LiveTrack statistics

Former Member over 5 years ago

I found some topics about the missing feature showing how many LiveTrack points have been recorded and sent on the 66i. Is it correct that there is still no statistics about this available on the device? Am I the only one thinking that this is a very important and easy to implement safety feature - just missing?

- How do we know that the LiveTrack points are actually transferred? Will the device tell me if there is a problem with that (i. e. "Dear device user, there seems to be a problem. For the past X minutes no LiveTrack points could be sent to the Iridium network.") or will it just go on for days making me believe it works if it actually doesn't?

- When turning off the device it tells me that there is unsent data (i. e. LiveTrack points recorded but not sent to the network) and asks if I want to turn off the device anyway. This information is quite useless without any details. Did it not send the information it just recorded 10 seconds ago? or the last 20 points? or nothing at all since I started the trip?

The information has been clearly and easily accessible on the DeLorme inReach Explorer. What could be a reason to not implement it on the Garmin 66i? (just trying to understand the thoughts of Garmin)

0 twolpert over 5 years ago

This has been requested many times. Garmin resists implementing the enhancement. Nobody knows why.

If the device is having enough trouble sending things (and it takes a LOT of trouble to trigger this behavior), you will see a pop-up warning on the device. Don't remember the wording, but it essentially says "can't send, find a clear view of the sky or tell me to stop retrying". I don't believe that telling it to stop loses data. It just defers the effort until later. This behavior is because the constant retries in adverse conditions are a real battery suck. (If telling it to stop retrying does lose data, the pop-up includes a warning to that effect. But I don't THINK it does.) Although I'm sure it happens, I don't believe I've ever seen this in the field - just in indoor situations where I'm arm-chairing something else.

As far as the power-down warning goes, I think the rationale is that it doesn't matter how much data is pending. If you want it, find a clear sky view, leave the device on, and wait for the traffic to clear. If you don't want it, power down. The right answer, of course, is to wait for the traffic to send. Do note that stopping inReach tracking always generates and sends an "end of track" point. That way, you always get the most current position even if was not yet time for the next regularly scheduled point. So attempting to power down immediately after stopping tracking will almost always produce the warning. This does NOT mean that there are no other points pending. It just means that there's almost always that one...