Google Maps!

 

I went on a road trip from Toronto to Myrtle Beach and plotted my route on Google maps and then sent the route to my Garmin nuvi 660. Going down was fine it followed the Google route no problem. But coming home it did not go the same route that i programmed in for the return trip.

Did anybody else have this happen? Or does it even work and my Garmin just followed its own calculated route. Or maybe I did it wrong or both.LOL

Any Thoughts!

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Nuvi 660. Nuvi 40 Check out. www.houserentalsorlando.com Irish Saying. A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.

My vote

My vote goes to "does it even work and my Garmin just followed its own calculated route". grin That's because the 660 does not support multi point routing either my creating them on the device or downloading them from Google or other sources.

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Nuvi 350, 760, 1695LM, 3790LMT, 2460LMT, 3597LMTHD, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, DriveSmart 61, Garmin Drive 52, Garmin Backup Camera 40 and TomTom XXL540s.

One Stop

According to the manual for the 660 (page 13), you can add one stop to a route.

Did you have more than one?

I had no stops. It was a

I had no stops. It was a point A to point B route.

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Nuvi 660. Nuvi 40 Check out. www.houserentalsorlando.com Irish Saying. A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.

That's the Subtle Difference

Irish FX4 wrote:

I had no stops. It was a point A to point B route.

Yeah, that's the subtle difference in how Garmin's handle "Routes" between models. All of them seem to want to recalculate between points according to your unit's routing preferences.

The models that store routes (or allow "via's") allow x number of "in-between" points and with careful placement of them you can usually control the recalculation to how you like & follow the path you want. Zumo's & the Trucker models may have better limits/options/controls (I think..I can't afford a Zumo, and I'm not a trucker!) since motorcyclists and truckers generally aren't just concerned with fastest or shortest.

You'll even see comments here about how someone's Garmin had them jump off & back on limited access highways for no obvious reason, but probably because the traffic avoidance thought it was quicker to bypass a section.

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It's about the Line- If a line can be drawn between the powers granted and the rights retained, it would seem to be the same thing, whether the latter be secured by declaring that they shall not be abridged, or that the former shall not be extended.

MapSource

Irish FX4 wrote:

I went on a road trip from Toronto to Myrtle Beach and plotted my route on Google maps and then sent the route to my Garmin nuvi 660. Going down was fine it followed the Google route no problem. But coming home it did not go the same route that i programmed in for the return trip.

Did anybody else have this happen? Or does it even work and my Garmin just followed its own calculated route. Or maybe I did it wrong or both.LOL

Any Thoughts!

It might be doing the same thing that MapSource does. I have done a route going and another route for the return trip and they will be different. I just chalk it up to being the nature of the beast. It would be interesting to talk to the people that wrote the software.

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Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

There is

Don B wrote:

It might be doing the same thing that MapSource does. I have done a route going and another route for the return trip and they will be different. I just chalk it up to being the nature of the beast. It would be interesting to talk to the people that wrote the software.

There is a lot of calculations involved in coming up with a route, including the various preferences you have set up in Mapsource and/or on your GPS. It is not uncommon to have one route getting from point A to Point B and a different one from Point B back to Point A.

Some of the factors that could cause this are things we don't really thing off. One is the number of left and right turns involved in your route. For example, I'm told that most routing calculations include a variable that says in places where we drive on the right side of the road, left turns will always take longer than right turns.

So if you have your route preferences set for "Faster/Fastest Time, and Point A to B requires a lot of right hand turns, your return route may be different because making all those left turns coming back causes the route calculation to pick a different route to make it the Faster/Fastest way to go.

Other factors will also come into play, like one way streets, avoidance's you have set etc. so you really have to look at the whole set of variables between your A to B trip compared to the B to A route to understand why they would be different.

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Nuvi 350, 760, 1695LM, 3790LMT, 2460LMT, 3597LMTHD, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, DriveSmart 61, Garmin Drive 52, Garmin Backup Camera 40 and TomTom XXL540s.

With newer units

With newer units "trafficTrends" plays a very large role in your route. If you set a route at 8pm it will be different then if you set it at 1pm. Sometimes it is a good option and other times, well lets just say it will leave scratching your head as to why you just got off a highway to go along some secondary road.

Careful Plotting

I use Mapsource to program a series of via points, but I am very careful to make sure that the via point is at a location that will definitely force the GPS in the right direction. That means putting it at the end of a ramp where you're going to another highway. Putting it at the beginning, could still allow the GPS to follow it's own logic.

I also go to go to satellite mode, by pulling all the points up into Extra POI Editor. That way, I'm sure I'm in the proper position.

Be sure to have different routing for coming and going.

One further trick, is I start the name of each via a point with a sequential number, so that I know for sure which is the next via point.

