It’s sending me around in circles

[Pablo1]

Hi Rasher, I shared your frustration whilst on my Germany trip this year, all my routes were imported, once aware of the issue with RUT ( and how to convert these imported routes to SAVED trips) ,since my return I have run several routes and device has behaved as expected, like you I've used Navs for many years, always like to plan my trip routes on PC beforehand and never had any major dramas, fortunately on my trip my mate was running same routes on an old 660 so I followed him most days.
Like you my first thought was what a piece of shit, now I think I can probably get by with it given I'm not aware of any ready made replacements that havent got their own issues, ie. Nav 6 ghosting issue etc. Having said this if an alternative were available I think I would change, but I'm reluctant to start fecking about changing the mount on bike all over again.
I dont see any point in resetting the unit, if its up to date on express that should be enough reassurance, btw my preferences are NO avoidances enabled and AUTO RECALC ON.

XT ISSUES WITH ROUTES

In Germany at minute and if not for my mates old 660 we would have a spoiled holiday. Issues arise for 2 reasons i can establish. Firstly, set off this morning and route preview was fine 190 miles 5hrs riding, got to the first junction and had an announcement "there are road closures on route...

www.ukgser.com

 

[Rasher]

Thanks Pablo,

I do not see "Imorted Trips" on mine, only "Saved Trips" and "New Trip" - which has nothing in, it is where you can try and plot a trip on the device.

I checked and can see when importing (Either file copy or Garmin Drive Export) it always shows that it is calculating the trip, then when you got to use a route it actually runs a calc again. When I say "Import" this is either going to saved trips and selecting "import" and importing files I copied into the devices "GPX" folder, or by opening route in MRA and then exporting it to the Garmin drive and sending it to the device, with both methods the route appears as a "Saved Trip"

Now I just discovered something else, I use "Here" (Garmin) maps for planning in MRA as in theory it most closely matches what a Garmin device will do (allegedly) although my 345 and XT often disagree ;-)

Anyway, below is a route in MRA using Tom Tom maps, which tend to have much more sensible routing patterns, but typically if you export this to a garmin then you find you end up taking a different route - the alternate route is the Garmin (Here) compare feature in MRA;



Previosuly when exported from MRA using the Here maps it did indeed want to take that northerly loop (this route is one that always tells me to turn around half way between W1 and W2) anyway, I exprted it without changing back to Here maps and was surprised to find upon loading it up on the device the map preview showed it as-is (the shorter route)

When I hit "Go" it did another recalc and I was really expecting it to want to do the long loop, but it did not, it also did not ask me to turn around half way between 1 & 2, not sure if this was a fluke or something to do with the new route.

This also shows how critical it is to plan in Here maps so you can see where it is likely to send you in a big loop to avoid a minor road (considering the direct route is both the shortest and the fastest by a big margin) and I have noticed Garmins love main roads, here it tries to loop around a perfectly good 2-way road with a line down the middle - and MRA Navigation also tries to go this way, the only criticism of MRA is it uses Garmin maps / routing (not sure if they have their own routing algorithm that uses the Garmin cartography data to come to a similar conclusion, or they actually use a Garmin service to calculate the routes?)

 

[Wapping]

Rasher, as you are using MyRoute’s HERE maps for creating your routes, have you tried raising your problem and comments on the very good MyRoute forum?

Richard

PS At the risk of hijacking the thread.

Creating a MyRoute route in TomTom mode, may well mean that a Garmin device will offer up a different version, when the route is displayed on a Garmin device. Some bods suffer from the same problem, when they use Google maps to create routes and display them on their Garmin device.

MyRoute recognises this problem, too. If you prefer the routes offered up by the TomTom maps / algorithm, then maybe use MyRoute’s ability to compare a TomTom route with a HERE route simultaneously.






Then amend the HERE route, so that it overlies the TomTom route, fixing it in place with more shaping points.

Note: As the example above shows, the version offered up by HERE might not always differ that much from the TomTom version, the red sections showing where the two routes differed.

 

[EVskij]

Having read OP’ report and his fiasco, I couldn’t help but to hear this every time I read “Turn Around”

 

[Wapping]

Having read OP’ report and his fiasco, I couldn’t help but to hear this every time I read “Turn Around”

Or this….

Or, this…..

