Review of different phone apps and Garmin devices

Berin

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One size never fits all, so I thought it might help to note in one place some of the many navigation options we have now and what they would be used for. I don't know much about non Garmin devices so I'm keeping my comments to Garmin devices and Android and IOS apps and as yet I've yet to really use the apps in anger but have done some research.

The use cases I can see are as follows:

1) A to B routing
Put in a destination and sometimes a start point, make some selections about type of route such as fastest, avoid motorways, etc, and off you go with voice and turn by turn directions

2) Follow a pre-planned road route
You know exactly which roads you want to take and have planned a route somewhere, on Basecamp, or Via Michelin etc, and loaded them to your device, found them on the device and pressed go - off you go, again with voice and turn by turn.

3) Follow a pre planned route with unsurfaced trail or off road sections
For off road, since there's no auto routing, this usually means following a track that you've downloaded, as in from the TET website or elsewhere, scrounged off mates or authored yourself on some kind of software, then loaded and followed as in 2, but no turn by turn directions - just follow the line on the map.

Software

Basecamp
Love it or hate it, it's a good tool for authoring routes (on the road) or tracks for trails, works with both Garmin maps and OSM and other free maps, lots of tools available for this if you want to bother. Good for planning routes, multi day routes, quite a nice library function and the easier way to get tracks or routes to your Garmin device. It has point and click routing, route shaping with the mouse and also track drawing

Kurviger
Seems pretty good for on road route planning, lots of options for how you'd like your route to look, you can import routes and export routes and it works with it's own app on Android and age Scenic app on IOS. There are paid and free versions. As far as I can see, though, you can't use it to draw a route or a track, so you have to rely on it's own route calculation algorithms and it wouldn't therefore be usable for a trip with unpaved/offroad sections - though I stand to be corrected. You could use it to generate a route which than then be loaded up into a Garmin or another device or app.

Via Michelin
Unsurprisingly good for finding hotels and restaurants along the route, but it's an A-B planner, with ability to choose preferences for type of road, tolls or no tolls, etc. Again, I don't think any ability to drag to shape a route to get what you want exactly, or to draw a track. Still a good resource for trip planning, as it will calculate costs including fuel and tolls. Disappointingly, it uses Booking.com as a hotel booking engine


Most of the other software seems to be linked to an app, so maybe cover it there.

Here's a one liner on some of the Garmin devices.

1) Garmin Montana 6xx series

These fulfil 1) 2) and 3) above
Initially the 600 and 650, with 650 having a camera and a "t" suffix meaning Topo maps were loaded, and now replaced by the 610/680 series.

They have the capability to run Garmin City Navigator maps as well as the Garmin branded UK OS maps, previously GB Discover now Topo Great Britain Pro and so are great for trail riders, being also remarkably tough. One of the most useful things about these devices is the Profile capability, which allows you to choose a set of parameters for whatever you are doing and switch easily between them - for instance I have one for trail riding in the UK, which switches on the OS maps and a few other bits, a Road Bike UK, and a Van mode for where its (unsurprisingly) in the van. They can handle tracks and routes easily, and lots of flexibility around the number of points, track visibility, etc. To load routes and tracks, the easiest way is BaseCamp, but also you can just drag and drop with a file manager but really a PC of some sort is needed although there are a few daffy workarounds. Data can also be shared with other Montana 6xx.

They have a relatively inexpensive powered mount, but decent battery life too and will work on AA batteries, and they work with ANTS devices, like the Garmin Tempe and tyre pressure monitors.

Weak points are the screen is a bit small for these days and also not the brightest, but I've no doubt it will stay on my 350EXC for a good while yet.

2) Garmin Zumo
Fulfils 1) and 2) above
I have a 590 and 595. They are good road devices, screen is a decent size but can be hard to read in sunlight, come with Lifetime City Navigator Maps, can play music from and SD cars or Spotify, have a curvy roads setting (which mostly takes you via every housing estate in the land), good search, route tracking, search along route etc.
You can again add other open source maps, but not the GB OS maps, so they could in fact be used for off road outside the UK, if you get the right maps. The battery life is usually not very good.
Again work best with Basecamp.
I'll be replacing these shortly, I think.

