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maps / navigation issues (was: Did anyone think about changing to a smartwatch à la Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy?)

JanH
over 4 years ago

Being frustrated with how much my Garmin Fenix 5 Plus cost and how badly many functions are integrated, I was looking around what else there is. As I would like to have maps (one of the main reasons, I bought the F5+, and it just doesn't work reliably), I guess it would need to be sth like the Apple Watch (horrible design IMHO) or the Samsung Galaxy Watch (looks pretty nice IMHO).

I think one major drawback would be battery life, but ok. I think that there should be a way of getting offline maps on the watches as well, or at least in combination with the smartphone, important for me would be though that it's really offline. What I would loose as well would be training status. It would be a pitty as I like the green bar thingy. But I think strava offers something similar (not for free, but I am fine to pay, I just want sth that conveniently works).

Seeing how much a Galaxy watch cost (about 1/3 of what I payed for my F5+), it seems a good alternative.

Any experiences, opinions?

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to AJRykala

    I just did a test with the maps from http://garmin.opentopomap.org/#download. I set up a course and started navigation. First, all was fine, the map seems to load fast(er) as well. But then, this happened:

    Also after some minutes, it was still like this... any idea?

    During navigation, the watch shows the POIs (shops) as much smaller icons, which is nice ;-).

    Addition: I just tried to do the course again and the watch seems to have massive issues, when I zoom in (not too much, but maybe to have 100-200m on the screen. It didn't show the little location arrow anymore and seemed blocked. I could still change the zoom/move mode, but the screen wouldn't render. Then, after 2min, the screen was updated again. After that, changing again the zoom/position resulted in non-immediate rendering again. After an additional 2min, in seems ok, I can more or less zoom/position and within a few seconds the screen is updated to the new area.

    Is it possible that the watch is just massively underpowered for navigation? One indicator would be that Navigating also drains the battery much faster than just using GPS. To me it seems either this or that the software is so badly written that it get's in some loops where it shouldn't be that cost CPU power.

    To be honest, I don't care too much why or what, I just would like a working device. :-/

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to JanH

    Bloody hell Jan. I’d say you have a faulty device. I regularly use maps, navigation and routes and haven’t ever seen that.  I did a 40 mile ultra with route following and maps and yes there is a little extra battery drain but I’d say that could be a sign of an issue. Have you done a full factory reset in case of missing files? TrueUp will copy most of your stats back. I just did 21K today with maps (no route admittedly)

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to AJRykala

    I can definitely understand your frustration mate

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to AJRykala

    Try installing the 8.77 beta perhaps see if it rewrites anything missing? Disclaimer I’m in the beta and so far it’s behaving ok 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to AJRykala

    One last question. Did you generate the route on the watch or via a third party?

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I would send an email off with pictures to product support.....then phone them...and go from there.  (I do it often with good results ) Also have you tried different activities.....

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Sam201176

    Yep - Like Sam says. Tweet the images to them as well. Be a bit tenacious ;-) It works for me ;)

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to AJRykala

    I generated the route/course via Garmin Connect, then send via the connect Android app.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Sam201176

    I was writing to them already and they said I could send them the watch. On my costs though which I find unacceptable... told me that I am maybe confusing guaranty and warranty. I am not a law expert, but it's not the shop's fault that the watch is not doing what it should.

    Maybe I'll give it a try to call them.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to AJRykala

    I was pretty tenacious on another issue: a faulty GPS track that had lap markers at the exact correct positions on the map, but the track didn't go through the lap markers. To me, this might have been a combination of general GPS issues plus a bug in their track recording. But the service was not willing or able to help / look into that. They didn't even try to understand the issue. After many e-mails back and forth they finally told me they will only look into that if it happens again. WTF.

    As illustration, here a screenshot of the faulty track recording, that I sent to the support (they didn't even bother to give a possible explanation how this could have happened):

    So yeah... I'm not too optimistic... regarding the willingnes/capabilities of the Garmin support...