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DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

Traffic Trends/my trends

jefft186 wrote:

With newer units "trafficTrends" plays a very large role in your route. If you set a route at 8pm it will be different then if you set it at 1pm. Sometimes it is a good option and other times, well lets just say it will leave scratching your head as to why you just got off a highway to go along some secondary road.

How does this compare to My Trends? I believe this is different in some way...

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Streetpilot C340 Nuvi 2595 LMT

no pre-planned routes for me

davidkbrown wrote:

One further trick, is I start the name of each via a point with a sequential number, so that I know for sure which is the next via point.

I have been putting the points in the favorites using a number like you suggest. I navigate to each one and then as I approach, I stop that route and "Where To" the next point. This way Jill does not annoy Barbara by announcing all the via points.

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1490LMT 1450LMT 295w

Load as Custom POI

spokybob wrote:
davidkbrown wrote:

One further trick, is I start the name of each via a point with a sequential number, so that I know for sure which is the next via point.

I have been putting the points in the favorites using a number like you suggest. I navigate to each one and then as I approach, I stop that route and "Where To" the next point. This way Jill does not annoy Barbara by announcing all the via points.

I load as a custom POI, after I use Extra POI Editor to fine tune it. That way, I can have two totally different file names, to ensure no confusion.

I also have made use of a trick that may or may not be unique to the NUVI 350. For some reason, the 350 has an odd sort order for Custom POIs, when you make a series of subdirectories for your POIs.

I have made sub directories on mt SD card for Custm POIs, such as Rest Areas, Red Light, Business, Vacation, Personal.

However, the 350 first sorts on the date/time of creation of the subdirectory, then it sorts the Custom POI file names alphebetiaclly after that.

I made sure that I new what subdirectory names I wanted and what were priority for ease of use.

I created in the following order:
Vacation, Business, Rest Areas, Personal, Red Light.

When I go to Custom POIs, the Vacation POIs are the first that I see on the screen, which makes it quick and easy select the next Via Point.

After that, I have Business, because I drive a shuttle part time and I want to find the Business POIs that I created easily.

Things like Red Light are the lowest priority for selection, because they are all Proximity Alerts and I have never had to actually look one up, while traveling.

Rest Areas are created to come after Business, since when you are traveling, you might want to fairly easily locate how far it is to the next one, especially if you are in urgent need of a pee break.

I also delete any files that are currently not in use. If I'm not on Vacation, I don't need the files showing up. Besides, chances are you may never need that file again. If you're on Vacation, why do you need Business to show up.

This ensures that all the important files are all on the first screen.

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DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

In some ways they both work

In some ways they both work the same way except mytrends keeps track of a route you travel on a regular basis such as work and it learns over a period of time and then will start to sugest a better or faster route as well as a more accurate ETA. trafficTrends uses pre programed info they have collected over time of known slow areas and other info and therefore can be out of date but usualy fairly accurate.

route

davidkbrown wrote:

I use Mapsource to program a series of via points, but I am very careful to make sure that the via point is at a location that will definitely force the GPS in the right direction. That means putting it at the end of a ramp where you're going to another highway. Putting it at the beginning, could still allow the GPS to follow it's own logic.

I also go to go to satellite mode, by pulling all the points up into Extra POI Editor. That way, I'm sure I'm in the proper position.

Be sure to have different routing for coming and going.

One further trick, is I start the name of each via a point with a sequential number, so that I know for sure which is the next via point.

I just zoom in and use the rubber band tool.

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Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

Rubber Band Doesn't Help on NUVI 350

Don B wrote:
davidkbrown wrote:

I use Mapsource to program a series of via points, but I am very careful to make sure that the via point is at a location that will definitely force the GPS in the right direction. That means putting it at the end of a ramp where you're going to another highway. Putting it at the beginning, could still allow the GPS to follow it's own logic.

I also go to go to satellite mode, by pulling all the points up into Extra POI Editor. That way, I'm sure I'm in the proper position.

Be sure to have different routing for coming and going.

One further trick, is I start the name of each via a point with a sequential number, so that I know for sure which is the next via point.

I just zoom in and use the rubber band tool.

The rubber band will help you set you route, but you still have to have Waypoints loaded into the 350 to actually have it follow the route you want.

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DriveSmart 65, NUVI2555LMT, (NUVI350 is Now Retired)

Why

David wrote

Quote:

I load as a custom POI, after I use Extra POI Editor to fine tune it. That way, I can have two totally different file names, to ensure no confusion.

I'm confused. Why are you loading the via points into custom pois if all the via points are in your preplanned route?
When I used mapsource for routes, it generated my via points into my favorites. Those points can be deleted during the trip.

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1490LMT 1450LMT 295w