CBeebies Panto: Dick Whittington and his Cat - Turn Again Song

Turn Again, the song, from CBeebies Panto: Dick Whittington and his Cat.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Pablo1]

Thanks Pablo,

I do not see "Imorted Trips" on mine, only "Saved Trips" and "New Trip" - which has nothing in, it is where you can try and plot a trip on the device.

I checked and can see when importing (Either file copy or Garmin Drive Export) it always shows that it is calculating the trip, then when you got to use a route it actually runs a calc again. When I say "Import" this is either going to saved trips and selecting "import" and importing files I copied into the devices "GPX" folder, or by opening route in MRA and then exporting it to the Garmin drive and sending it to the device, with both methods the route appears as a "Saved Trip"

Now I just discovered something else, I use "Here" (Garmin) maps for planning in MRA as in theory it most closely matches what a Garmin device will do (allegedly) although my 345 and XT often disagree ;-)

Anyway, below is a route in MRA using Tom Tom maps, which tend to have much more sensible routing patterns, but typically if you export this to a garmin then you find you end up taking a different route - the alternate route is the Garmin (Here) compare feature in MRA;

View attachment 285841

Previosuly when exported from MRA using the Here maps it did indeed want to take that northerly loop (this route is one that always tells me to turn around half way between W1 and W2) anyway, I exprted it without changing back to Here maps and was surprised to find upon loading it up on the device the map preview showed it as-is (the shorter route)

When I hit "Go" it did another recalc and I was really expecting it to want to do the long loop, but it did not, it also did not ask me to turn around half way between 1 & 2, not sure if this was a fluke or something to do with the new route.

This also shows how critical it is to plan in Here maps so you can see where it is likely to send you in a big loop to avoid a minor road (considering the direct route is both the shortest and the fastest by a big margin) and I have noticed Garmins love main roads, here it tries to loop around a perfectly good 2-way road with a line down the middle - and MRA Navigation also tries to go this way, the only criticism of MRA is it uses Garmin maps / routing (not sure if they have their own routing algorithm that uses the Garmin cartography data to come to a similar conclusion, or they actually use a Garmin service to calculate the routes?)

I would stick to using the garmin maps, Ive always understood it best practice that maps on any software should be the same as maps that are on the device, In terms of unit running a calculation when you launch route on the XT I think this is same on mine, however my unit is set to always show a preview of the route (you may need to tick something in your settings to get this) , providing all my shaping points are there Im happy its not deviated from the route I planned. Hope this helps.

 

[Wapping]

Whilst GPX is designed to make the transfer of routes and tracks universal, it isn’t absolutely reliable each and every time.

It certainly helps if the maps on the device, match those used to create the route. This is simply because it removes one possible variable. Then it is down to a possible menu of variables, each of which can affect the overall result to some degree or another.

PS Modern Garmin devices should always display a preview of the route, before you get to push GO.

 

[Rasher]

Yes, I always check the preview, but it can look good and within a mile you get "Turn Around".

I also always create on MRA using "Here" maps - I change the overlay as it ain't my fave look, but always use Here for the routing, I also use compare with the others as this may give a clue as to where differences are most likely to occur.

Today I did some more buggering around as I had a day off and wanted to pop out on the bike, deliberately tried to piss the thing off, started by missing 3 shape points...




Black is obviously the route on the PC screen, Red is where I went, green is roughly where it auto-calculated again, the first one was instant carry-on, second one as I first turned off siad "turn around" (fair enough in circumstance) and then quite quickly calculated again and told me to to carry on straight ahead and then turn Left towards the Via (5)

Taking a direct route later on the route and you could see it trying very hard to get back onto the main roads it prefers....


So, when I first turned of main road it wanted me to turn left (Towards Tubney) and get back on A420, then again at next junction, after I went straight over (IIRC) at first it wanted a U-turn, then after my 90 degree left after the U-Turn it threw an "odd one" wanting me to turn right which in thoery is nither going to th end destination or the original route - but I am pretty sure it was gonna do a "round the block" job via Gozzards Ford it then had one final go wanting to turn towards Dry Sandford, after that a bit of "turn around" until almost at the destination (7) when it finally agreed with my path.

None of this is my original problem and TBH considering the route I knew it wanted to take I think it was doing a fair job of trying to follow it, this is not the same as the "Turn Around" issue when you are actually following the route it provides and have not missed any waypoints.

