does the garmin software learn ?

this is pretty cool, as evidenced by you, if only it learned to fix its firmware.

Don't swear when it's turned on, you don't want it to learn the wrong things.

Ha! More likely, the GPS was probably doing some processing in the background when it stuttered in the past...

- Jon

It does track and learn your driving speed habits on the 10 different road types and uses that information to adjust the estimated arrival time that is displayed while you are navigating the route.

You can see that when you do the route simulation. If you press the left bottom arival time window during the simulation it will display the speed at that moment and you will see after it has tracked your habits for a while that it will be using the speed you normally drive on that road type and not the normal speed for that road type.

I found this out when reading some notes in a Garmin GPS review that detailed how it is done. Tested it out and found that the longer I use the unit the more acurate the arrival time is.

How long does it take to sample these "learned" speed preferences? I am wondering how fast they change, and how many data points are averaged to come to the new numbers.

In the Midwest, there is this moisture that falls from the sky when it is cold, and it's pretty slippery on the roads. Winter driving speeds can vary quite a bit from almost full-summer speeds, to crawling along.

And there is traffic to contend with as well.

I've noticed that my Nuvi 200 does an excellent job of predicting my arrival. The arrival time doesn't change more than a few minutes +/- if there isn't much traffic. When there is traffic, you can't expect it to predict THAT! Maybe the traffic-report enabled GPS's can even account for that. It would be neat if they integrated weather reports into this as well.

My GPS is already smarter than me. It's only a matter of time before skynet decides us humans are no longer necessary

Is this also true for the C580?

They changed my entrence to the highway.
Instead of making a left, I make a right on to a clover leaf.

The Garmin shows me driving through a field before it "recalculates" when I reach the highway.

It would be great if the Garmin would realize something is now different.

Haha

as much as i wished it did. if there's a version that learns the routes I take, please let me know.

I've got a highway I drive everyday and it always gets the route wrong at this one intersection. Instead of staying straight, as I'm supposed to do for another 5 miles, Garmin always says to turn right then left. I recalculates after the intersection and all is well. I even checked the route before leaving home and it does have me staying on that same highway (it just thinks the highway goes a quick right then returns on a quick left).

After many months.....still the same problem. No big deal, but that highway and intersection hasn't changed in 15 years.

I drive the same route every day to work. I transition to another freeway right before I get to work and for the first couple of months, my 350 routed me to stay on the freeway I was on and then recalculated. but, a few months ago it stopped and had the one I take as part of the route. Amazing

im not 100% sure, but it does apear to sort of learn frequent routes, maybe it has to do with learning your average speeds on types, or seections of roads, so i acctually picks up that your way is faster than the default way,

If it actually 'learns'... I'm tossin both geepuss's in the car at my clubs Mayhem meet(Drag racing) in a few weeks.
I should 'nav to' the coordinates at the the end of the turn off lanes.

A few mid 11 sec passes should really screw things up..

i was thinking what could screw it up was when i took it on a plane and it was reading 500 MPH, but then again it wasnt on a specific road.

I was wondering why at one point my Nuvi started trying to avoid a tollway that I'd usually take, but where I'd often get stuck in traffic. The new route was longer and included some non-highway segments. I couldn't understand why this would happen, not believing the software developers would bother implementing a "learning" feature.

Now I understand. The Nuvi probably concluded that I didn't do very good time on the "tollway" class of road, and so some other routes started to look better.

I wish it had another class of road types - those that I frequently use - and it would try to route me onto them, instead of the many I have to route around using via points to mimic my actual travels.

But, this is just for arrival time calculations. If I were using it to get me somewhere that I was not familiar with, I would judge success with my actually getting there, not worrying if there were a slightly quicker option.

I have found the same issue in Tampa. I believe the reason it does it on these certain roads is that sections of the road were built at different times. When they were added the intersections to mapping they don't quite line up making a jog in the road.
The last time this happened with my Nuvi 200w it would have put me in a strip mall if I had listened to it. Sometimes some common sense is needed (when driving) even with a GPS.

Do truck drivers talking on the cell phone while driving scare you?

Do truck drivers talking on the cell phone while driving scare you?

Not anymore than seeing someone read a book or paper or put on make-up while driving.

not as much as crossing pedestrians crossing against the light, or in the middle of the block (not crosswalk) while on the phone, not paying attention, walking into your not moving car lol

I wish my Nuvi 350 would learn how to have a visible screen in sunlight

Until the map files are physically updated, the software most likely cannot account for the change in the real world.

I've got a little entrance to a highway near me that was closed off for years. But until I got my Garmin 760 with the 2009 map update, all the navigation systems including the online ones tried to have me get on the highway through the now non existent entrance.

Write the map maker and sooner or later the map will get changed and your GPSr will know straight instead of that right / left jog.

It happened to me, when the gps ask me to make a right on a street in order to be on the right of way traffic and instead I did went left...after that, every time I pass by the same intersection the gps sends me to the left, I don't know why but...