What is the correct alert distance to use when POI's are close to one another?

 

I have recently added some custom POI lists using the Garmin POI Loader. Sometimes the POIs are clustered within 200 feet or less of each other. When I use an alert distance of 500 ft, many times the alert only shows for one of the POI's. In many cases it never signals the closer POI, which is what I would figure it was signal first. Will it help to set the alert distance to a smaller distance, or could their be some other reason that the alert isn't always working?

do you need all those alerts?

That's a question I ask myself when loading POI. Too many and you become desensitized to the alert function as it always seems to be going off every time you pass a NcDonalds or particular brand of gas station. I limit mine to ones I need to be reminded of such as cameras and ones that I use when traveling. But then again everyone is different.

Your unit should alert for each point, at least pop the message. You may not get the audibles as it is more processor intensive and the system software may come into play there.

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

I don't get the all of the visual alert's either.

Perhaps I wasn't clear in my original post. When I fail to get an audible alert of the POI, I also fail to get a visual alert. Again, my question is with regard to the alert distance and whether that needs to be lessened in order to discriminate between POIs that are close together?

The POI list was not one of my own creation. It was created to be comprehensive. I agree with you that you can become desensitized to the alerts. However, when I am in my hometown, I usually have the alerts turned off. In other unfamiliar places, I have the alerts turned on.

Alerts

I have the alerts on my GPS set for 1000 feet for fast food restaurants. On one particular route that I travel, I have a McDonald's and a Wendy's next to each other. I get both audio and visual alerts when I approach these two places. I do not have the 1490 so maybe it has something to do with the software on these units. Hopefully, someone who has a unit identical to yours can answer the question.

--
With God, all things are possible. ——State motto of the Great State of Ohio

Too Many Alerts

What are these alerts for? Only use alerts for important things like Rest Areas, Cameras or some key traffic issue that you want a warning for.

I sometimes find it annoying enough to get the normal alerts about upcoming turn notifications, let alone having unnecessary alerts for things like coffee shops.

If you desperatly need a coffee or gas, then simply pull over and key in Fuel, etc. and find the closest one.

--
DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

i have an 885

I've got the 885T and the alerts stack on top of each other. So I may have 3 notices all vying for the same piece of screen real estate. They will cycle through though after a pause. It's usually the last one on top.

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

What is the correct alert distance.

The answer is what is importent to you? Give one say 500ft and the other 700ft.

--
Allan Barnett - Garmin nüvi 885T/765T/Pharos GPS (bluetooth) w/MS Maps on PPC

Sometimes, the visual alerts cycle; sometimes, not.

a_user wrote:

I've got the 885T and the alerts stack on top of each other. So I may have 3 notices all vying for the same piece of screen real estate. They will cycle through though after a pause. It's usually the last one on top.

I do notice the same thing, sometimes. That is, when POIs are close in location, that the a single visual alert will pop up, with the most distant POI on top. Then it will cycle to the other closer one.

However, sometimes, it will entirely miss one of the POI's, both visually and audibly. Is this because the alert distance that I set is too great or too short?

Unfortunately, you can't individually set different alert distances for a group list of POI's. POI Loader asks for one alert distance for the entire group.

Gpx files allows you to set

Gpx files allows you to set different distances for each poi as well as speed but time consuming if large file.

--
Charlie. Nuvi 265 WT and Nuvi 2597 LMT. MapFactor Navigator - Offline Maps & GPS.

like Charlie says

charlesd45 wrote:

Gpx files allows you to set different distances for each poi as well as speed but time consuming if large file.

He and I spend a lot of time converting CSV files to GPX so we can do express loads. Because you have 20 columns to play with, you can reserve one for proximity and another for speed but it takes some work with Excel to break the CSV into the fields and then do all the corrections and changes so it displays the way you want it on your unit. I find the standardized format for me is much better as I know what will be displayed where on my screen.

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

Too many POIs.