I can see how it can easily get confusing, and on my holiday with some detours due to roadworks I can see how on occasions the "turn around" could have been valid, but having see it melt down with stupid "turn arounds" whenever I saw one I kinda sssumed it had fucked up again.

The "problem" I am now having is I am not seing the orginal issue, when I bought it (end of August) for my trip on the second week of august it was a right bugger, I tried a route from my house for the school run, and the train station and these would let me get justup the road from my house (400M maybe) and then ask me to turn around, and on the holiday it would often start a route OK and anywhere from 1/4 to maybe 1 mile in ask you to turn around, sometimes offer to skip a waypoint but then still ask for a turnaround (and I now realise the one it asks to skip is ahead and not a missed one behind)

After I got home it did an update but was still showing the issue on some routes, it has since done a map update and the one I did a couple of days ago, where the auto-update showed up to date but the Garmin Express app on PC showed it was missing an update, and today it worked really well.

Return route was different and I ran it with recalc off, on holiday when I tried this it seemed to not work and if you deviated from the route and got back on it then it may not give you further directions, I now suspect this is because all the recalc off did was supress a turn around message, but it was waiting for me to go back and hit some point or something???

As for recalc off, what I managed to figure out is if you skip a shape point and then get back on original route it then will direct you from when you rejoin original route, if you miss a via point and then get back on original route it will be waiting for you to go back and hit that via and does not give you directions.



So, here if you bypass Via (6) although you get back on original route it won't tell you which way to go, recalc is off, and you missed a "Via" which is as it says a Via, you are expected to hit the via, now if you realise you have missed a via (or guess) and hit the skip waypoint it will then start to route you to next via (7)

This probably relly threw us on holiday when we had the track displayed, because we could get back on the original route - and know we are as the track would confirm it, but would not get the navigation pick up, unless we skipped a via or two until the next via was ahead.

Anyway, I am now very happy I have figured out all the stuff Garmin should fucking document!

I now need to wait and see if the original issue of incorrect "turn around" comes back after this latest sigftware update, on hols next week so not much chance to test, but week after I will go back to some routes known to piss it off ;-)

 

[Wapping]

Hi Rasher, let’s see if it’s possible to see something inside this picture.

The black line is the route you created.

The red line is the route you rode.

The green lines are the instructions the device gave you.

There are no shaping points shown.

There is one way point shown, at point 7. This is a point you have told the device you must go through. I think it will have been shown as an orange flag on your device’s screen.

The direction of travel is from left to right.

Let’s see if it might all make sense……

As far as I can see, the instructions given by the device might well make sense and be correct. It seems to be doing its best to reconnect you with the black line and still get you to the way point 7.

Starting from bottom left….

A. You turned right off the A420 leaving the black line of the route. The device then gave you an instruction to turn left to Tubney. Had you done this, the device would probably have then directed you to the black line of the A420. Then, on reaching the A420, the device would (I assume) have then given you an instruction to turn right.

B. The next instruction from the device was to turn left, down the A338. This instruction, had you taken it, looks correct, as it would have taken you back to the black line on the A420. On reaching the A420, we can assume that the next instruction the device would have given you to turn right on the A420, back on route.

C. Just past the A338, you received an instruction to make a U-turn. This might well be correct. I think the device was trying to turn you around, so that you can then turn right onto the A338. In other words, to perform B above.

D. The next instruction is maybe an odd one but I think it might well make sense. What it might be doing (we can only guess) is to take you down Blackthorn Lane, through Gozzards Ford, along Farringdon Road and back to B above.

E. At Cothill, you received an instruction to turn left to Dry Sandford. This is perhaps the oddest one. It might though might be ‘correct’ as it might be that the device is trying to take you past Dry Sandford to pick up the black line at Wootton. In other words, it might just be that the device is trying to make you ride as much of the black line as possible, perhaps? It might also be influenced by your preference settings, I just don’t know. At Wootton, we can guess that there might then have been an instruction to turn right, on the black line, to the way point 7.

F. You continued along the red line, past Cothill. The device may well have dropped instructions, as it ‘knows’ you are heading towards way point 7 and the black route. There is no point in it doing anything more.

