How to add coordinates and see the spot on the map

Former Member over 6 years ago

Hello fellow Garminians,
I just got myself a nice Fenix 5X Plus and came over a doubt while trying to slowly learn the many details of this fabulous machinery. Hope someone might help me out here.
I have managed to play around coordinates, know where I can find my current ones and also know how to place my own when trying to navigate to that point. My question is:

Is there a way I can input coordinates somewhere and see the spot on the map without wishing to navigate there? I am planning a trekking trip and I am mannually adding spots on the map by moving there with the zoom and and move around commands. A friend of mine gave me some coordinates to visit. Can I visualitze them on the map as to add a point there to navigate there at a later point when I am closer?

Also, while I am at it, and this surely is pretty noobish from me, but sometimes when moving around on the map, this one completely disapears and stays so even when zooming in or zooming out. I can see coordinate lines on the screen but no map detail. At this point I have to leave the map function alltogether and start something else before I can see the map details again. If I do not do so it happens that I can well back out of everything but when going back in the map screen stays "empty"

Thank you so much for your help in advance! :-)

Top Replies

Crispin_Ellisdon over 6 years ago +1

I second the use of the Explore smartphone app as by far the quickest way of plotting new Waypoints and loading them on to the watch. The Explore app works even if your phone has no WiFi or cellular data…

All Replies

0 AllanOlesen67 over 6 years ago

For your first question, you should look into the Garmin Explore smartphone app. This app is an easy way of adding waypoints and viewing them on the map, and you can keep this waypoint collection syncronised with your watch.

For your second question, I think I have seen the same behaviour 1 or 2 times. But I can't remember if I just needed to wait a bit longer for the map to refresh, or I actually had to leave the map view and restart it.

0 Crispin_Ellisdon over 6 years ago

I second the use of the Explore smartphone app as by far the quickest way of plotting new Waypoints and loading them on to the watch. The Explore app works even if your phone has no WiFi or cellular data (as long as you pre-download the free OSM mapping for your country/region in advance). The Explore app does have some limited ability to directly enter coordinates, rather than select a point on the map, but that’s only if they are one of the following formats: lat/long, USNG/MGRS or UTM/UPS (you select which in the Units setting on the app).

If you only have points listed by coordinates in another grid system, such as OSGB, and can’t identify the points on the map in the Explore app, then your only option is to manually enter the points on the watch (this is inevitably slow though, due to the scroll wheel data entry method by buttons). I’ve found the quickest way to do this, without having to go outside, is to:

1. open the Navigate app
2. select ‘Use Map’
3. press and hold the Start button until a screen appears with ‘Go’ and ‘Save Location’ (and other nearby POIs below)
4. Select ‘Save Location’ and then scroll down to ‘Postion’ to edit the grid reference (assuming you have previously set the desired grid ref system in the watch system settings) and edit the ‘Name’, ‘Icon’ and ‘Elevation’ accordingly too.
5. Back out until you’re back at the map screen again and then repeat steps 3 and 4 to enter any other points you want.
6. You can check what you’ve just saved by backing out to the Navigation app’s main menu and selecting ‘Saved Locations’

Once you’ve entered the points (via Explore or directly to the watch), they will be in the list of Saved Locations when you next choose to navigate from inside an activity app.