I've attached a document on this subject.
Experiences with the zumo 350LM
Recently I bought a Garmin zumo 350LM. Although I’ve got it working the way I want it to, I didn’t exactly find it easy, so I’ve documented my experiences while they’re still in my head, thinking this may be useful later when I will have forgotten them all. Then I thought the others may find them useful now. This is not an attempt to rewrite the manual. It’s more an account of things I wish I’d known right from the start.
I’m running Windows xp SP3.
Working with a PC
The leaflet in the 350’s box tells you to go to a web page, where you download Agent software. Once installed, it’s meant to confirm that you’ve connected your 350 and allow you with one click to go to myGarmin. It actually downloads Agent with Communicator. Once they’re installed, Agent appears in the notification area but fails to work. If you go directly to the myGarmin page (
https://my.garmin.com), it complains that your version of Communicator is out of date, so you have to download and install the latest version. So, I wouldn’t bother with Agent, and I’d just download and install the latest version of Communicator. I’ve simply bookmarked myGarmin to get there if I want to.
The 350 uses Media Transfer Protocol (MTP) to send and receive data from a PC, so you need to have a recent version of Windows Media Player (WMP) installed, which has the necessary drivers in it. It works on my WMP version 11.
For normal use there’s no need to install any Garmin USB drivers. You would only need them to connect the 350 as a USB mass storage device to a PC, and that’s only possible in developers’ mode.
myGarmin provides links for managing your Garmin account, viewing registered devices and maps, and for support. Don't use myMaps to update maps, because it then wants to install Garmin Express, which appeared to download the map update but then failed to install it. Instead, I used the older program GarminMapUpdater to install the map update to my 350 and PC. It will want you to enter product key, which you find from mygarmin, device, contents. Select an option to update PC only, device only or both.
From myDashboard, I applied a system update (Voice, British English-Kate (VCT)), shut everything down, restarted, but, strangely, it still recommends the same update, even though it’s in the 350 and not in the list of uninstalled voices. WebUpdater also does the job of updating the 350’s software, although it makes no attempt to tell you which voices you’ve already installed. In spite of this, Kate’s doing a good job.
Mounting the unit
If you’re happy to clamp a RAM mount to your handlebar to hold the 350, Garmin supplies all you need in the box. However, I wanted to use my existing Touratech bracket, which gives me a 12mm bar. From my old Quest unit, I have a clamp, which fits onto the bar and has four holes in it. These holes form the corners of a rectangle in landscape orientation. The 350’s cradle also has four holes in it, forming the corners of a rectangle that has the same dimensions as the one on the clamp, but when the cradle is held the correct way round, it’s in portrait orientation. To solve this problem, a friend of mine made an adapter plate and spacer out of stainless steel to go between clamp and cradle.
Audio
Apparently you can only set up a Bluetooth connection to a headset. I’ve read some forum posts, in which the writer has complained about incompatibility with some headsets, so if you ever decide to get one, make sure it will pair with the 350.
There is an audio jack, which works with earphones or with a comms unit, such as my Autocom Active Plus.
SDcards
The 350 has an SDcard slot. The card can be used to store files such as maps, images, geocaches, routes, waypoints, and custom POIs. I’ve not tested its ability to allow sharing of files from one 350 to any other units.
Mapping software
I’d been using Mapsource mapping software with my previous unit, but as Mapsource won’t support MTP, I’ve had to use mapping software that will: Basecamp. I import any old routes from Mapsource that I want to reuse and I use Basecamp to create new routes.
In Basecamp there are profiles for a number of modes of transport, including motorcycle. For each of these modes, there is a set of avoidance preferences, which can be adjusted by the user. A route can be created for one mode and then be recalculated for another. In the 350 unit, there are three transportation modes: car, motorcycle and off-road, and these can be selected on the “Go To – View Map” screen. For each of these modes, there is a set of avoidance preferences, which can be adjusted by the user in Settings. A route can be created for one mode in Trip Planner and then be recalculated for another. It's important to ensure the same mode is selected in Basecamp and the 350 unit, and that the avoidance preferences in those modes are matched as closely as possible.
Waypoints and viapoints created with the pencil tool in Basecamp are treated by 350 as destinations within a trip. Destinations might be e.g. a cafe, tourist attraction, campsite where there is a planned stop. Destinations must be visited and are announced before the 350 will route to the next point.
Viapoints inserted with the pencil+ tool in Basecamp in order to shape a route to go on roads of the user’s choice are called shaping points. These do not have to be visited and are not announced.
If the user goes off-route and the next point is a destination, the 350 will recalculate to that point until the user visits it. If the user goes off-route and the next point is a shaping point, the 350 will recalculate to that point until he/she either visits it or joins the route further on. In the latter case, the 350 drops the unvisited shaping point and routes to the point after it, (whether that point is a destination or a shaping point).
There’s no mention of shaping points in the 350’s manual and I can’t find a way of building a route on the 350 with shaping points, but at least it knows how to handle shaping points from Basecamp.
Mapsource routes may have waypoints and they may also have viapoints that have been created by clicking with the route tool. When these are imported into Basecamp, the waypoints behave as Basecamp waypoints (destinations on the 350, which must be visited and are announced) and viapoints behave as Basecamp shaping points, (which do not have to be visited and are not announced).
In Basecamp, if you want to convert destinations into shaping points, you should double click on the route to open Properties, select point(s), right click on point(s) and select Don’t alert on arrival (shaping point). To convert shaping points into destinations, double click on the route to open Properties, select point(s), right click on point(s) and select Alert on arrival.
Your contribution
I’m still learning, and that’s not made easy by Garmin. I think some of its software has a poor, confusing user interface. Some of it just doesn’t work (for me). Feel free to suggest amendments or additions to any of the points I’ve made above.
