traffic and weather report

But, more $$ for them.

.... more $$ but it would be a nice feature. My CB radio has a weather alert built in, nice to have when snow creeps up on ya.

that would be tight, probably not accurate though just like all the weatherman

It should not cost a cent more for weather. That can be easily obtained from so many free sources and transmit along with the traffic. The traffic sucks anyway so the weather could be the more reliable feature.

Older Nuvis (680,780,x8x) had weather (and traffic, movie, flight, news) information provided by the MSN Direct receiver. The service is being discontinued at the end of 2011.

Or, how about just including the NOAA weather bands like on weather radios? Would be good almost anywhere.

Oh! I didnt know that the older units have those features. They should keep it. I wonder why the decided against the continuation?

Microsoft decided to terminate the service effective January 1, 2012. Their reasoning was RDS was good enough for traffic reporting and more people were using smartphones to get data now so MSN Direct was not going to be needed.

I agree, weather should be on every GPS unit. It's a pretty important factor in driving a vehicle. It's surprising that it isn't a basic feature on all units.

I can understand not having it on units that don't have FM receivers but all others with receivers should have that feature regardless of its availability on smartphones. That was a poor excuse for discontinuation. Smartphones are still not the standard cell phones. Many uses don't have smart phones.

What gets me is that Garmins traffic vendor is so bad it really has no idea in a lot of situations. Making things worse it now re-routes you on fictitious traffic jams!

My brand new 3760T can't even draw a traffic map because the thing is either under powered or doesn't have enough memory.

I use a FREE Android traffic app called Beat the traffic that does a much better job showing current traffic flow.

Many Nuvis with traffic do have weather, kind of. My 265T does not but my 2360LMT and my 2595LMT do have weather with the traffic in some areas. They only display current conditions but no forecast and it is something you have to search for unless it is a allert then it will pop up. I have not checked other cities but here in Toronto there are three locations where there are weather reports. If you hit your traffic icon then view map you will see (if available in your area)a information icon (a blue icon with a exclamation mark). There is usually two side by side. One is current weather and the other is road condition. Depending on condition they will change color. Once you know the area you can also browse the traffic list and find them in there. Under normal conditions you can pass right past the area and never know but the other night when whe had a fairly large storm they popped up on my screen warning of high winds with heavy rain and the temp and a few seconds later another popped up warning of slippery road conditions. Now if only they would forecast the weather.

Garmin outsource its to Google being phase out and limited model, XM-got no idea and MSN at the end of the year. No good for my 785t with MSN.GDB-50 will a power cord only. I brought a GTM 25TMC as a alternatives.

They can't predict what will happen 3 hours from now. Why bother? We're discussing vehicular navigators. Want to know the forecast? Turn on your radio.

My radio will not help when I want to check the weather in a city that I'm going to 300 mile away. At leat with my Tomtom I could enter the city and get the current and a forecast. Only problem is it goes through my cell via bluetooth. You say we are discussing vehicular navigators, we sure are and travel and weather go together especially in the winter time and you are going through the Virginias with 40 tons stuck to your back. Forecasts may not be 100% accurate but at least you get a idea.

The original idea (I think) was to drop MSN Direct in favor of Nulink, which is a cellular data link, most likely hosted by AT&T or TMobile. That has a lot more data capacity (and two way comm) but is expensive.

MSN Direct is an interesting idea ( using FM radio stations to provide data, at higher rates than RDS) but apparently there just wasn't a good enough business model.

This is an area that Garmin needs a better strategy to compete with smart phones in the portable navigation market.

it's information overkill...

That's something new, I was not aware of it. Maybe because your units are new. I will check my 1490t more thoroughly. Yes the forecast would be super. Its just to add more info.

Do you realize the millions of people who cant drive and listen to radio? People with mild to severe hearing loss. Even with hearing aid sound clarity is always a problem for them. Forecast is what is dealt with every day on TV or radio. Its a forecast its prediction. It can be wrong but its useful.

But it is only useful if it is right.

Sorry for my newbie question, but how do you get weather information on your nuvi 37xx ? I see the weather icons in the firmware, but I have no idea how to enable this feature.

Thanks. Turbo

Everyone is aware that weather forecast is never 100% accurate. Sometimes its wrong but its not the norm. Its right most of the time. Its useful

Not even 'most of the time'. A weather rock does a much better job than your local weather dweeb. But then weather rocks are simply reporting local conditions, not forecasting.

