"On Course" alert

Yes! This is my biggest complaint with a watch that I otherwise love. When cycling along a course created with Garmin Connect (following Google Maps roads), I get an on-course alert every 20 to 30 seconds (I've disabled the "off course" alert). This blocks the top two data fields, makes the watch vibrate all the time, and sometimes makes me miss waypoints if I'm "off course" when I pass it. I use courses all the time and this gets very annoying.

that would be great yes.... i made a snowshoe trip in the alps and it resulted in setting the watch into DND mode so that my wrist is not vibrating all the time

I have been trying to figure out what causes this alert so frequently, and while I still don’t know, it doesn’t appear that I am actually going off course at all. I made a course in Garmin Connect which I then followed and made note of the alerts over a particular stretch of road. I then compared the course with the activity in Garmin BaseCamp.

Over a 900 meter stretch taking just under 2 minutes (cycling), I counted 5 times where I got the "on course" alert. I compared my actual GPS activity to the course that I was using to see how much they deviated using the measure tool in BaseCamp. The vast majority of the time (including most of the times I got the alert), they were less than 5 meters apart. At the absolute worst point, they were about 8 meters apart. Most other parts of the course were within about 3 meters, but the alerts continued throughout the activity every 20 seconds or so.

I find it hard to believe that the alert is so sensitive that 3 meters (~10 feet) puts you off course. Simply cycling on one side of the road eats up most of this difference.

I have also tried to rule out the source of the course file by trying different things. I have created a course with Garmin Connect, a track with BaseCamp, a route with BaseCamp, as well as files generated from third party software. The performance in all cases is the same.

This all leads me to believe that there is a bug with how the Instinct handles the on course/off course alerts and that a configurable threshold may not help. The ability to disable the “off course” alert similar to what we already have for the “on course” alert would still be great since this feature is clearly not working as designed. While I’d love the feature to work correctly (I think it’s actually useful), it has been a huge source of frustration for me and I’d just be happy to disable it at this point.

+1

i tried to raise awareness for this in the past and totally agree. I use the Instinct when trail running and the constant on/off course alerts are the reason why I switched off alerts completely for the watch. With the trade off to loose all the useful navigation alerts too. But that on/off course alert flood is just too much. 

It’s actually funny. A while back when I still used the FR 935 Garmin followed my suggestion and offered an option to switch off “off course” alerts. But they did not do the same for “back on course” alerts which only solved half the problem. 

Both should be options in the alerts section of the activity I’d say. 

Yes, best solution for me too.

With "do not disturb" you lose most of the alerts but you still have the autolap alert (which is the only one I really want)

For those who are not aware, the latest beta addresses this problem (fixed in 4.53, but make sure to get 5.10 which fixes an annoying crash they introduced). I have tested it extensively and for me the problem is completely resolved.

It seems that it was never going off course and back on course when this was happening, but simply displaying repeated "on course" alerts if you stayed on course. I actually find it useful now to have both "off course" and "on course" alerts since they happen when I expect them to, and it's smart enough not to flip between them if you're on the edge of the course (i.e. you get the off course alert when you are a fairly large distance from the course, but don't get the on course alert until you are very close to the course again).

It would still be nice to have a configurable threshold (e.g. for canoeing, I'd want it much larger since I won't follow the path exactly). But that's just a "nice to have" feature and I'm quite happy that this is working now.

I tested new behavior and it is indeed much better as in not annoying anymore. But can you help me clarify two things regarding navigation?

1. When ON course then the number is black on white background and it shows distance until finish line. Correct?

2. When ON course, then navigation type BEARING or COURSE doesn't matter, because arrow points at the nearest waypoint. Correct?

2. When OFF course then user interface uses inverted colors and the number shows what? I suspect it might show distance until next waypoint if the navigation type is BEARING and distance to the nearest point on the track (straight line to a closes point on a track) if it is set to COURSE? But frankly I am not sure since when I was testing it then this number was changing wildly and manual says literarily nothing about it.

1. If by "the number" you mean total distance remaining, then yes. And you can configure for each activity whether you want black on white background or white on black background.

2. I would assume so, but I'm not sure.

3. I have never seen the colours invert when going off course. But the total distance remaining will be the distance to get on course plus the amount remaining on the course from that point. As for which point on the course it's using, I'm not really sure how that works and it may depend on navigation type.