[zbentley]

You said it yourself:

> Of course, for real emergencies I have a Garmin SOS device.

that's why the mesh radio/LoRaWAN-type ecosystems suck. I don't mean to be rude or snarky; just to point out a very contextually-relevant example against your argument.

For the average consumer who needs this functionality seriously, there's a proprietary (and often costly) solution. Subtract those mission-critical-remote-comms devices and you're left with hobbyist needs, so you get hobbyist-quality ecosystems.