During a course navigation waypoints never come up

My observation is that navigation to waypoints (course points?) on a course seems to be utterly broken. Basically, not only waypoints aren't shown on the map, but they also never come up in a notification. To be more exact that does work sometimes, but more often that doesn't work.

Here are my two most recent experiments.

1) I had 4 waypoints generated by Strava for starts and finishes of a couple segments that I had on Strava route. Strava course was successfully synced to Garmin Connect using the recently introduced synchronization of courses from Strava (hurrah!). The 4 generated waypoints do show up in Garmin Connect correctly 

I then synced that course to my Fenix 6X and went on the run. During the run I could see only the first of the 4 waypoints because it just happened to be at the end of a straight part of the route. I've never seen the other 3. Well to be exact, the 4th one did pop up a notification briefly but I couldn't see it coming. I didn't even see notifications for the 2nd and the 3rd waypoints.

My suspicion is that those waypoints got obscured by TBT navigation instructions that Garmin Connect inserts in the course as special waypoints, I think. The course was super zigzaggy and had probably at least of 100 of TBT instructions, many of which were close to those original waypoints I had on the course. 

My observations:

1) I couldn't see waypoints at the bottom of the map screen where upcoming turns are normally displayed.

2) I also couldn't see waypoints on the dedicated navigation screen that has "next waypoint name" and "distance to next" fields. Most of the time the name of the next waypoint was blank there and the distance to next showed distance to of one of the more than 100 turns. This is a known issue, but with so many completely useless TBT instructions on that trail, not having the information I actually wanted and seeing distances to turns every 100-300 feet (30-100 m) seemed especially broken.

OK, back home I made another experiment - a very short course near my home with just a few turns and two waypoints - I did that course entirely in Garmin Connect.

Then I went on a slow walk on that course, carefully looking at the watch. The result of that was:

1) Both waypoints never showed neither on the map, nor as notification popups, nor on the dedicated navigation screen where I have upcoming waypoint name and distance to next waypoint.

2) To be more exact, the name of the first waypoint did show in the "next waypoint name" field, but only before I reached the course start point. Once I started going on the course, the name of next waypoint was cleared and never updated with any of the two waypoints.

One thing that I've noticed is that both of these waypoints are very close to turns. Perhaps the watch has some logic that prevents too many TBT notification to show one after another if they are too close to each other. My suspicion is that it treats user defined waypoints the same way as TBT waypoints, so perhaps having turns close to waypoints prevents waypoints from ever showing up.

TO WHOEVER AT GARMIN THAT MIGHT READ THIS:

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An easy short term solution would be to add an option somewhere in Garmin Connect on a course page to let user choose whether TBT waypoints should be inserted. In my opinion, on many trail runs TBT instructions are useless and even distracting. I don't need a turn notification for every natural bend of the trail. At the same point it seems to sometimes miss TBT instructions where they are actually needed. So overall having TBT is a useless feature for trail running. I'd rather have my own waypoints.

A better solution would be for the watch to distinguish user defined waypoints from TBT waypoints. The watch should still show next real waypoint on the map (or perhaps all waypoints) even if there are turns in between. "Distance to next" field and "Next waypoint" field should reflect ONLY user defined waypoints. The way these fields work now is absolutely broken.

  • There seem to be two different kinds of waypoints. The waypoints that give notifications and are displayed in the waypoint data fields (e g. 'Next Waypoint') can be added via Garmin Connect (or Locus Map, ot PlotARoute). Turn promts are also of this kind. 

    Then there are the waypoints that e.g. Garmin Explore  adds. These are displayed on the map, but do not give notifications and are not displayed in waypoint data fields. 

    So in my opinion, the waypoint topic is still a confusing mess. If I want to have waypoints, I am using Locus Map on Android to create the course. It works really well and you can send the course directly to the watch via the companion CIQ app. Also works with the free version btw.

  • A waypoint is a location (coordinates & altitude) with an associate icon and you can put it anywhere.

    They not necessarily need to be on the course. It can be a Summit right on the side of your track/route/course or simply path that you wanna have a reference.

    The icons show up on map screen at any zoom level which is really handful to have a general view.

    At the other hand a course_point necessarily  BELONGS to a course. They show in the up head.

    In fact it’s really one of the own course’s course_points with a special definition like it’s icon (ID) including turns like left, right, etc… Thing is when created courses snapped to a map some like Garmin Connect tends to create their own turns based on the knots and/or relevant directions.

    Nonetheless you can freely create courses and course_points not snapped to any map.

