Killswitch

Got a question:

I want a small form factor, inexpensive, simple GPS, to use on
occasional (4-5 times year) motorcycle roadtrips.
I'm thinking either:
Nuvi 1250 (small form factor, XX50 for speed limit indicator),or
Nuvi 755 (cause I'm led to believe I need routing, but I don't really
care for the bigger size).
My GPS experience... I've used a borrowed Nuvi 205 on several car trips.

I've no interest in bluetooth, traffic, mp3, etc... but I do want
to pre-plan a trip and set up waypoints ahead of time.

My preference is to go for the 1250, but I don't fully understand
the routing feature to know what I'd be missing. In my travels, I
would still carry a paper map, and trip notes.


Regarding the route feature...
Let's say I plan, and download a route to the Nuvi.

My trip starts on Road A, at waypoint A.
I continue along Road A, to waypoint B.
I go thru waypoint B. What happens on the GPS?

Does it show arrived at waypoint B?
Does it automatically move on toward navigating to waypoint C?
Do you have to acknowledge anything (press a screen button)?
Do I need to go thru waypoint B within a certain distance?

What if, just before getting to waypoint B, I disregard the
GPS, and take an intentional detour that takes me outside and
beyond waypoint B, having done that, and looking back at the GPS,
how do you proceed to waypoint C, having omitting waypoint B?

With regards to route planning without routing capabilities,
on the 1250, I was thinking this.....
I plan a route on Tyre (Trace your route everywhere) software,
which allows me to plan using GoogleMaps, and spits out a GPX file
of the waypoints (POI's).
Copy the GPX file onto a flashcard.
Put the flashcard into the 1250, and load the route as a
custom POI. (BTW: The route would be in a folder named "route01",
and each waypoint in the route folder, named wayp_A, wayp_B, etc...

Does this work the way I envision it?

If so, on the Nuvi, can I go to POI/Custom POI/Route01/wayp_B,
hit "GO", and have it navigate me to waypoint B?
Then when I reach waypoint B, bring up wayp_C, and have it recalc
to waypoint C?


If this is covered elsewhere, (how routing works) in great detail,
please point me to it. Thanks in advance.

HumVee

Welcome to the GPS Discussion forum, Killswitch. I'm a Honda VFR800A rider - what do you ride? I will be happy to take a crack at your questions. First, however, I want to give you my opinion on GPS units. Although I don't personally own one, I highly recommend the nüvi 500/nüvi 550 series. Check out the demo video. Here is a comparison chart of them plus the 1250 & 755T that you are already considering. The 500 & 550 are physically identical, and only differ in the kind of maps they come pre-loaded with. The 550 comes with a full City Navigator NT road map, while the 500 comes with a smaller roadmap (lower 48 US states in the SKU you would likely consider, # 010-00700-10) but also includes topographical maps of the same region. In addition, the 500/550's have Routing capabilities (which the 1250 does not) and Speed Indicator features (which all four units do - but be aware that the indicated speed shown can occassionally be wrong...I know this from personal experience).


What the 500/550's have that the others don't is:

• IPX7 water/dust proofing - a very nice thing to have on a motorcycle!
• Route capable - the 755T is route capable, but not the 1250.
• 8 hour battery life - twice as long as the others.
• Geocaching friendly - a fun outdoor activity (check out sites like Geocaching.com).
• Multiple navigation modes - car, scooter/bike, pedestrian & boating (navigation behavior can be set to be different for each mode).
• User replaceable batteries - in a few years when the batteries die, it's a simple matter to replace them (unlike the other units, which are sealed)

The latter also means that you can carry spares if you don't want to buy the powered motocycle cradle. You might also want to purchase the handlebar mounting bracket - both items are a lot less expensive on GPSCity's website ($40 for the cradle, and $26 for the bracket). The n500 & n550 are running $258 on Amazon right now, while the n1250 is running $116 and the n755T is running $182. While the n500/n550's are about twice what you're currently looking at, I think that they would hold up the best over time.

Okay, enough of that...on to your questions!