Rasher, the above can only be hypothesis as we do not know what would have happened had you followed the device’s instructions. It does though illustrate why I set my device to:

A. Avoid U-turns.

B. Auto-recalculation off.

Had I gone off-route at A, I would have looked at the screen and made up my own mind as to whether I would navigate myself back to the black line by turning left at some point, probably down the A338. Or, whether I would just carry on, via Cothill, to way point 7. In other words. I dictate my actions, not the device.

 

[Rasher]

Yes, it all made sense, that is what I am saying, this is the "correct" behaviour and roughly how all my Garmin devices have worked, "Nothing to see here"

The "Turn Around" fault is where you HAVE NOT deviated from the desired route, here is one it has done in the past:



In this instance (which it has done repeatedly) I start at W1 (just a few metres before it in car park) and it tells me to turn left onto the road after W1, then right at roundabout - all looking good, then straight after the second roundabout - still good, then.....

"Make a U-Turn", or if U-Turns disabled wantsa to send me into residential road to turn around.

* If when starting the route you select W2 as first point it behaves exactly the same.
* If you stop and re-start the route at "closest entry point" it still asks you to turn around.
* If you hit skip waypoint (having assumed you must have missed an earlier one) it will actually skip the one ahead of you.... and still say "Turn Around"

What I since discovered is if you continue until you hit W2 it will then calculate again and be OK, obviously if you are on a route you don't know, like on holiday how the fuck will you know how to get to the second point? as the nav will just be telling you to go back, and not how to get to the next waypoint - with a track displayed you can at least see where you should be going.

On occasions repeatedly restarting the route using "closest entry point" option it worked.

My previous post was showing how it seems to work - when working in a normal manner, and many people may think they have the U-Turn issue when they don't, a classic is having a start point outside a Hotel
So, you are parked at X, set off in the morning starting route at the "start" (W1) or "Closest Entry Point", but you actually miss W1, so you et told to do U turn as it wants you to hit W1

Even getting to W2 won't fix this as you missed W1, with recalc off you have no directions as it is waiting for you to hit W1, I believe you cannot skip W1 as "Skip Next Wayoint" never seems to offer the start point as the one to skip, so if you hit skip it skips W2, but still wants you to turn around and hit W1

The best thing to do, and what I ALWAYS have done in the past is put a point either up the road for the start (i.e. W2 would be my first point) or tell the Nav I want to start at point 2 - in fact the 345 auto-chooses W2 as the start point, Garmin probably figured out long ago this would save a lot of aggro for everyone!

I suspect the XT's "Closest Entry Point" in this scenario would actually pick the start point W1, and there begineth your misery and confusion.

So my point is there is (or was) a definite fault, whereby despite hitting all points from the very first and following the route the nav told me to follow it still fucked up, the smoking gun was that both my old 345 and My Route App on mates phones were not experiencing the same issue on the exact same route, on the same day starting at the same point at the same time.

I would now be very wary of the "Closest entry point" default on the XT, as I am fairly certain this may well cause a U-Turn issue - I plan to test this theory when I get back off hols.

I also want to test and confirm if skipping the very first point is not possible.

I would suggest anyone still getting this issue (or thinking they are getting it) try starting from the 2nd point manually rather than assuming the XT will do the sensible thing, and to also understand the behaviour if a Via or Shape point gets missed, and not confuse a U-Turn when missing a point with a random U-Turn when you have happily and accurately followed the nav directions only for it to change its mind and send you back.

I suspect my almost 100% route failure rate on holiday was possibly more like 10%-20% with other factors explained in last couple of posts adding confusion, once I had seen the genuine issue I probably assumed every U-Turn or attempt to turn me around was the bug,

The home testing on the same routes day in / day out and trying closest entry, next point up the road etc proved a bug existed, but was possibly quite rare and could be worked around - but on holiday after a couple of epic fails where the 345 was working fine destroyed all trust in the XT.

 

[Rasher]

Big update here:

All along I have found the problems with the XT most confusing as not consistent, but having found two routes I do regularly with bugs I have been able to narrow things down a lot and reported the findings to Garmin who have at least confirmed what looks like bugs.

There are (at least) 2 issues at play here, the first is the "Make a U-Turn" that typically (maybe always) occurs at the start of a route, and then very odd routing decisions where it will send you around in a big loop back to where you started kind of thing.