3) Garmin GPS Map 276cx
Fulfils 1), 2) and 3) above
This is quite a big unit, great battery life, uses the same powered mount as the Montana 6xx. Great screen, very clear and bright - probably even better than the new XT and Montana 7xx devices. It's not a touch screen and uses a rocker wheel and buttons, which is good for not getting the screen dirty. Runs any kind of maps and has stacks of features so the learning curve is quite steep. It would be a perfect dual sport unit if it wasn't let down by a slow processor which can mean some lag with complex maps like the OS series. Still my favourite, though.


4) Garmin XT
Fulfils 1) and 2) above
I don't have one, so comments from owners welcome. As far as I can see, it runs City Navigator and OSM maps, but not GB OS maps. It doesn't work with Gamin ANT devices, but has a good screen and after a few oddities in navigation for the first few firmware releases seems to have settled down. Again, could be used for off road, I think, if the right maps were installed.


5) Garmin Montana 7xx series
Fulfils 1), 2) and 3) above
Again, I don't have one but have spent some time looking at one. Quite big, good screen, the 700i and 750i also have Satellite Messenger capability, think of it has having an inbuilt Garmin Inreach. This needs a subscription. The 700 base model (no Inreach, in the US no City Navigator) uses GPS, Glonass and Gallileo satellites, the 700i and 750i (a 700i with a camera) drop the Glonass satellites, (something to do with the satellite communication. Lots of base memory, fast processors. Installed maps aren't clear. They do run the Great Britain Topo Pro maps, but not the old GB Discoverer. Garmin say they come with Topo Active Europe maps only, but the unit I saw (a 700i) also had City Navigator on it. This is important, since if it doesn't, and you want to use it for UK trail riding and switch between OS maps and street maps it's a trail side SD card swap.
There's a new powered mount which is quite expensive at £70 odd, and it has a step down transformer in the cable, quite a big box near the battery end of the cable which make cutting the cable down and putting in inline connector in to switch between bikes less easy. ]
I don't know if they run ANTS devices ( I keep going on about this as I think the ANTS Tempe temperature device is quite handy on dirt bikes that don't have temp read out)

With both the XT and Montana 7xx, there are ways to get routes loaded without a PC which could be a help on a trip.


Next up, Locus, Viewranger, TomTom Go, Myroute and a couple more
 
I hope the couple more will include Pocket Earth for iOS
 
I’ve installed pocket earth on an Android phone but haven’t looked at it in any great detail, this thread will make me take a look at all the options so I end up with a good solution for the use cases above


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Berin, nice topic, thanks for starting the discussion.

I am still using Mapsource because a) it does what I need and b) could not see benefits of Basecamp - does not mean there are none I hasten to add.

When I make a route in Mapsource, it can be shared as a GPX file and by using GPX-Viewer PRO app, I can see the route on my Samsung phone.
I have not tried GPX-Viewer PRO for routing etc. and I am not sure if it can do it....


I use a Zumo 660 on the bikes, and I like that it is independent of anything except 12v DC and Satellite signals.

Phone using Google Maps is very handy in parallel with the GPS, especially as a) it now shows the speed limit and b) it accepts EIRCODE addresses. Easy enough to have a holder on the bike and in the car..

Was using WAZE last year as it had speed limits while Google Maps did not but Google Maps now has the Speed Limits so do find WAZE any better now.

Bin
 
I've been using My Route App for planning routes and transferring to my Nav V and VI. It is one of the most popular options instead of Basecamp.
 
I suspect, though I might be wrong, that the OP is maybe biased towards ‘off road’ route creation.

Kurviger will allow you to route manually (you chose the points) along any road / goat track that is shown on Open Street Map. BaseCamp / Mapsouce both allow the creation of true bespoke ‘hybrid’ routes ie. on and off road (including across a field) joined together into one.
 
A couple of other things I thought of. Neither the GPS map 276Cx nor at the moment the Montana 7xx can deal with UK 6 digit postcodes - they are 4 digit only, which may limit their usefulness as road riding devices in the UK.

Also, the phone based apps mostly have the capability to take traffic into account. Noe of the Zumo 590, 595, Montana 6xx, or GPS maps can do that, I don't know about the XT and the 7xx - they do have more connectivity via a variety of Garmin phone apps

One size never fits all, so I thought it might help to note in one place some of the many navigation options we have now and what they would be used for. I don't know much about non Garmin devices so I'm keeping my comments to Garmin devices and Android and IOS apps and as yet I've yet to really use the apps in anger but have done some research.