There are over 1600 POI's in this CSV file.
Although I would like to convert the list, I don't think setting individual alert distances is very practical. Even if I did, would that really make a difference?

Since nobody has yet an answer for my original question, I guess I will just experiment with different alert distances for the list. I suspect that I would be better off with shorter alert distances rather than longer. These POI's are in areas where I would be driving no faster than 35 miles per hour. I just want the POI's to be identifiable on my Nuvi map as I drive by them.
I really don't need a 500 ft notice, and perhaps because that's what I am requesting, the alerts get lost when the POI's are only 200 feet or less apart.
But that's only a guess of what may be happening.

Alerts

I've found the use of the alert is a big pain. I use alerts for rest areas and red light cameras. If I want a place to eat or shop I'll do a manual selection and then select which POI we want. We do this on long trips and my wife does all the inputing.

--
Nuvi 750 and 755T

I guess it depends

BabyDoc wrote:

There are over 1600 POI's in this CSV file.
Although I would like to convert the list, I don't think setting individual alert distances is very practical. Even if I did, would that really make a difference?

It takes me about 1/2 an hour to go through a file of over 4800 locations and about 45 minutes to do the McD file of over 13,000 but again these files are pretty standard when starting.

That leads to the next question. As you mentioned two different places in the original, why don't you separate the file into one for each location - or are you receiving a GPI file somebody has already compiled?

You can start with the same distance for all locations in a file, but then edit individual lines as needed. That's the tedious part. But then again, I'm fairly proficient with Excel.

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

This isn't my own file...

This csv file isn't one that I compiled. To be honest with you, I am NOT proficient at Excel, nor have I even been successful with converting a CSV file to gpx and getting it to run. However, I did convert this file to gpx but I couldn't get the Garmin POIloader to recognize it and load it, unless I am just doing something wrong. (The main reason I converted the file was that I was hoping that contained phone numbers could be dialed via bluetooth).

Are you using Extra Poi

Are you using Extra Poi Editor to convert the files to gpx at http://turboccc.wikispaces.com/Extra_POI_Editor ?If yes go to options,preferences and under filter make sure check mark in enable automatic phone number extraction.

If you want distance built in to the file and want to using feet for distance you need to set the preferences .

When you download the program if you get message about OCX file missing scroll down on the main page and under troubleshooting you will find the Extra Poi Editor Installer that you will need to download. Once installation is completed you will need to set up the preferences you want first. Under options click on preferences. For example using ft for input. Under units you will see editor, select Imperial/US. For Field Read select metric and Field save select Metric. After setting your preferences click on file and click open to select from your computer the file you want to build the distance alerts for. Then go to edit and click on replace field. Once the next screen comes up use the down arrow for Field name and pick proximity. Under new field value put in the distance in feet you want for the alert. Then click replace all. You now have distance set for each custom poi. Then save as a gpx file. You will lose the built in alert if you save as a csv file. The nice thing about this method is that you can use express mode for poiloader.

--
Charlie. Nuvi 265 WT and Nuvi 2597 LMT. MapFactor Navigator - Offline Maps & GPS.

I have had no luck with the

I have had no luck with the Extra POI Editor - EVER.

Because the CSV file is copyrighted, I can't post or share this file with anybody here who will help me.
I was successful in converting the file, using another utility:

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/convert_input

This utility doesn't mention extracting phone numbers, so I don't know if it is going to let me do bluetooth dialing anyway, even if I could load it which I can't when I try with Garmin POI Loader. When I look at the gpx file I got, it is in xml format, whatever that means, and the POILoader doesn't recognize it as a valid file. The strange thing is I CAN load this supposed gpx file into the EXTRA_POI Editor.

200 feet minimum

You need a certain amount of time to respond to the alert. It's unsafe to have alerts that are closer than 200 feet because you will be forced to brake too fast and risk a rear-end accident. Some of the worst injuries come from rear-ending.
Jen

I understand...