One thing that I have now discovered is this may ONLY happen with GPX 1.2 Files, or at least on the 3 issues displayed on my two test routes using GPX 1.1 files fixes it, this may explain why some people have never seen this problem.

Something else which may mask or hide the issues is not having recalc turned on, although this does not fully solve the problems with gpx 1.2 when it comes to odd routing choices.

Another key point is changing the route preferences solves the turn around issue, it does not matter which one, I have been testing with changing between avoiding and not avoiding ferries (as I am over 100 miles from any ferry!) and it asks to re-calculate the route due to changed avidance, and the U-Turn issue goes away - but it causes another probelm (more later)

So focussing on the two issues:

U-Turn

This is the "Make a U-Turn" error, for me it happens on some routes at the start, it gets you going the right way, and then soemwhere between the start point and 1st waypoint it asks you to U-Turn;




I have seen this on a number of routes, but yo can see the purple route line goes past the flag, so its clear that is the right way, if you reach the waypoint it immediately recalcs and continues on your way (and the arrival time drops as it takes out whatever stupid loop it wanted to you to do)

Turning off the auto-recalc seems to solve this issue (as does running gpx 1.1 version of the same route) - and just to re-iterate the exact same route files (gpx 1.2) works fine on the Zumo 345.

Although just drving to and through the first waypoint (after start point) seems to stop the message to turn around, you will still have routing problems.

Routing Issues

This issue can occur anywhere on a route I believe, I have seen odd routing at the start and end of test routes, and on my trip in September we certainly had a lot of problems part way through a route that we had no explanation for, and these can also mean you get asked to do a "random" U-Turn.

Here is one such example:




This is the start of a route, you can see the right fuckup on the XT at the top, and the 345 showing the correct route below, the XT wants you to go forward and turn left into the loop, then do two right turns to bring you back down the road you started on towards the start point, then a U-Turn to go back the correct way!!!

Here is an error at the end of a route;


This is a really odd one, you get past the last waypoint before the end, then get a U Turn request and to back up the road and do 2 lefts to get to the end, instead of turning right at the next jnction, this is roughly 200M away, but the XT would spin you around and send you back about 800M to get to the same point.

Now, if you go into settings and change the avoidances - choose any one, then go back to the trip planner and choose the route it will ask to re-calculate and then the route looks fine on the XT as if by magic!!!

I had the ferry avoidance set...



I remove the avoid ferries;



Recalc allowed to happen




And all looks good:



Now I hoped that was the end of it and all Garmin had to do was ensure that a proper calculation took place when importing routes, lord knows why this does not happen, you would of thought the software would use the same program routine whenever it calculated anything, but clearly not.

As I mentione the avoidance does not seem to matter, you can also delete the route, re-import it with the new seting (in this case with the avoid ferries now off) and the route comes back incorrect.

Anyway, Garmin said yes, this looks like a bug, and I thought I had a workaround to tell the wolrd about, so did a bit more testing and suddenly found I was being sent the wrong way again!!!

So, issue number 3...

Changing avoidances breaks GPX 1.2 shape point functionality

Yes, fuck me, another bug showed up, intially I thought it had changed the missed shape point behaviour to that of the 345 as I had skipped one point on the route, but then it got weirder when I checked the route.

So what now happens is if you have a route with shape points and via points created it will import with the original issues, maybe ask you to turn around at start - but this only happens on some routes / places, for example heading away from my house West this happens, routes returning (the same route reversed) does not, but you also have these odd routing decisions.

When you change an avoidance and let it re-calc it COMPLETELY IGNORES all the shaping points, like this:



The blue line is the track of the original route following the shaping points, when intialy exported this is almost what you get - except the previosuly shown U-Turn towards the end of the route, but when re-calculated you get the a new route that ignores the shape points entirely - this could properly fuck up your holiday routes!!!

So this is all with Garmin now, however seeing as they managed to miss all of these galring bugs during development and after 3 years of the product being out there, and I can only assume lots of people making them aware of issues.

I suspect many owners only use gpx 1.1, or just pump in an address and let the device take them there - both of which probably work well most of the time, or maybe have the recalc off and just put the odd routing issue down to a "garmin moment".

