Forerunner 965 navigation during running not clear

Autozoom should help a bit. But that doesn’t work (on my watch)

I’ve used breadcrumb navigation for over 10 years. It worked pretty well. Sometimes it was difficult to see, but I always reached my destination.

Now I have maps, and it is still hard (and sometimes even harder) to see. For me, maps don’t add that much.

I have an FR955 which I think offers a similar experience to 965 but perhaps on a less crisp screen.

I agree with the above. I also used breadcrumb navigation for approx. 4 years on an FR645 and it served me well - and counter intuitively despite being breadcrumb only, somehow made it slightly easier to quickly glance and check I'm on track vs having veered off course. The clutter of map detail on the 955 in some cases makes it harder to quickly see the course I am trying to follow.

There are a few specific issues which is making it harder to use this feature on a 955/965.

i) The "Lock on roads" bug: https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/running-multisport/f/forerunner-965/361183/18-20-lock-on-roads-navigation-bug-still-present is the worst navigation issue for me and leads to much confusion especially as trails intersect. Sometimes the watch locks on a trail I'm not even following and continues to think I'm on that trail for some distance. This is despite the lock feature being supposedly disabled. (The 645 didn't have maps so just plotted where it thought I was relative to the course based on GPS rather than attempting to lock on any map feature).

ii) I use Komoot to create my courses. There is this issue: https://forums.garmin.com/apps-software/mobile-apps-web/f/garmin-connect-web/362792/precision-on-courses-imported-from-komoot This means there are not enough course points so if a course is following a curved road or track the course appears to cut corners when viewed on the watch. This sometime leads to confusion (did I miss a path off the road?). Fortunately there are workarounds to this. Courses created using Garmin connect work fine with good precision. And courses downloaded from komoot (GPX format) and then uploaded into connect (i.e. not using the direct integration feature) also have better precision.

iii) The off-course detection seems slower to kick in on the 955 vs my old 645. I seem to need to go a long way off track before I get an alert.

iv) The final bleep to say "Turn now" often occurs just slightly after I've already taken the turn. It's subtle but it would be good if it happened a second or two earlier. To be fair I think the 645 also did this.

I only bought the 955 for the maps/navigation feature. So far it's not really lived up to what I had hoped. However fixing bug i) above would massively improve usability. I hope we don't have to wait another 3 months until the end of the next beta cycle for this...

Agree with all of this. Bought for the same usage but it's a mess, issue after issue, the more I use it the more it fails and irritates me. I wish it was bug testing the the real world use before release

There’s a thread in the Edge forums covering how to make the route line brighter, which will also work on the Forerunner. You may have more luck doing this and then following the breadcrumb line on the map instead of using turn-by-turn. This also addresses the problem of not getting off course alerts when following a route with “Use Map” set. 

I'd love to see this thread too!  Dors turn-by-turn navigation work for anyone when creating a route to a point on the watch? Mine never has, it just stays on the first next turn and doesn't update unless I swipe it to the next and back. Useless.