Garmin 765T Questions

 

I got this great little toy for Christmas, and since then I've gotten everything figured out other than 3 items. Many thanks to all of you and this site! Here are the remaining issues, any help or pointers to info is appreciated:
1) The Car Finder function doesn't seem to really do anything. I have tried putting it in Pedestrian and Bicycle mode but the resolution is not good enough to actually find the car. Gets me within maybe a hundred feet, I expected better.
2) Lane Assist hasn't worked. The button is always greyed out. I've gotten into a few situations where I would have expected the GPS to tell me to switch lanes. The tiny graphic in the corner DOES seem to work, showing which lane I'm in.
3) Have still not figured out how to use the efficient routing capability. We live way rural and get to town to shop about once a month. Last time I entered in seven or eight places we had to stop and it really didn't do anything other than direct me in a path from the first to last as I entered them. No minimizing of the route at all. I'm sure I'm missing something...

I love the device, it really is handy for finding places we haven't been before.

Lane assist

mpan wrote:

I got this great little toy for Christmas, and since then I've gotten everything figured out other than 3 items. Many thanks to all of you and this site! Here are the remaining issues, any help or pointers to info is appreciated:
1) The Car Finder function doesn't seem to really do anything. I have tried putting it in Pedestrian and Bicycle mode but the resolution is not good enough to actually find the car. Gets me within maybe a hundred feet, I expected better.
2) Lane Assist hasn't worked. The button is always greyed out. I've gotten into a few situations where I would have expected the GPS to tell me to switch lanes. The tiny graphic in the corner DOES seem to work, showing which lane I'm in.
3) Have still not figured out how to use the efficient routing capability. We live way rural and get to town to shop about once a month. Last time I entered in seven or eight places we had to stop and it really didn't do anything other than direct me in a path from the first to last as I entered them. No minimizing of the route at all. I'm sure I'm missing something...

I love the device, it really is handy for finding places we haven't been before.

I never noticed button on my 765T for Lane Assist, it has just appeared periodically with no input from me. Not all interchanges support that feature. So you may not have been in an area which was supported.

--
Garmin c340, Nuvi 350, Nuvi 765T, Nuvi 2360LMT

Junction view - Optimal routing

mpan wrote:

1) The Car Finder function doesn't seem to really do anything. I have tried putting it in Pedestrian and Bicycle mode but the resolution is not good enough to actually find the car. Gets me within maybe a hundred feet, I expected better.

Typicaly satellite accuracy is more like 25' to 50', so 100' seems a little off. Because of the map scale, it is kind of hard in off-road or pedestrian mode to see your actual location and navigate very precisely using the map.

mpan wrote:

2) Lane Assist hasn't worked. The button is always greyed out. I've gotten into a few situations where I would have expected the GPS to tell me to switch lanes. The tiny graphic in the corner DOES seem to work, showing which lane I'm in.

I think you are getting lane assist (multiple arrows in upper left corner) mixed up with Junction view (photo realistic picture of intersection with traffic signs). Junction view is not available at as many interchanges as lane assist.

mpan wrote:

3) Have still not figured out how to use the efficient routing capability. We live way rural and get to town to shop about once a month. Last time I entered in seven or eight places we had to stop and it really didn't do anything other than direct me in a path from the first to last as I entered them. No minimizing of the route at all.

I assume you are questioning the optimal routing for multiple points and not asking how to do it. But just in case ... while the route is active, press Menu - Routes - Active route - Optimally reorder points. I would have to agree that optimizing a route that is not "linear" does not always work as you would expect.

--
Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

Reordering points

mpan wrote:

3) Have still not figured out how to use the efficient routing capability. We live way rural and get to town to shop about once a month. Last time I entered in seven or eight places we had to stop and it really didn't do anything other than direct me in a path from the first to last as I entered them. No minimizing of the route at all. I'm sure I'm missing something...

I love the device, it really is handy for finding places we haven't been before.

Once you have the points entered in the route press Next, then Save.

Now select the route you just saved. Press Edit then Optimally Reorder Points.

It then reorders and recalculates the route.

Done!