So for now I could just use gpx 1.1, but for me one of the best features of a Garmin over Tom Tom and the (otherwise way superior) My Route App is the ability to use a ton of shaping points to ensure accurate routing, with clear Via points for the places you want to visit / stop at or sections of road "not to be missed"

I expect progress to be glacially slow now it has had to go to the Garmin dev team, but very glad to have got to the bottom of why I had such a shit time with the XT and others do not.

You can easily test this stuff without getting off your sofa, just create a route with a mix of via points and shaping points where without the shape points a different route would be taken, import it to your XT and then preview the route in trip planner (you may or may not see odd routing choices, and if you run the route you may or may not be asked to turn around near the start of route)

Now go to settings and change an avoidance, go back to the trip planner and when prompted allow the re-calc, when you preview the route it will have changed as if the shape points have been deleted.

 

[Pablo1]

fuck me im now just looking to replace this piece of crap, i think youve gone way beyond what could reasonably be expected to try and get some sense out of this, will be my wee winter project to replace.

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

fuck me im now just looking to replace this piece of crap, i think youve gone way beyond what could reasonably be expected to try and get some sense out of this, will be my wee winter project to replace.

Amen
What a pile of shite
How complex is that & then using 3rd party apps to draw a route too

 

[Rasher]

TBH if using GPX 1.1 what is the default and what most people use then (I suspect) no problems.

What is most frustrating is Garmin introduced the concept of shaping and via points, got it working pretty well on the previous generation of units (340 / 345 / 390 / 395 etc) and then managed to fuck it right up on the XT!

More shocking is they clearly never tested the devices properly - although perhaps it did work initially and subsequent updates fucked it up, who knows for sure???

As I also use MRA Navigation you can see how well tings can work - on generic phone hardware, they even use Garmins cartography / map data and manage to do a much better job of routing with it, calculation is faster, recalculation is faster - and more sensible, the way they do the voice instructions is clearer giving more detailed info, and the MRA lane assist and associated graphics is also way better - on a device designed to talk / text poeple.

Garmin have a 20+ year head start using dedicated hardware and a much bigger organisation, and you would of thought dev & test team.

I get updates all the time about MRA improvements, and they are constant, they also tell you about any known bugs and issues as soon as they are made aware of them. They seme to care about their product, take pride in it, value their customers etc. and stand out in a day and age where most companies just want to lower costs and increase share holder dividends at all costs.

Anyway, back to the XT, ignoring the gpx 1.2 issues it is a nice unit, the screen is good, it is WAY faster than the 345 at everything (including getting you lost) and seems much better. The live weather app is very impressive, and being able to copy routes from phone to XT directly is fantastic (although Tom Tom got there way sooner!)

Now if they can only find a 9 year old to fix their code all will be well, and for now I suspect using gpx 1.1 would solve the vast majority of issues, so don't throw one in the bin right away.

If anyone does find these issues when running with gpx 1.1 and can get the issue to repeat and document it then please do let me know and I can try and simulate and tag onto my support case.


Happy navigating everyone!!!

 

[Mzokk]

Brilliant work Rasher. Lots of experimentation to get this information. @ JFheath has gone through a similar process on Zumouserforums and this has been reported to Garmin with the hope that a firmware update could be released to fix the issues. (I'm not holding my breath) I circumvent the issues as follows.

1. If I use basecamp to create a route I convert it from an imported route to a saved route using the active route method. This seems to get round the shaping point weirdness.





2. If I have used MRA to create the route I use the 1.1 GPX file version as I like you noticed some weirdness with 1.2 GPX.

3. I use more shaping/waypoints than I used to to ensure that the route follows the path I've chosen rather than the using alternative "faster roads" between points. For example if you route past a minor road that prescribes one edge of a triangle and its a mile long and it cuts through two main roads that prescribe the other two sides of the triangle if you don't have a shaping or waypoint on that road and the route is re-calculated (if you missed a previous point and recalculated) by the Zumo XT will go along the two long edges of the triangle say 8Miles!! Even though in basecamp it would use the shorter road because faster time was selected.

4. I use prompted recalculation. If I go off route (roadworks for example) I tend to zoom out on the map a bit and find my own way back to the purple line to avoid issues as mentioned above.

5. I often run the track together with the route as this lets you see if the route diverges from the planned route. Never felt the need to do this on my 340 or 390.