The use cases I can see are as follows:

1) A to B routing
Put in a destination and sometimes a start point, make some selections about type of route such as fastest, avoid motorways, etc, and off you go with voice and turn by turn directions

2) Follow a pre-planned road route
You know exactly which roads you want to take and have planned a route somewhere, on Basecamp, or Via Michelin etc, and loaded them to your device, found them on the device and pressed go - off you go, again with voice and turn by turn.

3) Follow a pre planned route with unsurfaced trail or off road sections
For off road, since there's no auto routing, this usually means following a track that you've downloaded, as in from the TET website or elsewhere, scrounged off mates or authored yourself on some kind of software, then loaded and followed as in 2, but no turn by turn directions - just follow the line on the map.

Software

Basecamp
Love it or hate it, it's a good tool for authoring routes (on the road) or tracks for trails, works with both Garmin maps and OSM and other free maps, lots of tools available for this if you want to bother. Good for planning routes, multi day routes, quite a nice library function and the easier way to get tracks or routes to your Garmin device. It has point and click routing, route shaping with the mouse and also track drawing

Kurviger
Seems pretty good for on road route planning, lots of options for how you'd like your route to look, you can import routes and export routes and it works with it's own app on Android and age Scenic app on IOS. There are paid and free versions. As far as I can see, though, you can't use it to draw a route or a track, so you have to rely on it's own route calculation algorithms and it wouldn't therefore be usable for a trip with unpaved/offroad sections - though I stand to be corrected. You could use it to generate a route which than then be loaded up into a Garmin or another device or app.

Via Michelin
Unsurprisingly good for finding hotels and restaurants along the route, but it's an A-B planner, with ability to choose preferences for type of road, tolls or no tolls, etc. Again, I don't think any ability to drag to shape a route to get what you want exactly, or to draw a track. Still a good resource for trip planning, as it will calculate costs including fuel and tolls. Disappointingly, it uses Booking.com as a hotel booking engine


Most of the other software seems to be linked to an app, so maybe cover it there.

Here's a one liner on some of the Garmin devices.

1) Garmin Montana 6xx series

These fulfil 1) 2) and 3) above
Initially the 600 and 650, with 650 having a camera and a "t" suffix meaning Topo maps were loaded, and now replaced by the 610/680 series.

They have the capability to run Garmin City Navigator maps as well as the Garmin branded UK OS maps, previously GB Discover now Topo Great Britain Pro and so are great for trail riders, being also remarkably tough. One of the most useful things about these devices is the Profile capability, which allows you to choose a set of parameters for whatever you are doing and switch easily between them - for instance I have one for trail riding in the UK, which switches on the OS maps and a few other bits, a Road Bike UK, and a Van mode for where its (unsurprisingly) in the van. They can handle tracks and routes easily, and lots of flexibility around the number of points, track visibility, etc. To load routes and tracks, the easiest way is BaseCamp, but also you can just drag and drop with a file manager but really a PC of some sort is needed although there are a few daffy workarounds. Data can also be shared with other Montana 6xx.

They have a relatively inexpensive powered mount, but decent battery life too and will work on AA batteries, and they work with ANTS devices, like the Garmin Tempe and tyre pressure monitors.

Weak points are the screen is a bit small for these days and also not the brightest, but I've no doubt it will stay on my 350EXC for a good while yet.

2) Garmin Zumo
Fulfils 1) and 2) above
I have a 590 and 595. They are good road devices, screen is a decent size but can be hard to read in sunlight, come with Lifetime City Navigator Maps, can play music from and SD cars or Spotify, have a curvy roads setting (which mostly takes you via every housing estate in the land), good search, route tracking, search along route etc.
You can again add other open source maps, but not the GB OS maps, so they could in fact be used for off road outside the UK, if you get the right maps. The battery life is usually not very good.
Again work best with Basecamp.
I'll be replacing these shortly, I think.

3) Garmin GPS Map 276cx
Fulfils 1), 2) and 3) above
This is quite a big unit, great battery life, uses the same powered mount as the Montana 6xx. Great screen, very clear and bright - probably even better than the new XT and Montana 7xx devices. It's not a touch screen and uses a rocker wheel and buttons, which is good for not getting the screen dirty. Runs any kind of maps and has stacks of features so the learning curve is quite steep. It would be a perfect dual sport unit if it wasn't let down by a slow processor which can mean some lag with complex maps like the OS series. Still my favourite, though.


