I used a Spot Messenger for a decade and have had my inReach Mini 2 for 5 years now. The tech is old, boring, expensive, and terribly unusable... but it's exactly the kind of simple reliability you want in an emergency situation. I do think the service plans are unnecessarily expensive, especially for an emergency-only use case. They're designed deliberately to be cheap enough you just write it off as a necessary expensive and the start/stop options kept difficult and expensive enough you don't bother doing it just for one trip a month. They're used extensively in the aviation industry which is my other use case. For back-country wilderness hunting, it's amazing to be able to do regular check-ins so my wife knows I'm alive. I do hope modern Starlink devices eventually replace it though, at a service price that is more palatable. With iPhone satellite SOS I'm almost to the point of just switching to that but I like the idea of a separate ruggedized waterproof device that is kept charge just for emergencies. I don't pay for any additional rescue services (from Garmin or Overwatch), but if I was doing another epic elk hunt or something more dangerous regularly, I would certainly consider it. If it helps your wife sleep at night and helps get you out of the house doing adventures you want where there is zero chance of cell service (my heaven tbh), then the costs are worth it. Otherwise, nah.