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FR 945 Unable to calculate route

7209698
over 4 years ago

I would like to be able to use my FR 945 to navigate through cities I don't know very well, by bike or walking (for shopping/sight-seeing). In the past I used a little app called Maps Nav to do that, which I liked a lot, but that doesn't work anymore since I switched from Android to iPhone. 

So I installed sendpoints to send locations where I want to go from my phone to my watch. But when I try to have my watch calculate a route to a saved location, it fails around 90% of the time. It gets stuck calculating the route, and after ten minutes it goes into energy saving mode. This is also true for very short and straightforward routes (f.i. a route over 2 km, with a total of 5 turns). 

I tried different maps: the Garmin TopoActive Maps for Europe and since recently the OpenBikeMap for BeNeLux (routing set to biking or walking). Sometimes the watch is not able to calculate a very short & simple route, but when I subsequently try a location much further away (15 km or even 45 km in stead of 3 km), it succeeds in calculating a route within a few minutes or less. 

I am in the process of sending my watch back to Garmin to have it repaired, but I wonder if that will change anything. Any thoughts, tips, user experiences would be highly appreciated!

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I've never used my FR 945 for this but always use (iphone) RunGo app for this  (http://www.rungoapp.com/).  Works like a charm!.  

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to RunOttoVanDerLende

    Thanks, looks like a very nice app, but this is not where I am looking for right now. I don't want to create or download an entire route through a certain city/region before I go, but when I am there I want to be able to have my watch navigate me quickly to any address I feel like going to. So I am looking for Google Maps-functionality, but on my watch in stead of phone. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 7209698

    The 945 doesn't have the ability, that I am aware of, for you to enter any address and just go there.

    The closest thing you will find is if you go for example Bike> Menu > Nav > Coordinates, you can manually enter the Lat and Long of where you want to go and it will calculate a route.

    Some of the things it can do under navigation are points of interest, around me, and round course. With points of interest, you can pick different subjects of interest like food and drinks, lodging, attractions, etc. and it will pull up places in the area that meet the subject you picked. If you have a certain place in mind you can select any of those topics and it has a search feature where you can search for places of interest and it will see if it has that location. For example, if you are looking for the health department in your city, you can go under that search feature and type in "Health" and it will pull up buildings with health in the name.

    With the around me feature, you can select a quarter section of the map in any direction and it will give you places you can route to in the direction. You can also select round course where you can pick the mileage you want to go and it will calculate a round trip route that gets you your distance and still brings you back to start.

    Edit: Also since you are in the city, it would also help to make sure you have you GPS set to something like GPS/GLONASS or GALILEO rather than just GPS

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Parker

    Hi Parker, thank you for replying and thinking with me!

    I am aware that you can not enter an address directly into the 945 (although there are apps that allow that), that's why I use the Sendpoints-app as I tried to explain in my first post. This app allows me to send the coordinates of an address or place (restaurant, museum) to my watch, after which I can save it under Saved Locations.

    The problem I have is with the apparent inability of the 945 to calculate a route, even when it is relatively short & simple. Same happens when I try to use the map-function in order to navigate to a place nearby (select a place with in the crosshair of the map), or try to navigate to the start of a course nearby... 9 out of 10 times watch just keeps calculating on end (it has no problems to calculate three different routes of a certain distance around a certain location by the way).

    GPS is always set to GPS/GLONASS.

  • +1 over 4 years ago in reply to 7209698

    Hmm, I thought it may be due to the fact that you were in the city and the GPS just may be having trouble connecting. I tried to test this by sitting in my room near a window and not waiting to acquire a GPS signal. I opened up running and went straight to Nav. where I clicked on a POI about .5 miles away. Right when the GPS bar was about to turn green my watch calculated the route, which took about a minute.

    I see where you said you tried the topo maps, and it may also help to reinstall the "Coverage map for Europe, Middle East, and Africa" I'm not sure if this will replace your topo, or add on to it, but it couldn't hurt. I would do this through Garmin Express as well as make sure you are up to date on GPS and Software. You sent your watch back to Garmin for repair so hopefully, when you get it back it'll be working fine then. If not, maybe someone else has some advice or you could reach out to Garmin directly for some tips.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Parker

    I don't think GPS has got anything to do with my watch's inability to calculate a route.When GPS signal is low, and my position on the map is inaccurate, worst thing that can happen is that the watch calculates a route departing from a wrong starting point. There is always a pointer (blue arrow) of the position my watch thinks I am (often some 50 meters or so off regrettably), and the watch is going to calculate the route from there. 

    As for the maps, I don't think the problem lies in them either. My watch didn't come with the "Coverage" map you mention, but with the TopoActive maps for Europe and the "Worldwide DEM Basemaps" (which is useless for cycling/walking/running because it only contains 'very' main routes) all of witch I updated through Garmin Express some time ago. I am also quite confident in the quality of the OpenBikeMap, which is a routable map (for cycling/walking) with a solid reputation.

    By the way, when you (re)install a map, you don't replace other maps ("topo"), you just add one more map to your library. You can at any time, or for any particular activity select which map you want to "turn on", or even more than one in which case they overlay (https://youtu.be/Y_n6LR4HJvQ). To keep things simple, I just use one map at the time for the moment.

    I haven't sent my watch yet to Garmin because (A) they haven't sent me the instructions yet and (B) I am not sure if it would change anything. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Parker

    I was wrong in my previous post. Problem was indeed caused by bad GPS signal as you suggested. I was misled by the blue arrow-shaped pointer indicating my position (more or less). I had noticed the flashing question mark above the pointer, indicating that the watch was unsure about my exact location, but I assumed it would calculate the route from there anyhow, and re-calculate when GPS reconnects, because (a) that would make sense and (b) that is what it says in the bottom of the screen: "Calculating". 

    Note to Garmin: I feel old and silly, but I also think there is room for improvement at least in the feedback we get from the FR 945: if it won't calculate a route when there is no GPS, don't let it say it is calculating, rather that it is waiting for GPS (blinking exclamation mark)!l