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Converting a Route to a Course in the Explore App

4028149
11 days ago

I'm a sea kayaker looking to create courses on my Enduro 3.  I will always use "freehand" Routing, since there are no roads/trails on the water!

It looks like I have many options to create a course:

a) Create a Course in Garmin Connect
b) Create a Course in the Garmin Explore App
c) First create a Route on Explore Desktop and then convert to Course in the Explore App

I decided against (a), since i can't move the Waypoints after creating them ( its common to want to move a waypoint due to weather conditions etc..).  It also seems very unstable, i.e. it often hangs saying "Calculating your course".

So i'm leaning towards creating the Course in the Explore App.  However I also have the option of first creating a Route on Explore Desktop and THEN converting it to a Course in the app.  Is there any advantage to doing this in terms of functionality or stability? is it a smaller file?  I know its marginally easier using a desktop, i'm more interested in stability and performance of the watch while i'm navigating on the water.

PS: I read about Route vs Course below and the definitions are literally word-for-word the same except for file type FIT vs GPX!
support.garmin.com/.../

  • 0 11 days ago

    A “ROUTE” is dependent of a map (it relays on it) while a “COURSE” doesn’t. A “TRACK” also is not map dependent.

    You should always use a course or a track and config your device to follow a “course” and not a map.

    Also you should turn “recalculating” to off.

  • 0 10 days ago

    For starters I think the Enduro 3 only supports Courses, so anything other you send to it will be converted to Course anyways.

    But to explain the difference, Courses and Routes provide different navigation experiences.

    A Route is a collections of route points and the device you use will calculate a path between those route points based on the map you have active. You will get navigation instructions when following the route. Some devices also support direct routing, so each route point will be connected by a straight line.

    A Course is more like a pre-programmed path that you intend to follow. The navigation experience differs a bit depending on the device you use, but it is either that you get instruction to stay on the course and when you deviate you get routed back to your pre-planned course. Or it works like a breadcrumb trail where you do not get instructions and only an alert when you are off course. In the former, the device will try to match the course to the active map (so that it can give instructions), in the latter the map has no influence on the path.

    A Course created in Connect or in Explore app are technically the same, just a collection of locations the course follows and optionally course points along the way.

    Explore web (I assume you mean that instead of desktop) indeed allows creating routes (it does not support Courses), so you would need to convert the route to a course in Explore app after syncing your library.

    And another option is to use other route planning platforms like Komoot, RideWithGPS, Strava, etc. Most of these platforms support an integration with Garmin Connect where you can wirelessly sync the planned route to Garmin Connect, where it will be converted to a Course.