Garmin 810 ignores a pre planned route.

Legobrickman

Ok, So bought a sparkly new Garmin edge 810.
I planned a route in the Garmin connect site and uploaded it to the unit.
Started riding said route and everything was fine untill about 25 miles out when instead of following the clearly marked line of the route on the screen it tried to direct me onto the A45 instead of going straight on over the roundabout as the route was planned for.
The settings say it is set to avoid major roads though.
Anyone else had this happen or know what might have caused it.

wiganwarriors

Hi Legobrickman. For what it's worth I use Ridewithgps. Try zooming in on the course when your plotting the route, you will be amazed how many glitches you fail to notice. At Staggered junctions the device has a tendency to get confused just one of foibles the Garmin appears to possess. I use the 800 similar device and functions to the 810 , once you learn the devices little quirks its a great mapping and training device. just be patient.

Enjoy!!!!

drlodge

Garmin software is rubbish. I use bikeroutetoaster to create routes and download to my Edge 800, and haven't had any routing problems.

slowbike

You might want to take course recalculation off too ...

NewTTer

drlodge wrote:

Garmin software is rubbish. I use bikeroutetoaster to create routes and download to my Edge 800, and haven't had any routing problems.

Never had any issues with Garmin software, must be user error. Been using Garmins and the associated software for years

drlodge

Its got nothing to do with user error - its simply not very easy to use (not intuitive) compared to other software. If there was nothing "wrong" with it, I would be using it.

slowbike

There is nothing "wrong" with it ... it is easy enough to use - but isn't as featured as other mapping websites mentioned above.

drlodge

Slowbike wrote:

There is nothing "wrong" with it ... it is easy enough to use - but isn't as featured as other mapping websites mentioned above.

Not as featured eh - may be that's what's wrong with it.

wiganwarriors

NewTTer are you downloading using Tcx or Gpx. Tcx is supposedly the file of choice, however I am having issues with turn by turn so started using Gpx format and that appears to have resolved the problem.

NewTTer

drlodge wrote:

Slowbike wrote:

There is nothing "wrong" with it ... it is easy enough to use - but isn't as featured as other mapping websites mentioned above.

Not as featured eh - may be that's what's wrong with it.

So what are you unable to make it do that yoy need it to do? I have never fiubd it wanting ir indeed difficult to use, and if imitation be the best form if flattery, that is all the other offerings are, Garmin developed there software for use with their devices before these other offerings existed.

wiganwarriors

I fully understand the software was designed for Garmin. My question was not very clear I was merely wandering why turn by turn works using Gpx but not Tcx.

IanMSpencer

There are numerous postings around the Internet about how to suppress the Garmin 800 series into being helpful.

There are a number of issues, including using different mapping making the Garmin make different decisions if it is allowed to.

By setting up a course from a track rather than a route, you have a course which has thousands of points so the Garmin calculation of a route is effectively switched off. If you make a route from BaseCamp, it may only have a small number of points and you rely on the BaseCamp and Garmin software re-calculating the route and the result can be different. The algorithms to do this may well be different, and are influenced by different settings in both BaseCamp and the 810 software.

If I use BaseCamp to create a course (and aside from certain foibles like it being impossible to add points to the end of an existing route so you workaround by joining routes or moving the last point) then I use the convert route to track option. The route is easy to edit with as few points as possible using the auto-routing to quickly set up an exact course then the conversion gives me a source for a GPX file that is very detailed.

When the track is exported to the Garmin (either by send to which works for the Garmin but there is a bug if you try and send it to the SD card; or by export and manually placing the GPX file in the NewFiles folder) it then has the exact route and the calculation options on the Garmin appear to make no difference.

The fundamental problem with the 800 series is that the Garmin designer clearly had a fixed idea of what the 800 was for (basically a fitness tool for repetitive training runs and races over fixed courses) and they haven't given enough thought to how it should work as a touring device which is, I suspect, their main market. Other Garmin's work in a very different way yet still have their own limitations (e.g. my wife has a Colarado 300 which is great for mapping and routes but poor for gathering data - it doesn't have a timer you can pause for example, the Legend Hcx I have for walking is good for that but is limited to 50 points on a route - it is old!).

Anyway, if you want a reliable course, make sure what you are putting in is a detailed track with thousands of points, not a set of waymarks that allows the Garmin to calculate its own route in between them.

stueys

Slowbike wrote:

You might want to take course recalculation off too ...

This. They may as well label that setting as 'make courses completely useless'....

freezing77

"Anyway, if you want a reliable course, make sure what you are putting in is a detailed track with thousands of points, not a set of waymarks that allows the Garmin to calculate its own route in between them."

+1

Doing this has always resulted in my etrex and 800 following the course that I want rather than the one they have concocted.

Legobrickman

Well.....
I turned off the "Avoid unpaved roads" and "Avoid narrow trails" as it was the Brampton valley way between Northampton and Market Harborough we wanted to use.
Also shut off the Auto re-calculation and turned off the base mape so that it was only working on the map on the card....And low and behold it worked without a problem.
Could the map route conflict with the internal settings?
I.e. Be cause the route took in the old railway track which is narrow and not paved the setting over rode it and tried to re route?

slowbike

I'd wager it was Auto-recalc that's the key bit here - doesn't matter what you want to ride/avoid - if you're not relying on the GPS to do the calc then it will only show a pre-programmed route.

I can't see the benefit of recalculation as it will always find the shortest way to the FINISH of the programmed route and not the quickest way back to the course itself.

If you want to find the shortest way to the finish then you can just use the map and hit GOTO ... otherwise I'd want it to follow the course I've put in.

But then I don't blindly follow Sat Nav instructions either....

Legobrickman

Well either way i got it to work.
Still think i'm missing something though......
If i've mapped the route, What the hell has it got to calculate? This was actually trying to take me off of the course i'd planned.
Still, It works now.

poppit

They take a bit of playing around with to get right. The recalc was set on mine and as soon as it thought you were off your mapped course it would plot a new route straight to the finish even though your mapped one was still shown. You'd then have to re-load your course for it re-set itself.

IanMSpencer

I'm extremely suspicious that the 800 does not have any concept of waymarks within routes so has no intermediate points to work with.

On the old eTrex Legend, it needed to go from one point to another, so recalculate would recalculate to the next waymark. Essentially as you pass a waymark, it ticks it off and then goes on to consider the next waymark. If you wander far enough off track it will recalculate to that point, it does not try and skip points to "optimise" the route.

I've now concluded that recalculate can only recalculate to the final destination, it has no concept of intermediate points on a course. I think that fits with what everyone finds, typically people ride circular courses and discover that after a recalc. they are being taken back home.

I asked Garmin support about this but failed to narrow the question down to be unambiguous enough, but their response was that it "always recalculates the whole route".

Conclusion: the 800 is a training device designed for following fixed routes, not a navigation device for touring. Devices like the Oregon (bulky) are a compromise in other ways (only pick up cadence from the speed/cadence sensor; don't understand laps and gather the moving/standing stats in a different way) but they do understand waymarks and the idea of walking/riding to a point, ticking it off, then going on.

I think that there is a big hole in the market for a well-designed SatNav that has the data-gathering capabilities of the 800 which are very good, combined with a good navigation system based around waymarks.

meursault

I found this to be excellent

http://www.scarletfire.co.uk/2012/11/foolproof-course-navigation-on-the-garmin-edge-800/

Also agree with those who say check your route carefully, doesn't take much to confuse the Garmin.