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Is it me or is Garmin's software a mess right now?

AJRykala
over 4 years ago

I have a 5x Plus, and I bought it for trail/ultra running.

So I'd like to be able to plot a track, mark points on it for food/water stops or checkpoints etc.

So (at least as far as the Web side is involved)

Explore:

Not very good at plotting tracks, but will create waypoints. Import a route created elsewhere - no elevation profile. Syncing to watch is a bit painful

Connect:

Better at plotting tracks, but no waypoint/checkpoint support. Sync's very easy

So right now I have to create a track in Connect, import it into to Explore, add the waypoints I need, delete the track and just sync the waypoints to my watch, and then use Connect to export the route/track to my watch,

Is it me, or is this a little absurd - or is there a better way?

Been using Basecamp but thats got even worse plotting capability than the other 2.

EDIT: I meant track not route. My fault for being semantically unclear!

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to craigsam

     Plot a track and mark the track with specific waypoints / coursepoints to indicate food/water stops.

    I do this for trail running events and Garmin is a MESS. What used to work didn't want to work anymore so this is the new found solution.

    1) get the GPX from organiser

    2) import into Plotaroute.com

    3) Mark Coursepoints using plotaroute.com (it's the icon named "directions" on the lower right hand side)

    4) Put in your Coursepoint Symbols / Names etc to the points for Food/Water (Checkpoints) 

    5) Export Route as a FIT File

    6) Plug watch into Laptop/PC/Mac

    7) Paste the FIT file into NewFiles

    8) DONE

    you will now see the watch will have those specific Checkpoints in the Watch Map (either your breadcrumbs map or the route over the map if yours is a Fenix series that supports map)

    YOu will also get distances to Wpt. Next and Names and ETE and ETA and all that.

    Why it works:

    Plotaroute.com will append the courpoints into the FIT file and REMOVE all the other coursepoints within the file (I believe these coursepoints are what makes TBT-Turn By Turn happen. But due to these coursepoints being there, those Specific checkpoints that you painstakingly put in Garmin Connect (and sync wireless to watch) will get obscured by these other coursepoints.

    What if you want these coursepoints to exist in the watch as waypoints? Then instead of exporting it out as FIT file, export it as a GPX File and paste it into newfiles. This will then create these coursepoints that you manually added into "saved locations" in your watch. (these will then also sync into Garmin Explore)

    Note : If you export the file from plotaroute.com as FIT, if you re-import it into plotaroute.com, the coursepoints you manually created will not be present (i'm not sure why). But if you re-import the GPX file into plotaroute.com, the coursepoints you created will be re-created in plotaroute.com

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to AJRykala

    I agree. I would like to manually create a TRACK with a few WAYPOINTS / Course Points along the way (food / water / etc) and be able to effortlessly sync this wirelessly to my FR945/Fenix6.

    EXPLORE WEB: You are only able to create a ROUTE. Every single point in the route (often many 100) is a named WAYPOINT / Course Point (every point is by default named "point"). When I sync this wirelessly to my FR945/Fenix6 all the WAYPOINT / Course Point.names fill the small screen (especially when zoomed out). It is almost impossible to see the underlying map. There is an option in EXPLORE WEB which lets you convert ROUTES to TRACKS but this does not seem to have an effect when synced wirelessly to my FR945/Fenix6. All the point names still show up. It is possible to see all the ROUTE points in a list in the EXPLORE APP (not WEB!) and individual edit their names and icons but I cannot remove the names completely. It is anyway cumbersome to edit each and every point individually in the APP. Is there a way to turn of the WAYPOINT / Course Point names completely? That would at least be a makeshift solution.

    CONNECT WEB. You are able to create TRACKS and add a few Course Points along the way. Hallelujah! This also shows up in the CONNECT APP correctly. Fantastic! However, when synced wirelessly to my FR945/Fenix6 only the TRACK shows (not the Course Points). Why?

    Discarded temporary solution: In EXPLORE WEB you can press IMPORT and then IMPORT COURSES. The description is "You can import courses created in your Garmin Connect account to your Garmin Explore account". However, no courses shows up for me. I get the following message "An error occurred". I know that I have several courses in CONNECT WEB. Why?

    Mayby a temporary solution: Create a TRACK (without Course Points) in CONNECT WEB. Sync wirelessly CONNECT WEB with FR945/Fenix6. Sync wirelessly FR945/Fenix6 with EXPLORER WEB. Now you should have the TRACK also in EXPLORE WEB so that you can manually add "global" WAYPOINTS on top of the TRACK.

    This is all a big mess! How is this possible in 2020?