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Navigation has a mind of its own?

8483761
6 months ago

I've had my 955 for a couple of years now, but at some point in the past year I've become aware that the navigation feature just has a mind of its own. I'm fairly sure it didn't used to have these problems, but can't go back in time to check old software versions. The two main issues I'm having are:

  • I often plan hiking routes that don't always follow paths. When I import them to the Garmin Explore app and save them as a course the GPS trace looks correct. However, when I go to navigate the course using my watch the route has been snapped to the nearest path, which is not what i want. I've checked that 'lock on road' is turned off in the watches map settings, and double checked that the course hasn't changed in Garmin Explore, but it keeps doing this. Even though I import the GPS files from another app I've also tried changing the 'routing options' in explore to 'freehand' before saving it, but doesn't seem to make a difference. I literally just want to follow the GPS coordinates that I planned in my route, but the watch wants to be clever about it - is there a way to stop this?
  • Sometimes the navigation on my watch takes a completely different path to the one I planned, even when my routes are following paths. I noticed this the other day, that coming up to a junction my watch was saying to go right, but I know the route I planned was going left. Again I double checked this on the course I'd saved in the Garmin Explore app and that was correct, but my watch made an executive decision to change my route! If it makes any difference I was following the route in reverse this time. Again, I just want my watch to follow the GPS points I put on the route, not make up its own idea of where it thinks I want to go.

Also, possibly related I've noticed that sometimes when tracking an activity if I look at the map my track is in the correct place, but my current location seems to be snapped to the nearest path even though I've double checked that lock on road is turned off. This can be quite confusing if I don't realise what's going on.

Both watch and app are fully up to date.

See an example below, where the route I've planned should take me left at a junction, but my watch is trying to make me take the right fork (and has snapped the route to a path too):

And an example from last year of the watch snapping my location to the nearest path incorrectly (it should be to the left next to the fence line where my track is shown correctly):

Basically was wondering if these are known issues, and if there's any way to prevent this behaviour?

  • +1 6 months ago

    At least your route changes sound like they are caused by having "follow map" instead of "for route" in your activity's routing settings.

  • 0 6 months ago in reply to Bitti

    Thanks, didn't even realise there were routing settings for individual activities, but checked and you're right, it was set to 'follow map'. I changed it to 'follow route' for hiking, then uploaded a test route and from looking at the navigation screen from home it looks like that's fixed the routing issue at least, does look like it's following my route rather than its own idea. Wonder if I'd inadvertently changed the setting at some point without realising what it did.

    I do wonder why this is even an option tbh - if I planned a route in the watch itself then sure have it snap to paths, but if I've planned a route in my phone or computer and sent a gpx file to the watch I'd have snapped it to the path at the planning stage if that's what I wanted! 

  • 0 6 months ago in reply to 8483761

    Regarding you "lock on roads" problem, there you have a system-wide setting for that in Map settings, but each individual activity has its own map settings, which can be "follow system settings" or something else. So you'll have to check that in addition to the system-wide "lock on road" setting.

    As to why "follow map" and "follow route" exist: "Follow route" shows your uploaded route precisely and uses that for navigation, even if it didn't follow existing roads and even if you strayed off the route. "Follow map" treats the uploaded route as a series of waypoints, between which the watch calculates a path using its own maps, and if you stray off the route, it recalculates a path to the next waypoint. This is useful if you want a route that just goes through a series of points, and treats anything between as dynamic paths.