Explorer route just a primitive polygon

Why does a 6 year old iPhone have accurate mapping capabilities, yet my Explorer plus gave me a total of 6 data points on a half-mile loop that I walked? My path is just a polygon of six straight line segments? Considering the trip was one hour in duration and logging was set to 10 seconds I would have expected a fluid line that matched my path.

First image is the product of Garmin "technology". The second image is a variety of paths recorded on an iPhone and closely match the trails I hiked.

Did I just waste $500 or is there some setting that I am failing to adjust?

0 700i Wanderer over 3 years ago

Hi,

I have a Montana 700i and there are various settings for activity, track and then what gets sent as positions over inReach. The granularity depends on what intervals are set.

Perhaps have a look at this page to see if it's useful:

https://support.garmin.com/en-GB/?faq=t2fjzeZ3llA77PEz46Wqx8

Sorry, I can't be more helpful than that.

Chris.

0 twolpert over 3 years ago

Unless and until you sync the "logged points" with the web site, ALL you have is the "sent points" which are sent via the Iridium satellite network in more or less real time. What you are seeing is almost certainly just the "sent points". If you walked for about an hour, the number of visible points would be about right for a 10-minute tracking interval (interval between sent points).

If you sync the device (either via the Earthmate app) or via a wired sync (via the desktop Sync program and a USB connection between device and PC), you will get a much better track. On that reflects the 10-second logging interval. Because of the 10-second interval, even that may not be quite as precise as the phone track. But it will be a LOT better than the polygon made up only of "sent" points.

In my experience, a wired sync is more reliable than the Earthmate sync. But it is kind of a pain.

You MIGHT also have to pay some attention to collections. The fact that they do not explicitly appear on the legacy device OR in the Earthmate app dies not mean that it does not enter into visibility on the web site. Make sure the device has a default collection which is visible.