6. I tend not to use the XT for A-B routing particularly near cities as it will land you on main roads in traffic. I use Android auto and Google maps on the screen of my Africa Twin for this.

On my old R1150GS I use a Zumo 340 or 390 as I'm not sufficently impressed by the Zumo XT to buy another mount for the GS. I also have an old Nav IV and Streetpilot 2610 knocking about and they function as expected.

Having stated all of the above I'm sticking with the XT for the time being. I often use it as a map for a bit of free navigation with no route and the visability of the screen makes this easy. Also wireless route uploading and bluetooth sharing of routes with others is really useful. I had a holiday in Northern Spain in September and used the XT and MRA for the navigation and had no issues. However I do wish the XT used the same routing algorithms as the 340, 390 and Nav IV.

 

[Wapping]

Thank you, Rasher.

I have always used 1.2 with my XT when exporting from MyRoute, but have never had a problem. As your patient research shows, this is probably because I have auto-recalculate turned off by default. I have never tried using 1.1.

 

[Rasher]

What shocks me is the unit has been out a few years now with glaring bugs that should have been detected long before the first production units were shipped. They also failed to notice the old units did a much better job of route caluclation in general, and launched the XT in a state where it simply is not fit for purpose and a big step back in its primary functions.

The fact others have reported issues and bugs to Garmin, and after all this time it is not sorted shows their entire contempt for their customers, have an issue with My Route App and their support guys are on it right away, emails go out when issues and bugs are discovered along with expected timelines to resolve. They also continually improve and evolve their product, based mainly on customer feedback.

I certainly will not be holding my breath, the basecamp solution may work, but that is the worst route planning software I have ever used, admittedly the way ot works as a database is good, but it is just so bloody clunky to create a route, I could do the route in MRA, upload it to Basecamp, export it to the XT, convert from imported etc....

....Although "imported routes" just show up as routes in mine, so not sure how I would do that, I see a few people go on about "imported" routes, but regardless of if I copy the GPX files to the device, or export from MRA to XT with the Garmin Drive they just show up as Routes, no such thing as an "imported route" on my device....

...This might be because I terminated the link to Garmin mothership as this stopped me from displaying tracks on the screen, the tick-box to show tracks vanished when I connected to garmin - that took me fucking ages to figure out and fix too, plus who really wants Garmin holding data on everywhere the go, eerywhere they stop, how fast they go etc??? Useful data to sell to governments - "we can tell you the places people speed the most"

 

[Mzokk]

Yip the XT links to the Explore application so to see the track of the route that you have if you have the XT linked to the "mothership" then you have to go into the explore application on the unit and turn on the visibility of the track in explore. I am persisting with explore but its not a very good application. In the (explore phone) app you can create a "course"?? that follows the roads and is saved/exported to the unit as a track which you can convert to a "trip". It should really work in a similar way to MRA but falls way way short of that. In the online application (PC Browser) you can prepare a route but it straight lines between the points (unless someone can advise me otherwise) you put in, and is not easy to edit so that you don't know what you are getting exactly, until you open it on the Zumo and it re-calculates and shows exactly what roads the route is following . The tread app that is implemented with the XT2 appears to have a better interface for routing and you can link it to explore to save the routes you create. But it wont let you route unless you connect the app to the Garmin Tread or XT2. The XT I believe would be perfectly capable of utilising the tread app by virtue of the fact that the tread app connects to the explore app and the XT connects to explore But then Garmin couldn't flog you an upgrade!

I still use and like basecamp. Agreed I hated it at first and wanted to hang on to the simplicity of Mapsource. However, I can create a route in basecamp more quickly than in MRA belive it or not. I create a startpoint finish point and rubber band the rest usually. But MRA is overall the superior tool as the tool and your saved routes are online which is not the case with basecamp which means if you want to alter or create routes on tour you have to bring a laptop with you.

I think that Garmin have lost the plot a bit with the proliferation of apps etc. and are likely to loose out on motorcycle units to rugged smartphones with navigation apps. (this has already happened in the car world with Android Auto and Apple carplay.)

Now that I've got to grips with the Zumo XT and understand that it routes differently than previous devices I have strategies to ensure it works well for me.