Hope I can help. My GPS is

Hope I can help. My GPS is a Garmin 1290T but it should work similar.

mpan wrote:

1) The Car Finder function doesn't seem to really do anything. I have tried putting it in Pedestrian and Bicycle mode but the resolution is not good enough to actually find the car. Gets me within maybe a hundred feet, I expected better.

Can't help you here.

Quote:

2) Lane Assist hasn't worked. The button is always greyed out. I've gotten into a few situations where I would have expected the GPS to tell me to switch lanes. The tiny graphic in the corner DOES seem to work, showing which lane I'm in.

To my knowledge, you don't do anything special. If the map database has lane assist date for the approaching intersection you will get a small display in the upper left corner of your unit which shows a number of arrows equal to the number of lanes in the approaching intersection. Some number of these arrows will be bright, the rest dim. You should be in one of the bright lanes.

Quote:

3) Have still not figured out how to use the efficient routing capability. We live way rural and get to town to shop about once a month. Last time I entered in seven or eight places we had to stop and it really didn't do anything other than direct me in a path from the first to last as I entered them. No minimizing of the route at all. I'm sure I'm missing something...

Never tried to do this. I think it's available, but computer ordering of points is not always what you expect.

mpan wrote: 2) Lane Assist

mpan wrote:

2) Lane Assist hasn't worked. The button is always greyed out. I've gotten into a few situations where I would have expected the GPS to tell me to switch lanes. The tiny graphic in the corner DOES seem to work, showing which lane I'm in.

I also wondered about "lane assist". My GPS would tell me to take an interstate "right" or "left" but was not showing me anything. I verified the "lane assist" capability by asking for a route to a place "far, far away" - in my case Canada where I go to visit friends. Then, after I hit "Go", I used "turn by turn" to see what was going to happen (tap the green bar at the top of the screen and use the down arrows on bottom right to look at each turn). Lo and behold, I got lane assists in those instances where there were three possible routes I could take. "lane assist" showed me graphically how to proceed. I think Garmin is assuming that you and I can easily handle left and right (which I hope is correct) but might want to be forewarned when there were three or more options.

Try it, you will like it.

We will be traveling through a couple major cities

in a couple weeks, which will be a much better test of the lane assist than the medium-size towns we travel to for shopping.

I have to say, the user guide info Garmin provides is sad sad sad. I exhausted the resources they provide pretty quickly and still had many questions. Also, I have read here how good their customer service is, but I've not been able to get through to them at all. Four tries since Dec 26 '09. Waited on hole 92 minutes the first time, about 20 minutes the others. Have given up on them.

User Manual

mpan wrote:

in a couple weeks, which will be a much better test of the lane assist than the medium-size towns we travel to for shopping.

I have to say, the user guide info Garmin provides is sad sad sad.

Did you look here?
http://www8.garmin.com/manuals/2721_OwnersManual.pdf

--
ɐ‾nsǝɹ Just one click away from the end of the Internet

Yes, I have that user manual, it's

hmmm, how can I say this so Miss Poi doesn't delete my post...It's pretty, but not overly informative. For instance, on page 14, under the Using Custom Routes section, Step 4, bullet point #4, "Optimum Reorder Points" is explained as "Automatically reorder points". Now how the heck helpful is that? The explanation paraphrases the question, doesn't explain what this means at all. Useless. The entire manual is simpleminded like this and it's shameful of Garmin imho. I truly like this website, but I should not have to come here to get basic information. Garmin can certainly do better than this. I hope, but doubt, they will see this post.

Ok, got that off my chest. I left my grumpy place and am back in my happy place smile

mpan wrote: 3) Have still

mpan wrote:

3) Have still not figured out how to use the efficient routing capability. We live way rural and get to town to shop about once a month. Last time I entered in seven or eight places we had to stop and it really didn't do anything other than direct me in a path from the first to last as I entered them. No minimizing of the route at all. I'm sure I'm missing something...

mpan, I don't understand your frustration. Your post said nothing about your having read the manusl and having tried both "manually reorder points" and "optimally reorder points", yet not getting the results you felt were the best "minimizing of the route". It sounded like you had not done anything at all - and the route remained in the "order" in which you entered the points.

Can you give us some details of what happens when "optimally" is chosen?

Now I agree that the "bullet point" and the explanation are not much different, but I would not have anticipated that Garmin could say much more that would better describe what would happen.