POI alerts on Garmin Nuvi 350

Despite what others posted after me on the Groundspeak forum, what I posted there is the way that the alerts work.

It's important to understand how the proximity alerts work on Garmin auto units.

The alerts do NOT function as a radius, but rather they function as an "along the road/route" alert.

In order to get an alert several things must be true.

1. You must set an alert either through information in the file or via POI Loader being run in Manual Mode and an alert being manually entered.

2. Alerts must be enabled on your unit.

3. You must be traveling on the road on which the POI is located and traveling in the direction of the POI.

4. The POI must be sufficiently close to the road (typically 50 feet or less).

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Check out this page for more information about alerts.

Hornbyp's guide to setting alerts with POI Loader
http://www.poi-factory.com/node/6764

Everyone here with the 350 gets alerts.

As an additional test to what you have already done, how about creating another simple CSV file with a point directly on a intersection somewhere.

Be sure that the file only contains the minimum required information to rule out a problem with the file.

longitude,latitude,name

Load this file using POI Loader in Manual Mode and set a proximity alert of 1000 feet.

Then simulate a route that crosses this point and see if you get the red alert bar at the top of your map screen.

If you still aren't getting alerts, I would perform a hard reset. This will probably clear all your data so backup your Favorites first.

If you still aren't getting alerts and the alerts have been enabled on your unit, then you may indeed have a hardware issue.

Just to confirm, I get alerts just fine and I have a 350. Check what MM said, and you should also get alerts.

Thanks. I set up a test route from A to B following the alert criteria with a POI defined on it an intersection and used POI Loader to define a 1000ft alert. No alerts were flagged when I navigated the route. I loaded the same csv file into my Garmin GPSmap60CSx and it worked fine. I am now convinced I have a faulty unit and will return it.

I don't have my gpsr right now, but are you sure that you checked "custom pois" in the proximity set up? If you didn't, it won't alert.

And if you haven't, I would try a hard reset before returning it.

Yes, the Custom POIs box is ticked and I did a hard reset as well before loading. I noticed that the supplier indicated that the 350 was a "white box" product meaning the it had been returned for some reason (like a cable missing) and repackaged by Garmin. There may have been more wrong that just a cable missing in this case!

What MM issaying is good advise., i have the walmart alters load and two that I go by alert every thime the main one I go to is in a shopping comlpex and it will not alert same with the school alerts.

I have a question regarding this. I use a 76CSx for both geocaching and routing. When I make a route from Chico, CA to a destination south of there and pass through Marysville, CA I get a "red light camera" alert. The camera in question is a full block off of my route and I never pass through that intersection. If the POI must be on your route and doesn't work as a radius, then WHY do I get the alert?

I also get a similar alert whenever I visit my office in Northeast Sacramento. The camera in question is a full block away and I don't go through that intersection at all but any route that takes me to the corner a full block away triggers the alert even though my route has me turning RIGHT at that corner and the camera would only be encountered if I were to turn LEFT and then travel a long city block.

Please note that I'm not attempting to be argumentative here. I really want to understand what is going on.

My experience with my nüvi 200, which I just posted in detail in another thread, so won't repeat here, is that you will get an alert when you are in range of the alert location and on a route that *COULD* take you past the alert.

Meaning, if there is an intersection you will pass that you could turn on to pass the alert location, you will get an alert. Once you have passed the places were you could have turned to pass the alert, you should stop getting the alert.

So you don't necessarily have to be ON the road where the alert is, but be on a route that might take you past it. Once you have eliminated the reasonable ways past that location (reasonable = no U-Turns) then the alert is eliminated.

PT

Hey, thrak. I appreciate your question.

Now, bear in mind that my experience with Garmin handhelds is somewhat limited. However, I believe that the alerts function differently on the handhelds than they do on the auto units. So, I'm not sure if all of this applies to handhelds.

My experience has been that if the alert is set large enough (5 or 6 miles or so), you will sometimes also get an alert when your are on a street that is parallel to the road on which the POI is located. I believe that this is due to the "along the road/route" function.

However, if you are the exact same distance away but traveling on a street that is perpendicular to the road on which the POI is located, the alert will not go off.

Also, my thought is that POIs that are exactly in the middle of an intersections will likely be interpreted to be on both streets and will alert from all sides.

Personally, I never use alerts that are beyond a mile because I don't want the alert going off the entire time.

I was looking at the site
http://brillharts.com/GarminAlerts/ and a distinction seems to be made between alerts for POIs centred on the route being navigated and those for routes passing within a circle of prescribed radius around a POI. According to the article the latter corresponds to gpx files with "Tourguide" in their name. I've never tried making a Tourguide so I can't verify this.

Yeah, TourGuides are different from regular POIs and the way their alert function. The alerts on TourGuides function as a radius due to how they are designed to activate.

That's a great guide by Dave.

Just a brief follow-up on this one. All of my failed tests were done
walking a local short route containing the POI alerts. I decided to mount
the unit in the car (for the first time) and did a test drive along the same route.
To my surprise everything worked fine! Is there a simple explanation
for this? It would seem perhaps that the device needs the higher
car speed to trigger it into action.

Hmm ... maybe Phil has an idea about that.

Glad you got it working.

Just an FYI for the future, you can SIMULATE a route past a Custom POI on the unit to see if the alert is produced without having to actually drive it.

I've certainly seen the same symptoms...but don't really have an explanation. Yours is as good as any

I have noticed that Proximity alerts sometimes re-trigger if you're driving, and you stop and set off again, which is maybe related.

There will be some rationale to all this -if only we could figure it out!

I'd forgotten about the SIMULATE feature with GPS off. I ran it and it did give the alerts correctly. Thanks for the reminder.

As a final final test I mounted it again in my car and drove past a nearby POI. I found that there was no alert until my speed was greater than about 2.4 mph. I then cycled past it at 10 mph and it worked OK again. Finally I walked past it again at 4 mph (phew!) and it did not work! It seems to have something to do with speed but the walking experiment introduces doubt. Of course I only want to use the 350 in my car so the problem has become academic. My GPSmap60CSx does alert OK while walking.

This morning I set up all my POI alerts using GeePeeEx. Great piece of software Phil! Thanks.