BASECAMP 5.0 (ish) coming

I contacted Garmin CEO Clifton Pemble in Kansas with my request, the need and the marketing advantage for Garmin. That prompted a phone call from the head of automotive (don't remember his name). About four months later automotive told me an update to Basecamp was going to be released. I don't know when or what will be updated - but it's a start.
  • 1. Perhaps for the unwashed masses....



    Well, if you need it so much, and you think others do, learn how to code and write it. You seem to think there's a ready made market. I would probably make it Open Source and give it away for free and have others join in, but you can try selling it if you want. I'd suggest Android as the target OS.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    After following the issues of the newer Garmin RV/Trucking devices for a few months, I am of the opinion that Basecamp is unlikely to be modified to include and/or support the current proprietary Safety POI routing that IS supported on the devices. Therefore, users should do final routing detours on the devices themselves - and not in big screen Basecamp.


    Then disable Recalculation on the RV770 and set it on the dash. Also place another handheld gps with one-second track recording nearby for future troubleshooting and educational reference. The secondary gps should NOT have the "Snap to Road Vector" feature (if any) enabled. The secondary gps could however have automatic route re-calculation enabled for reference.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    What do you mean by "Mapsource is still going strong"? It is not being revised either... you mean users are still using it? What does MapSource offer over BaseCamp if anything?
  • Yes. It's still available and works. It does however lack many of the features that BaseCamp has, eg support for BirdsEye. For some folks MapSource is still perfectly acceptable if the advanced features of BaseCamp aren't required.
  • Well, if you need it so much, and you think others do, learn how to code and write it. You seem to think there's a ready made market. I would probably make it Open Source and give it away for free and have others join in, but you can try selling it if you want. I'd suggest Android as the target OS.


    There are plenty of choices out there already. I have tried quite a few and IMO none can compare to the functionality and flexibility of BC.
  • Former Member
    0 Former Member over 7 years ago
    It's sad that we've gotten to this point. I have a half-dozen Garmin devices and took the conversion from Map Source to Basecamp rather poorly. It has been clear for many years that the people at Garmin (who are being beaten senseless by the smart phone apps) have cut and run from the system that most of us here love so much -- set the trip up on a big screen, then download it into a device. It was very confusing a few years ago when I needed to buy a new device and couldn't figure out which ones did what I had become accustomed to. All I really needed was a device that was compatible with Euro maps available at the time. It turned into an ordeal, but I eventually came out the other side.

    The fact that "Basecamp" was put forward as a suitable replacement for Map Source was a clue way back then. Clearly it was intended to work primarily for people who use the wilderness hand-held stuff -- they are legion. Anyway, I'd like to have a transcript of the meeting at Garmin when they decided to make Basecamp work for people who drive or ride vehicles. For starters, they appear to have decided that the name of the thing was irrelevant. I disagree -- Basecamp has nothing to do with road navigation, and when that decision was made, the fate of the whole program was sealed. . .and here we are.

    Sad.
  • this makes no sense. All I use basecamp for are roads.

  • In April when I asked for suggestions to include everyone's needs for a much needed update to BC, so I could present them to Garmin and point out why Garmin holds an important marketing tool in this software. What I got was one guy calling me names and a few others saying everything worked for them right now so they don't care. I thought, what happens when you get a new computer or a update to your operating system or a new device and then it doesn't work.

    So I started with Garmin CEO Clifton Pemble in Kansas with my request, the need and the marketing advantage for Garmin. That prompted a phone call from the head of automotive (don't remember his name).

    About two weeks ago, (four months later) automotive told me an update to Basecamp was going to be released. I don't know when or what will be updated - but it's a start.

    I'm sure the guy that called me names and those that said everything is working for them so they don't care, won't be doing the update when it's released since they have no need for it.


    Oh brother! At your next meeting with Trump maybe see what he can do.
  • Interesting thread. I wonder why Garmin refuses to update BC ? Garmin clearly has the programming staff to handle a from scratch redo.
  • I wonder why Garmin refuses to update BC ?

    "Too expensive" is the obvious answer.

    Garmin clearly has the programming staff to handle a from scratch redo.

    Since none of their programming staff is currently working in Basecamp (as far as we can tell), they must be working on other stuff. So, no, they don't appear to have the staff.

    A "from scratch redo" (you make it sound much easier than it is) could be a two year project for a group of 4 people. And, they might have to write two versions (one for Windows; one for MacOS). (It's roughly, a $2 million dollar project.)

    For something (currently, free) that returns no direct revenue. And to replace a program that works reasonably-well for most of its current users.

    Probably, only a small percentage of Garmin users use Basecamp (a few RV-ers, motorcyclists, and hikers, for the most part).