Questions/Suggestions about Course Points and Turn alerts during Navigation

I have a couple questions about Course Points.

I was happy to see the Garmin Connect course editor finally get an update. The old one was terrible! The new one is "less terrible". It could certainly use some more improvements, but that's a topic for another time. :-) But the addition of Course Points is a welcome change - if I can get them to work.

1) Is it possible to edit/delete Course Points after they're added to a course? I can't find a way to do it.

2) I have tried a couple different courses, on a couple different running activities. I do not get any alerts on my watch when approaching a Course Point. My navigation mode is set to "use map". I'll probably try "follow course" this weekend and see if that makes a difference.

The problem with setting navigation to "follow course", is that I then don't get turn alerts. So...

3) Is it possible to get turn alerts when navigation is set to "follow course"?

"Use map" is not without its problems. I was on a 58-mile cycling course, and it frequently got confused about the remaining distance. I suspect it was trying to calculate a new, shorter route to the finish instead of using the course I chose. So I can't really trust the turn alerts if navigation is set to "use map" anyway! If I select a course, the device should try to stick to the course - I don't want it to calculate a different course to get me to the finish.

Here's how I'd like navigation to work (for me)...

- I load an activity.
- I go into settings>navigation and pick my course to follow
- My device follows the course exactly and does not try to recalculate it - ever
- I get turn alerts when approaching a turn
- I get an alert post-turn telling me what the next turn is, and how far away (like you'd get in a car nav device)
- I get an alert when approaching a course point
- I get an alert at the course point
- Navigating with "Trac Back" back to start should behave the same way (follow the course exactly, turn alerts, etc)

Optionally, there could be navigation options during the activity to force a recalculation of the route. (If a section of the route is not usable due to construction, etc.)

Of course, if you are using the device in "true navigation" mode, where you simply select a destination and have the route calculated for you on the device - then it probably should act the way it does now. But if you select a course - you almost certainly want to follow the course, and not deviate from it. If I pre-load a course for a race, I absolutely don't want to deviate from it, and I need to be able to trust the turn alerts and the remaining distance.

Maybe there are some hidden options I haven't stumbled onto yet. Is anyone else trying to use their device in this way?
  • Follow-up...

    I did another cycling activity today. I tried disabling all "avoidances" in the activity settings. It didn't matter. I still got re-routed halfway through the activity.

    After that, I switched the routing mode to "follow course" instead of "use map". I was surprised when I actually got turn notifications! So I think this is new behavior in 6.0. Now, the turn notifications aren't as useful or as informative as the notifications when the setting is "use map". The notification sound is just a quick beep instead of the "alarm". The vibration is a single very quick pulse instead of 2 forceful pulses. Finally, it did not display the street names when the alert popped up. Just a direction indicator. Definitely an improvement (over nothing), but would be nice if it behaved the same way when using "follow course" as it does when "use map" is selected.

    Alerts for course points were not displayed in either mode - so that seems to be broken. I wonder if it's a bug in the Garmin Connect course creator, or if it's a bug in the F5X...

  • Alerts for course points were not displayed in either mode - so that seems to be broken. I wonder if it's a bug in the Garmin Connect course creator, or if it's a bug in the F5X...



    Quoted and cut to clarify exactly what I'm responding to. By Alerts here, do you mean getting an advance warning before the alert for the turn itself? Or are you saying that you get no alert at all for a course point you've added manually in Connect? Either way, that's down to the watch. The file has only one event for each turn or course point, giving advance warnings is a function of the Fenix 3 and newer devices.
  • After years of living with Garmin's crappy/inadequate turn alerts for "follow course" mode, I finally made my own data field that not only shows the upcoming turn (and direction), but has more noticeable audio/vibration alerts.  It's a mere bandaid on the gaping wound of navigation support, but it's better than the built-in functionality.  Given that navigation is Garmin's "bread and butter", it's shocking to me that they seem to be content to have such a bad user experience here...  

    Nevertheless, here's the data field I made in case anyone else finds it useful:  apps.garmin.com/.../6e4dd285-731e-4200-b236-bf878bf91b12