(Significant!) Routing differences in F5+ vs Garmin Connect navigation

Former Member
Former Member
Morning/afternoon/evening all,
I'm hoping someone might be able to explain this fairly easily, but i'm confused at the moment.
* Yesterday i wanted to run to a certain location on the other side of London. I thought it easier to create the route on GC, save it and export it to my F5+ so i was ready to go. I.e. let the computer do the heavy work and use the watch for live turn/navigation info.
* I tried using both the 'popularity routing' and 'follow roads' and both courses were fairly similar (popularity was 7.0mi, follow roads was 6.9mi).
* Both methods followed a fairly major cross-city road for most of the mileage and both were almost identical to the (presumably THE most direct) route on Garmin maps (7.0mi, interestingly)
* when i got back home and before going inside, just to compare, i tried using the F5+ to navigate from and to the same location, again with 'popularity routing' enabled... and it took a completely different route of over 9mi. Almost entirely off the major roads, and following small back streets pretty much all the way. A far nicer route (i think) but many (many) more turns, and c.1/3rd longer! Great if time/mileage were on your agenda, but awful if you just wanted to get somewhere quickly.
My questions:
* why the disparity? is popularity routing not working correctly on GC? it feels odd that they're so close to 'follow roads' on GC.
* ideally i'd be able to easily choose between long/scenic (F5+) and efficient/direct/Google-equivalent (GC) routing, actually on GC or on the F5+ itself...but given GPS is really only available outside, and outside GC is on the phone that isn't with you... so this feels tricky. Can i view the F5+ 'navigation results' on GC (indoors) ? And then select what route i'm taking rather than doing it while waiting for a GPS signal in the freezing cold outside, while trying to remember how different the route is from the GC course?
Many thanks for your thoughts.
John