Just took my 645M on its first run and ended up pretty disappointed. I’m hoping to clear up a few questions so I can keep the watch...
tl;dr:
1. How can I get roads/landmarks on my running map?
2. What’s the best way to sync running routes to my watch?
I synced a route from Strava, which appeared to work fine yesterday when I tested starting the activity. My first disappointment was wasting a bunch of time troubleshooting “error 2050” that prevented the Strava watch app from working at all. A quick search revealed this is a common problem, but luckily the course was already imported, so I just used the Run app directly instead of messing with Strava.
Once I was underway I realized the map only shows my route, without any type of map overlay to show roads, trails, or landmarks. This was very disappointing and ended up adding some extra distance to my run (tried a new route, got confused at one intersection and had to double back). In retrospect, I should have tested out all these features with a short walk, so I could focus on the watch, but oh well.
I understand I probably need to upload some map images to get the overlay I expected, but I’ve been searching for an hour and have yet to find any guidance on how to accomplish this. The closest thing I found is this page that claims you can add a map but doesn’t explain where the image(s) would come from:
https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/forerunner645/EN-US/GUID-A877CC78-A0E1-4836-84E2-6A7366C8F705.html
I followed those instructions but obviously there’s no map layers available on my watch. I’m familiar with adding image layers to GPS mobile apps and have no issue taking the time to add them to the watch if I could just figure out how to do it, but it seems to be completely undocumented. Am I missing something obvious, or do I need to upgrade to a higher end watch with built in topo maps like the 945?
On a related note, does syncing routes from Strava usually work, and I just had bad luck today? Is exporting gpx from Strava and importing to the watch more reliable? In tried re-creating my route in Garmin Connect but it lacks a bunch of Strava’s features and was generally unwieldy, so that doesn’t seem like a viable solution.
Thanks for reading my rant if you made it this far. I really want to like this watch and get a solid year or two out of it, so thank you in advance for any assistance!