I understand what you are saying. I really don't intend to jam on the breaks. I just want to see the POI's pop up on my Map as I drive. That's one nice thing about custom POI's. Unlike the POI's that are built into your Garmin which will never show up on the VIEW MAP as you drive, unless you designate them favorites, custom POI's will show up if you set alerts. My only problem has been that POI's close together don't seem to get separated well enough to show up when I drive.

Using EPE

BabyDoc wrote:

I have had no luck with the Extra POI Editor - EVER.

POILoader doesn't recognize it as a valid file. The strange thing is I CAN load this supposed gpx file into the EXTRA_POI Editor.

If you can load your "supposed gpx" into EPE, try resaving it with EPE. If it then opens in MapSource, it will work with POI Loader in my experience.

EPE has worked very well for me. What problems were you having? If your csv is copyrighted, maybe the author came up with a special character in the name or comments that causes conversion programs to choke.

A way to test this is a binary search for the offending csv POI entry.
1. Save the first half of the csv file into another name.
2. Convert to gpx and see if MapSource/POI Loader works.
3. If not, cut the half again. If so, Add in another 1/4.
4. Repeat until you identify the one causing the problem.
5. The error should be obvious at this point.

--
Zumo 550 & Zumo 665 My alarm clock is sunshine on chrome.

OK - now that i have a better understanding

BabyDoc wrote:

I understand what you are saying. I really don't intend to jam on the breaks. I just want to see the POI's pop up on my Map as I drive. That's one nice thing about custom POI's. Unlike the POI's that are built into your Garmin which will never show up on the VIEW MAP as you drive, unless you designate them favorites, custom POI's will show up if you set alerts. My only problem has been that POI's close together don't seem to get separated well enough to show up when I drive.

Now that I have a better understanding of what you are attempting to accomplish, you could download one of the "silent" files and use it instead of the voice alert. Of course, it would mean you wouldn't get an alert when you wanted one as it is silent. I often just let it "bong" by not using a custom sound.

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

..Only bongs...

Actually, there are no voice alerts with these POI's. It bongs, but only visually shows you at most two POI's even though there may be others close by. I still think it has something to do with the alert distance, but don't know for sure. I guess since nobody has an answer for me, I will just experiment with shorter alert distances and see if that helps to show more POI's when they are clustered in the same vicinity of each other.

Copyrighted or Protected

BabyDoc wrote:

I have had no luck with the Extra POI Editor - EVER.

Because the CSV file is copyrighted, I can't post or share this file with anybody here who will help me.
I was successful in converting the file, using another utility:

http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/convert_input

This utility doesn't mention extracting phone numbers, so I don't know if it is going to let me do bluetooth dialing anyway, even if I could load it which I can't when I try with Garmin POI Loader. When I look at the gpx file I got, it is in xml format, whatever that means, and the POILoader doesn't recognize it as a valid file. The strange thing is I CAN load this supposed gpx file into the EXTRA_POI Editor.

If the csv file is protected it's relatively easy to bypass the protection. Simply highlight all the rows and columns that have the info you want and then paste it into a new file. It removes the protection but you lose the formatting such as column width, etc. You also lose any links to other pages on a multipage spreadsheet.but that is of no concern.

I used to do this all the time when the accounting types would refuse to give me the password for multipage spreadsheets that they wanted me to use for my budget stuff.

As far as copyright is concerned, this procedure will likely bypass that but as long as you aren't posting this file or sharing with others, it should not be an issue, either legally or ethically.

--
DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

Voice Alerts

BabyDoc wrote:

Actually, there are no voice alerts with these POI's. It bongs, but only visually shows you at most two POI's even though there may be others close by. I still think it has something to do with the alert distance, but don't know for sure. I guess since nobody has an answer for me, I will just experiment with shorter alert distances and see if that helps to show more POI's when they are clustered in the same vicinity of each other.

You will only get voice alerts, if you have loaded a voice file either wav or mp3 with the same file name as the csv or gpx file.

However, a voice file would get even more confusing, if you got two or more close together.

--
DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)