I have stumped up for MRA for routing because it is flexible when on a trip and is a good solid product. I didn't stump up for the navigation app that works with Android Auto. To be fair it worked well with Android Auto on my Africa Twin but the power drain with the Here maps API means your phone gets hot and may loose charge even when plugged in. I have OSMand which works on Android Auto and uses Open Street Maps and isn't resource hungry makes a good backup. I'm currently testing Tourstart which is also based on Open Street Maps and has browser based routing and a navigation phone app (NOT AA or Apple Carplay). The browser based routing is good but I've had a couple of stability issues with the Navigation Phone app (Old Motorola G7 could have someting to do with it!)

So far I haven't found anything that would make me abandon the XT.

 

[Berin]

Yip the XT links to the Explore application so to see the track of the route that you have if you have the XT linked to the "mothership" then you have to go into the explore application on the unit and turn on the visibility of the track in explore. I am persisting with explore but its not a very good application. In the (explore phone) app you can create a "course"?? that follows the roads and is saved/exported to the unit as a track which you can convert to a "trip". It should really work in a similar way to MRA but falls way way short of that. In the online application (PC Browser) you can prepare a route but it straight lines between the points (unless someone can advise me otherwise) you put in, and is not easy to edit so that you don't know what you are getting exactly, until you open it on the Zumo and it re-calculates and shows exactly what roads the route is following . The tread app that is implemented with the XT2 appears to have a better interface for routing and you can link it to explore to save the routes you create. But it wont let you route unless you connect the app to the Garmin Tread or XT2. The XT I believe would be perfectly capable of utilising the tread app by virtue of the fact that the tread app connects to the explore app and the XT connects to explore But then Garmin couldn't flog you an upgrade!

I still use and like basecamp. Agreed I hated it at first and wanted to hang on to the simplicity of Mapsource. However, I can create a route in basecamp more quickly than in MRA belive it or not. I create a startpoint finish point and rubber band the rest usually. But MRA is overall the superior tool as the tool and your saved routes are online which is not the case with basecamp which means if you want to alter or create routes on tour you have to bring a laptop with you.

I think that Garmin have lost the plot a bit with the proliferation of apps etc. and are likely to loose out on motorcycle units to rugged smartphones with navigation apps. (this has already happened in the car world with Android Auto and Apple carplay.)

Now that I've got to grips with the Zumo XT and understand that it routes differently than previous devices I have strategies to ensure it works well for me.

I have stumped up for MRA for routing because it is flexible when on a trip and is a good solid product. I didn't stump up for the navigation app that works with Android Auto. To be fair it worked well with Android Auto on my Africa Twin but the power drain with the Here maps API means your phone gets hot and may loose charge even when plugged in. I have OSMand which works on Android Auto and uses Open Street Maps and isn't resource hungry makes a good backup. I'm currently testing Tourstart which is also based on Open Street Maps and has browser based routing and a navigation phone app (NOT AA or Apple Carplay). The browser based routing is good but I've had a couple of stability issues with the Navigation Phone app (Old Motorola G7 could have someting to do with it!)

So far I haven't found anything that would make me abandon the XT.

I ditched Explore almost immediately, it's no use at all.

As far as I can see, the main and only advantage MRA has over Basecamp is you can run it on an iPad, and it's easy to get a route into either a Montana or an XT. If basecamp ran on an iPad I'd ditch MRA, if only for the ability of basecamp to handle tracks. Creating a route is easier, and library management is easier too.

Personally I haven't really had many issues with the XT. I've used it on a couple of European trips, on the bike and in the car using direct routing, routes made in MRA and routes from the interweb and sent to the XT via MRA. I've also modified routes on the XT itself. Mrs Berin uses hers daily.

No sat nav does exactly as you'd like. Your local knowledge is always better than an electronic device, but heading for somewhere new the device will always get you there, even if a local might know a better way. All the sat navs I've ever known will take you miles longer to go on a motorway to save 1 minute, or route you through a housing estate to find one bend if you've set "curvy roads".

I did a big evaluation of Garmin sat nav for bikes vs. apps on phones about 3 years ago, and came down in favour of garmins overall, with maybe a phone as back up. I haven't changed my my mind, but the Thork Racing and CI devices may get good enough - not yet though.

 

[Mzokk]

I'm in the same boat as you. I think that garmin stand alone devices still trump phone apps for most of the type of routing I do. However, I'm retired now so can spend a bit of time evaluating whats out there.....just for fun