4) Garmin XT
Fulfils 1) and 2) above
I don't have one, so comments from owners welcome. As far as I can see, it runs City Navigator and OSM maps, but not GB OS maps. It doesn't work with Gamin ANT devices, but has a good screen and after a few oddities in navigation for the first few firmware releases seems to have settled down. Again, could be used for off road, I think, if the right maps were installed.


5) Garmin Montana 7xx series
Fulfils 1), 2) and 3) above
Again, I don't have one but have spent some time looking at one. Quite big, good screen, the 700i and 750i also have Satellite Messenger capability, think of it has having an inbuilt Garmin Inreach. This needs a subscription. The 700 base model (no Inreach, in the US no City Navigator) uses GPS, Glonass and Gallileo satellites, the 700i and 750i (a 700i with a camera) drop the Glonass satellites, (something to do with the satellite communication. Lots of base memory, fast processors. Installed maps aren't clear. They do run the Great Britain Topo Pro maps, but not the old GB Discoverer. Garmin say they come with Topo Active Europe maps only, but the unit I saw (a 700i) also had City Navigator on it. This is important, since if it doesn't, and you want to use it for UK trail riding and switch between OS maps and street maps it's a trail side SD card swap.
There's a new powered mount which is quite expensive at £70 odd, and it has a step down transformer in the cable, quite a big box near the battery end of the cable which make cutting the cable down and putting in inline connector in to switch between bikes less easy. ]
I don't know if they run ANTS devices ( I keep going on about this as I think the ANTS Tempe temperature device is quite handy on dirt bikes that don't have temp read out)

With both the XT and Montana 7xx, there are ways to get routes loaded without a PC which could be a help on a trip.


Next up, Locus, Viewranger, TomTom Go, Myroute and a couple more
 
:D Busted! There's a use case for all of them, but the options for drawing a track, where no track or road exists on the map, are more limited - as you say,Basecamp and Mapsource both allow for that.

As far as I can see with Kurviger, it will route down any road it thinks you are allowed on to with manual routing by dropping waypoints, but if it thinks there's no access it will take you around - sometimes a very long way around!

happy to be corrected, though.

I suspect, though I might be wrong, that the OP is maybe biased towards ‘off road’ route creation.

Kurviger will allow you to route manually (you chose the points) along any road / goat track that is shown on Open Street Map. BaseCamp / Mapsouce both allow the creation of true bespoke ‘hybrid’ routes ie. on and off road (including across a field) joined together into one.
 
I’ve installed pocket earth on an Android phone but haven’t looked at it in any great detail, this thread will make me take a look at all the options so I end up with a good solution for the use cases above


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Pocket Earth is only available for iOS
 
Cycle apps

This is a useful thread and I have learned a couple of things already. I use a couple of apps for off road cycling but have found an OS map is still absolutely necessary - often to work out where the hell I am after following a well signposted National Trail only to end up in the back end of a farm with a locked gate.:blast
 
Footpath phone app seems pretty good GPS app, roughly draw the route with your finger and it creates a route using roads close to your drawn line it takes seconds then follow.
 
I've been using Viewranger for walking. OS maps on my phone for less than OS charge and it doesn't make my phone get too hot to touch. Plot a walk on my PC and sync it on my phone.
 
:D Busted! There's a use case for all of them, but the options for drawing a track, where no track or road exists on the map, are more limited - as you say,Basecamp and Mapsource both allow for that.

As far as I can see with Kurviger, it will route down any road it thinks you are allowed on to with manual routing by dropping waypoints, but if it thinks there's no access it will take you around - sometimes a very long way around!

happy to be corrected, though.

Indeed, Kurviger will not allow access to any areas or roads that it thinks are closed or with no access. Or more correctly, areas or roads which Open Street Map think are inaccessible. A good example was the ferry port in Spain, which has now been mended.

It makes good sense for it to be that way, simply as plenty of users of Kurviger would be complaing like buggery if the route thrown up by the software saw them being directed down one way streets the wrong way or through no entry barriers or down a footpath or across a field on their fully loaded and planted 1250 GS, lights blazing. As it is, Kurviger can throw up some pretty stupid little deviations, taking the user off a sensible road and onto some meaningless detour, just because it will invoke a left, right, left manoeuvre over maybe a few yards. Sometimes the algorithm really is a bit too extreme. On the whole though it’s not bad. My advice woukd be not not blindly accept what it spits out and to use a bit of common sense whilst riding.