Or you could just look out the window of your vehicle

Winter driving on the Canadian Prairies can be really treacherous. I realize that Eastern Canada/US have problems with freezing rain but I don`t think a GPS would be any more accurate or timely than on-line road and weather reports. I always check these BEFORE I begin a long trip. And once I am on the road, my speed is based on weather and road conditions.

Of course it is. With improved technology and satellite the weather forecast accuracy has improved tremendously as compared to 10 or more years ago. I am not sure about the numbers but I think the improvement over the years is more than 40%. What we get in most weather report is the current condition then a forecast of what it would be in the night and then forecast for a few days. The longer term forecast tends to change as new info comes in. Overall the forecast is getting more reliable.

I had MSN on my 780 and found the weather alerts to be essentially useless. There is a storm, or river flooding was the info....useless unless you know where...actually where. Not just that there was a flood alert on the Skagit river.

Radio is the only way to get decent and more complete data..and even that is sometimes quite limited.

MSN traffic sucked, and all the other junk it provided was either fluff or so limited as to be useless.

Why bother with a GPS having this stuff when radio is a vastly better alternative?

I get weather report before I leave for the day. It usually doesn't change by the minute, unlike traffic.

And how am I going to get a weather report on my radio for someplace 3 or 4 hundred miles down the road? Bottom line is that other GPS manufactures can do it but it always seems to be a problem with Garmin

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

This week they've forecast rain at90%+ probability for 4 of the last 5 days - hasn't rained once.

Truly accurate. NOT.

I have an AM-FM radio that has WX, and an iPhone with a several WX apps, and a Jensen console radio that has the NOAA WX freqs/stations. But I can never get a good snowfog forecast...

Do I need MSN? Is it the only way?

Which area in the US are you? Forecast rain and snow and sleet much better result over the years in NJ.

Does it matter? Are you in 'customer relations' for the weather service perhaps? Are you apologising for their accuracy and promising that they'll do better in the future?

Does New Jersey get special attention paid to it's forecasts so that they don't screw up as often for residents of that state?

Suffice it to say that they can't even get relatively short term forecasts accurate, though general trends (it gets colder during the winter months and bright during the day) are always correct. Just look at how often alerts are issued for extreme weather (like predicting landfall for hurricanes or tsunamis) that simply don't come true. And they spend huge amounts on that type of activity.

The devil is in the details - and that's where they fail.

For the moment that is the only way with the typical Nuvi, but that service is being terminated as of January 1.

And even then, the weather maps were blocky and only local and the forecasts are pretty lame - they used to source their data from a Polish weather service (really).

It was interesting that two cities on their list in range of my device that were adjacent reported 10+ degree differences in their current observations - I had long discussions with their people, we determined which city was wrong and they removed it from the list . . . when my subscription expired (they had just announced end-of-life and refused to sell me the lifetime subscription) I replaced the MSN receiver with a lifetime traffic device I got from a friend whose navigator had been stolen and I haven't looked back since.

If you had a Zumo 550 or 665 or a GPSMAP 640 with XM you could subscribe to their weather service.

Turbo,

The MSN network goes away in about 8 weeks. When it was working, it was a decent service, at least on my 885. I could get local WX forecasts and view radar in some areas. Now I have Navteq traffic and if I want radar I go to the smartphone. MSN was handy for checking gas prices, but then there's Gas Buddy - also on the smartphone.

I am not making any apology. I am not in customer service. I just don't have your experience with the weather. To be honest with you I find it reliable especially during the winter with snow and sleet. To expand I think all the weather info comes from the weather source. The radio, newspaper online tap into the same source. Its puzzling why radio is more accurate according to some posters here. It means Garmin or their weather and traffic partners are not doing a good job extracting good information to transmit to users.

Thanks bramfrank and Box Car for your answers.

I figured MSN was the way, but it is not available in Canada anyways. It's just that I love the weather icons (I extracted them from the firmware). They are so nice. I would love just to see them everyday on my gps.

Your feedback turned me off a bit though (10 degrees difference? Really?). Without a connected device, I guess there is no way I'll get weather service. Too bad...

Turbo

FWIW, weather/traffic was available for Toronto and a few other cities - Montreal, Ottawa

Are you sure? It seems to work in major Canadian cities....

LOL! I thought I read this was for US only, but I may be wrong. I spend more time in the gps firmware than reading on the net. I trust you.

I wish I knew Garmin was discontinuing this feature at the end of 2011 before I bought it.

Garmin is NOT discontinuing traffic services.

MSN is discontinuing its service which is/was available on some specific units.

I wish it was available on the 1490t.