• All 4 GPS units are capable of saving multiple Waypoints (in fact, I'd guess nearly every GPS unit is capable of this basic capability)
• Not every GPS unit is capable of saving Routes (a series of waypoints strung together) - the n1250 can't, while the other 3 can
• Being able to plan and save Routes to your GPS unit before your trip is invaluable, and potentially much more useful than just saving a bunch of Waypoints (read on to learn why)

• When following a Route, the GPS unit automatically updates to show the next destination, without any user intervention.
• If you were using a GPS unit that could only do Waypoints, then it would keep trying to guide you to that waypoint until you manually cancelled it and selected the next waypoint you want to head towards.
• This is fairly easy if the next waypoint you want to get to is physically the closest (because Garmin GPS units show the Waypoints sorted by proximity to your location) - but if for some reason your next destination was physically further as the crow flies, then you'd have to scan down your waypoint list and find the one you want.
• For this reason, people who don't have a Route capable GPS unit tend to sequentially number their Waypoints so that they know which one to manually select next.
• On a Route capable unit, you do have to travel through the waypoint within a few feet - then it clears that waypoint and automatically selects the next.
• You can always choose an alternate path, and even to bypass a waypoint entirely - but the GPS unit will always try to re-route back to your missed waypoint.
• You can easily delete a waypoint (or add a waypoint) on the fly to your Route, right on the GPS device itself. If you choose to skip a waypoint, you would use this capablility to tell the GPS unit to move on to the next waypoint.
• If you already know where you are, and where you wish to go, you can simply ignore the route prompts on your GPS unit until you return to your planned path and heading.

• No - it doesn't work that way.
  • A POI list is a collection of waypoints, not a route - each individual waypoint entry in the POI list is discrete, and not associated to its neighbors.
  • You could open the GPX file in a spreadsheet program like Microsoft Excel, and resort them and save the file - it would have no real impact on how the POI's behave individually.
• Unless you named each waypoint sequentially (001, 002, 003, etc.) it might become difficult to find and select your next waypoint quickly.
  • This could be a real problem, if you created custom waypoints to ensure that you remained on specific roads and multiple turns came up in rapid succession.
  • It would be less of a problem if your waypoints were more general (go to town A, then town B, etc.).
• Also, Garmin GPS units don't accept custom POI's by just dumping them into a flash memory card.
  • You must use Garmin POI Loader to manage custom Waypoints (like a collection of your favorite brand coffee shops, restaurant chains or gas stations).
• This is different from sending Waypoints or Routes to your GPS unit - which is done without POI Loader (although you may use a program like Garmin MapSource or online mapping programs like Google Maps or MapQuest to send Waypoints or Routes to your GPS unit (which requires you to install the Garmin Communicator plugin).
  • Currently, Google Maps won't send Routes - just individual Waypoints.
  • There is a 3rd party tool called TakItWithMe that allows you to take a route from Googe Maps myMaps and create a Route to send to your GPS unit (it's a bit klunky, but works)
  • MapQuest has in the past supported sending both Waypoints and entire Routes to a Garmin GPS unit - but it has been broken for over a month and still hasn't been fixed yet.

Carrying paper maps & trip notes (& maybe an analog compass) is always a good choice. They are an excellent backup that doesn't take up very much room in your kit. Tyre looks like interesting software. I'll have to check it out. The description is TomTom centric - but if the GPX file that is produced follows standard formatting, then I don't see why it wouldn't work with any GPS unit that could see the GPX file.

Since the n1250 isn't Route capable, I would argue against buying that model for your needs. That leaves the n755T, which is $76 less than the n500/n550 - but doesn't have all the advantages of the 5x5 series I listed above.

Woody469

I tried using Mapquest to send a route to my Zumo 550 and it shortened my route? I assume it recalculated it but I made up a really cool scenic route and wanted to put it on my Zumo just as it was! Any idea where I went wrong or if I can even make this work?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Andy

When Mapquest sends the route, what it really sends are waypoints. The Zumo 550 just picked a different route based on those waypoints. Try using more waypoints.

rainman19154

A noobie jumping into the thread...

I've only had my Nuvi 255W for a couple days, so there's more ignorance than knowledge here.
But I think I've have this right....

Use Google or Mapquest to create my route, which will really just be a set of waypoints. I want to run that list through some kind of editor so that I can give them sequential names. 001, 002 etc. Then I load the waypoints into my 255w.
Hopefully, because they're sequential I can efficiently punch them in as waypoints on a new trip, or just pick them single use as I reach each point along the way.
There is no way to load a 'route' and then select it preformated as my current 'trip'?