As you say, BaseCamp and MapSource probably do it best, allowing pure on or off road route creation and a mixture of the two. That is because the two pieces of software are more than a ‘Take me from A to D via B and C down twisty roads’ tool.
 
Pocket Earth is only available for iOS

yes, you're right. I've bought an Android device to use for Nav, most apps seem to be either IOS or Android, but Pocket Earth is IOS only and of course Kurviger is Scenic only. If you're a pocket earth user, would you mind doing a quick review along the lines above?
Thanks!
 
This is a useful thread and I have learned a couple of things already. I use a couple of apps for off road cycling but have found an OS map is still absolutely necessary - often to work out where the hell I am after following a well signposted National Trail only to end up in the back end of a farm with a locked gate.:blast

Agreed - it's both good and bad for us here in the UK, as our OS maps are so good. Personally I think that OS is essential if you are planning to go off tarmac, none of the Topo maps really adequately show our rights of way. I know you can just follow a line on a map, but it's very helpful to be able to see other byways and ORPA's etc nearby,
 
TomTom Go
Use case 1 only.
Quick review of this to keep the content coming. It's a paid app, I use it on IOS in the car quite a lot but I've also used it on the back where I just need to get from, er, A to B. It has maps of most places, just download whichever area you want, map updates are included.It's got a speed camera database, shows speed limits which is handy, and it also works with CarPlay. Easy also to do in-route diversions.

It has a good selection of route types, shortest, fastest, eco (whatever that is) windy, avoid motorways, etc and also has good traffic data, it's often routed me around hours of holdups. No track logging, no route upload, just A to B.

Dead easy to use - just enter address, postcode, favourite or someone from your contacts and press go.
 
My Route App

My favourite is My Route App it is so easy to use and plan a route. I just do not get on with basecamp, unless they have changed from a few years ago. I found it clumsy with no flow of process. Have a look as My Route App you might be surprised. I am not associated with My Route App in any way.
 
My favourite is My Route App it is so easy to use and plan a route. I just do not get on with basecamp, unless they have changed from a few years ago. I found it clumsy with no flow of process. Have a look as My Route App you might be surprised. I am not associated with My Route App in any way.

From Post #1

Next up, Locus, Viewranger, TomTom Go, Myroute and a couple more


I'm sure it will score well in pre-planned routes, not so much for A-B routing (it seems to want you create a route rather than just route to an address or POI) or for offroad tracks where the ability to draw a track where none exists on the map is needed, but please feel free to add some detail.
 
The latest email newsletter from Kurviger gives details of several improvements to the ‘Pro’ version of the app, including off-road route plotting.

- Navigation: offline routing (GraphHopper deprecation) (Pro)

For offline routing please use BRouter (with cross border support).

This is BRouter

https://docs.kurviger.de/app/offline_routing#brouter

As I don’t have an android phone, nor riding too much off-road (though I have done some goat tracks on my 1600) I won’t be using it. But some might.

It does show how powerful BaseCamp and MapSource are, as all of this is available as standard, as the OP pointed out.
 
The latest email newsletter from Kurviger gives details of several improvements to the ‘Pro’ version of the app, including off-road route plotting.



This is BRouter

https://docs.kurviger.de/app/offline_routing#brouter

As I don’t have an android phone, nor riding too much off-road (though I have done some goat tracks on my 1600) I won’t be using it. But some might.

It does show how powerful BaseCamp and MapSource are, as all of this is available as standard, as the OP pointed out.

Wapping, I think that’s offline route planning, i.e with no internet connection, rather than off road route planning. I assume that means that previously, an internet connection was required for routing

I’m not sure if a routing app is required for on the fly routing, or just for route planning as yet. And as we’re under house arrest for a few months yet I can’t test it.

I’m just investigating the enormously flexible but very complicated Locus app and it uses the same routing engines

I couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t navigate in Locus, as it’s such a basic feature, till I realised I need to select an online routing engine, internet connect required, or download the Brouter app and then download the geographical area that routing is required in.

But it does show how good the Garmin devices and basecamp are, as we just take all this stuff for granted.


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