Iridium satellite network, and Iridium is a paid service. If your plan has lapsed, your inReach is a GPS with a screen. It will show you where you are. It will not press the button for you.
Two more things worth knowing before you count on it. Satellite messaging needs sky — deep canyon, dense canopy and heavy structure all degrade it, and a message can take minutes rather than seconds. And battery-life figures are mode-dependent, always. A watch quoting a very large number of hours is quoting a tracking mode with the GPS sampling rate turned down. If you see a battery number without a mode attached to it, it is not a specification, it is an advertisement.
None of this is a reason to skip the device. An inReach is one of the highest value-per-dollar safety purchases available to anyone who works or travels outside coverage. It is a reason to buy it with the plan and test it before you need it.
The part that knows where you have been
A device built to always know your position is, necessarily, a device that accumulates a record of your positions.
Routes, activity history, contacts, and in some configurations live tracking visible to others. That is the product working correctly. It is also a category of information that did not used to exist about a person’s movements, and it is worth a minute of thought about what is stored, what syncs, and who you have shared a tracking link with.
We raise it because nobody selling these raises it, not because there is something wrong with the devices.
Where Garmin fits
Anyone who works or travels outside cell coverage. inReach Mini 2 is the answer, and its real virtue is being small enough that you actually bring it.
Remote job sites. For the rope access, utility and rescue side of this site, a satellite communicator on a crew is straightforwardly a safety item.
Navigation where a phone won’t do. eTrex SE is cheap, physically tough, and runs for weeks. The Solar version effectively doesn’t stop.
Hunters with dogs. Alpha 300i is a category with one real player in it.
Not for: anyone who wants navigation that works with no batteries, no subscription and no account — that is Silva and the Suunto compass line, and it is a completely legitimate way to navigate. Not for anyone unwilling to maintain a service plan. And not for someone who wants passive optical glass; that is the other half of this category entirely.
Why we rate them
inReach saves lives and the mechanism is boring. A button, a satellite, a coordinating center. No heroics, no marketing — it just works from places where nothing else does.
They publish segments. Breaking out Outdoor from Fitness from Aviation is ordinary public-company discipline, but it means anyone can check a claim about this business instead of taking a round number on faith. Most of this roster publishes nothing.
eTrex is still made. A cheap, ugly, nearly unkillable handheld that has been in the line for over two decades, in a company that could easily sell only watches. That says something.
When the question is does anyone else know where I am, we reach for Garmin.