    My wish is that course_points and their icons would show up on map at any level of zoom the same way waypoints do and that Basecamp, Garmin Connect and Garmin Explore could handle both and not one or another.

  • Thanks for the info , that clarifies it a little bit. It's weird that Garmin calls both 'waypoints', although they behave completely different. 

    So the data field 'next waypoint' actually shows the next course point and not the next waypoint. And in Garmin Explore, when I set an icon and name for a point on the course it is still not a course point but a waypoint, which does not show up under 'waypoints' in my collection because it is part of the course (maybe a bug?).

    What a mess...

  • My wish is that course_points and their icons would show up on map at any level of zoom the same way waypoints do and that Basecamp, Garmin Connect and Garmin Explore could handle both and not one or another.

    +1

  • It is a real pity that most users of Gamin watches (with map navigation) use third-party software, tools and websites to get the most out of exactly this special GARMIN's navigation features.

  • 100% agree. Garmin's Software landscape is just ridiculous for certain use cases, especially with route planning and maps. They really need to rework their whole software concept in my opinion. It is just too difficult for average users to need multiple different apps to use the the functionality of their watch. And for certain functionality, they do not even provide ANY official way of using it (as discussed in this thread).

    Garmin Connect might be OK for runners, but for everything 'more outdoor' (hiking, trail running, mountain biking) it is more or less useless. Garmin Explore is improving, but still not really usable. 

  • which does not show up under 'waypoints' in my collection because it is part of the course (maybe a bug?)

    Isn't hard to believe how lousy it is? Unfortunately it's not a bug but the whole Garmin implementation of Garmin Explore WEB as well APP...

    Library content:

    1) Waypoints : an element base on an icon, a description, a coordinate and optionally altitude. Does not "belong" to a course. Even if you create a waypoint on top of a track it does not belong to it. Show on map screen at any level of zoom.   

    2) Tracks: formed by trackpoints

    3) Route: formed by "map knots" and will be recalculate every time it loaded based on the current device/installed map. In fact if a route was created based on a given map and will be running based on different map things very strange can happen and some times if is impossible to find an given knot the device will not be able to recalculate the route. 

    4) Activities: no need for comments

    5) Courses: formed by course_points.

    6) ? note that Garmin not even list the category "Course_Points" .... it is unbelievable ... Course_points are almost like waypoints but they "belong" to the course.

    Additionally to the waypoints "fields" they have distance like in a roadbook. 

    They can trigger warnings like turns etc...

    Unfortunately course_points Icons do not show on map screen for a general view but only at the moment of his turn on the journey but worth to mention that course_points "description" do apear on map screen depending of zoom level.

    Some other bazaars: Explore Web  does not even allow for course and course_points management. You have to use the APP.

    In other words : God save Garmin's outdoors in the wild users. :-) 

    Regards,

  • All the mess comes from the fact that Garmin has attempted to merge two completely different navigation paradigms in one device:

    1) Route navigation that was traditionally used on handheld devices where the device is dynamically routing through a set of waypoints. I'd say this is more useful for activities like hiking or backpacking where there a few key destinations that the route must go through and the exact pass isn't as important. This includes routing to a single destination e.g. navigation to a POI or returning to a start of activity.

    2) Course navigation that is much more common when used with sport activities e. g. cycling, running, trail running, MTB. I think it is also more commonly used for hiking these days because GPX files are commonly shared. 

    In Garmin's case the route navigation is much better implemented and the course navigation is treated an an afterthought despite the course navigation being used by default by a vast majority of users. That is probably a result of Fenix belonging to the Outdoor Recreation part of Garmin which also owns handheld navigation devices.

  • Even though:
    If Garmin Connect can handle course_points why not Explore

    If Garmin Explore APP can handle course_points why not Explore WEB

    Why Explore Web keep messing with your path showing hundreds of triangles on your tracks and direct lines connecting each course_points of your courses while Explore App doesn't?

    Finally, why descontinue Basecamp before having a good replacement ? i.g. I can only sync waypoints to my GPS keeping the same icons if I send them directly from Basecamp. Explore works too but takes an eternity....

    The fact is the market is so bad that they can keep doing this for years and still sell... 

  • The fact is the market is so bad that they can keep doing this for years and still sell... 

    Because 90% of Fenix users use it as a glorified Fitbit. Very few users care about advanced navigation features. Most users care only about the watchface and the strap, and whether it can count steps and floors correctly, and whether it tracks sleep correctly.