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Garmin Support thinks Edge users should not be using BaseCamp at all...

Former Member over 6 years ago

Hello

I am a bit old school on GPS. I use waypoints. I like them. They show up on the Garmin Edge Maps, always, as a visual point of reference.

Sometimes it's nice to be able to see where you are in relationship to known points of reference. Particularly when recovering from either a user oops, or a garmin oops (yes they do crash).

Recently I had a problem where trying to transfer waypoints from BaseCamp to Garmin Edge bricked my 1030. Users on the forum advised me how to recover the unit, and the working method of exporting waypoints to a GPX file, and then manually copying them over to the "New Files" section of the edge.

Here is the response from Garmin regarding the issue...

Obviously I have a difference of opinion with Garmin, and perhaps you do too. It would be nice to let Garmin know they are upsetting dedicated users. Below is the response from Garmin.
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Hello Ted,

BaseCamp was designed for Outdoor devices, not Edges.

Garmin Connect can do courses and in Edges we refer to it as marking your location. The way Edges are designed to work is you put waypoints in the course you create before hand but not the way outdoor devices work.

The Etrex series or GPS Map series might be more along the lines of what you're thinking of here.

Thank you for choosing Garmin,

Ellie

Product Support

Garmin International

0 valerio.zamboni over 6 years ago

i fully support what you are saying but i also realized during all these years that speaking with Garmin about these things is wasted time. they don't listen and if they do it takes years ...:::((((

0 Martin868 over 6 years ago

What Garmin is telling you should not be shocking. BaseCamp is their prior-to-internet-services offering and coincide with handheld outdoor GPS devices. Then the Edge line came along as the web services were being deployed and that is what it works best with. Now they maintained some compatibility but that should not mean the workflow with Basecamp is as good. The Edge was built around web services first, and more recently Mobile (Garmin Connect Mobile). All investments are being made in mobile and web now a days, not computer programs (such as Basecamp).

That being said you can perfectly take Waypoints in Basecamp and copy them to the Edge. Plug the Edge to the computer, select the waypoints and do send-to-device to transfer tem. They will be there as "Saved Locations" on the edge. I have done it, it works. You can have the Edge calculate a route to them, but that is not how navigation is best done ont the Edge, it is rather using Routes that you create on the Course creator. And in the routes you can add "Course Points", the little flag. The Edge understanding the roads and having a route to follow it will tel you the real distance to each of the Course Points on your course, along with an estimated time. This is much more useful and relevant than what Waypoints can provide.

So I suggest you take the time to create a route with Course Points and run that on the Edge. Transfer can be done wirelessly. Then navigate that route, and you will see a page with all the course points (you must navigate a course to see that page), each with remaining distance and estimated time.

If you copy Waypoints as Locations on the Edge, there is on option to have them shown on the map. They will be there. But I never found a use for that honestly.

0 dpawlyk over 6 years ago

When the Edge line came along as the web services were being deployed and that is what it works best with.

One of the big advantages of the Garmin devices (including the Edges) is that they work very-well with things that are not web services.

If you copy Waypoints as Locations on the Edge, there is on option to have them shown on the map. They will be there. But I never found a use for that honestly.

That you "never found a use" for them isn't useful to anybody.

Things I've used locations for:

* to display things I want to be sure to see (on trips).
* showing the places the group is staying (that way, they can navigate to the place if they get lost).
* my bicycle club's start locations and standard stops. That way, riders can use these to navigate if they happen to get lost.

0 dpawlyk over 6 years ago

Obviously I have a difference of opinion with Garmin, and perhaps you do too. It would be nice to let Garmin know they are upsetting dedicated users. Below is the response from Garmin.

* You probably shouldn't expect that "product support" people you talk to will know that much.

* You probably shouldn't expect non-BaseCamp support to know much about BaseCamp.

* Garmin has (apparently) stopped real support for BaseCamp. So, you shouldn't be too surprised support people don't say things that encourage its continued use.

* Don't expect Garmin to add support for newer devices (like the 1030) to BaseCamp. This means you might need to use the "file transfer" approach for waypoints and tracks.

* BaseCamp should still be useful for many years (at least, until Microsoft ceases support for 32 bit apps). There's a 64 bit version of BaseCamp for Macintosh.

0 Former Member over 6 years ago

What version of Basecamp do you have? I've heard the recent 'update' to it caused a load of issues (even tho I did run it and haven't had issues so far). There's a thread on it in the software part of the forums.
If the issues are caused by the upgrade I can see if I have an old version laying around.
I'm oldschool but I do like using Basecamp because I can check out all the custom maps I've put on the device.

0 dpawlyk over 6 years ago

The following site archives all sorts of Garmin software.

http://www.gawisp.com/perry/agree.html