Tracks, Recordings, Activities - Confusing

Nobody but the firmware programmers can understand what gets started when, from which "side" of the operation. IIRC, the actual differences occur when STOPPING. But I could be wrong. I have gotten to the point where I always check BOTH sides immediately after starting or stopping. Then take whatever action is necessary to get it into the state I want.

Yes, tracking now refers to inReach "sent points". Controlling tracking is via the iR menu options. It may also affect activity logging. 

Activity logging is the equivalent of "logged points" in iR land. Activity logging is the same as "recording". Activities can be saved in .fit format (the default), or both .fit and .gpx. This setting is located under Setup > Recording > Advanced Setup. Setup > Recording is where you control the intervals for logged points. 

As always, logged points live only the device until you sync or otherwise move them elsewhere. You can sync via the Explore mobile app. Or you can mount the device in data exchange mode and copy the files to your PC and thence to wherever you want. This is the main advantage to recording in both .fit and .gpx formats. The .fit format is a thing that only Garmin can love. Everybody else in the mapping/tracking world uses .gpx for interchange.

When you do live download of Birdseye imagery, you can specify the image quality. Under the Detail setting, Standard, High, Highest. No idea what the default is. Obviously, you pay a size penalty for higher detail. I suspect this also affects rendering speed.

From the map setup, you can also control the "brightness" of the imagery - Normal, Bright, Brighter. You get here from the Map > hamburger menu > Map Setup > Configure Maps. Tap on the Birdseye satellite "enable" block, then choose your option.

I was unable to find anywhere on the device where I could see the detail setting of a particular section of existing Birdseye imagery. However, one of my samples has a file which is large enough to be Highest detail. It is good enough to see individual trees in a park (photos taken during leaf off).

Obviously I need both but it seems a waste to be sending inReach tracking data, if all I'm interested in is Recording a track on my GPS, using the Recording Controls. When done I stop the recording and save it as a track (in this case it's the actual path and not just discrete points.  What I get when doing this is a track to me. In fact you can save it as a track.  Garminbshould have come up with another term for inreach points. ;)

Activities seems more like fitness stuff. 

Regardless whatever I'm doing inreach track or activities), I generally want a Recording of the path (I call track). So it makes sense to automatically start them together. It just seems like there might be times you want a recorded track, without broadcasting on inReach.

It's a great GPS though. Just a steep learning curve.

I'm going to spend some time driving around WA this weekend testing it out. 

What is the best way to create waypoints and routes, to download to phone? Which software?  I have so many Garmin software it's hard to keep straight.  Base Camp, explorer, etc.

Lastly can any 3rd party or open source maps be used with the 700i? 

Thanks

Mike

I tried turning off the auto starts and got into a mode where I could record a reack using record control and NOT start an inReach tracking. But it doesn't seem to always work that way.

Have to investigate this. They have auto starts for a reason

I never, ever auto-start tracking of any kind. Nothing wrong with it. It's just that I tend to power up the device while doing arm-chair activities such as responding to forum posts. If I auto-start, I get a whole collection of random short tracks acquired with poor (or no) fix... As a result, I have no experience with auto-start.

Thankfully the Montana has an ability to stop recording tracks if speed falls below a speed which you can set. Hopefully will eliminate the worst of the "rats nest" trqck logs.