New GPS (to me) 2689LMT

Sounds like you made a good decision.

I have the same problem, having to resist buying the newer models.

Spend the money, ya can't take it with you at the end anyway!

Got a refurbished 2689 from Amazon a few days ago. I absolutely love it.

I also recently upgraded from my 255WT with a refurbished 3597LMTHD and enjoying my new toy

Enjoy!

I think I read this recently but one nice thing about these newer ones is the banishment of the dreaded "recalculating" whenever you take a path contrary to what the GPS is telling you to take. Glad that's gone.

I also like (so far) the voice recognition. Need a few more days with it to give it a better work out though.

Traffic receiver so far has not shown up. On the 265WT, it was there all the time. Obviously a difference in providers is causing some difference here. Need more time with this feature to see what's going on.

I like the display of gas stations and food stops all the time (although I am thinking that could get old). It's not overwhelming. Yet.

The warning when approaching school zones is new compared to the 265WT. I like that.

The touch screen is much more sensitive than the 265WT. A plus

The display is WOW compared to the 265WT. A big plus!

A 6 inch screen is HUGE compared to the 265WT and is taking some time to get used to. I think I finally found the sweet spot in the lower left of the windshield. Glad I didn't buy the 7 inch!

The map stuff? So far much worse than the 265WT. She's been instructing me to take different routes to and from work each day. Huh?! What's up with that? She also says to stay in the left lane and veer to the left ahead when in fact there is no split to the right. I'm used to hearing this as approaching splits on the freeway but not on surface roads. And ahem, there are no splits where she is saying this.

Tonight on the way home from work, she did the Apple Maps thing and kept insisting I turn and get on the freeway. She kept doing this at every intersection. I know better and know that getting on the freeway will be a longer and more mileage route. So changing GPS settings is not going to remedy that. She didn't do that earlier...just tonight. Mind of her own? She finally gave up once I was a couple miles past the freeway. Apple Maps would have kept trying even then,

Also, she keeps telling me to turn left on a street approaching my house where there are no left turns. There isn't even a street to turn left on! If I did, I'd be in someone's driveway.

I can deal with these inaccuracies when driving in familiar areas but what's going to happen when I am in an area I've never been in? Is she going to do like Apple and take me to a dead end? We shall see.

More testing and test results to follow.

Took a 2 1/2 hr each way trip this week with the new-to-me 2689LMT. Accuracy was good, updates (recalculating) was fast, and I liked the lane assist and gas & food icons. Also, the larger screen compared to my old 265WT was nice. I have to say that I am very happy with this unit. It is a refurb and looks and performs as if it's brand new.

The traffic thing is the one item that puzzles me at this point. Sometimes she would tell me that traffic is now clear on my route but she had not said that it wasn't clear earlier. Huh?

Don't feel bad I haven't fogured it out yet either. Sometimes the lanes on the freeway are a solid color (clear traffic), sometimes a striped yellow(light traffic), sometimes a striped red(moderate traffic) and sometimes a solid red(heavy trafic).

The most I ever hear is there is light traffic on your route.

While the color coding seems to be mostly correct, the voice anouncement is somewhat ambiguous at best.

My guess is the traffic ahead of you was slowing for some reason such as a stalled car on the side of the road or for some other reason. The delay wasn't enough to affect your arrival time by less than 5 minutes but now is clear.

The only time I've heard an announcement about delays is when they are more than 5 minutes.

Bought a 2689LMT last Winter for my truck and liked it a lot for the reasons stated and others. Problem was that we then moved our 2460 which still had life in it permanently to my wife's car since we didn't need to move it back and forth anymore. After we moved to a new state and we were using the GPSs daily it quickly become aggravating have two different user interfaces. So I bought a refurbed 2589LMT for wife's car (she really doesn't have room for a big screen). Life is now good again.

When I do stuff like this, replace a GPS with a better model or any other purchase I make; I just tell my daughter (35 year old) I'm spending her inheritance and reducing her burden of taxes and other disagreeable stuff after I'm gone. That's my story and I'm sticking to it !

Yes, but I would have expected an announcement telling me something about traffic ahead first. That never came...only the announcement that traffic is now clear.

Box Car is correct. There are no audible alerts given for delays of less than 5 minutes. The all clear alert will be given however when any delay is cleared.

I have observed this behavior on both my 3597 and RV 760 units using Garmin's "HD Traffic (GTM 60)" and "Live Traffic" via Smartphone Link. Since it also occurs on your 2689, I have to assume the issue is common to many, if not all, Garmin traffic equipped units.

This is obviously confusing and something Garmin should address in future firmware updates.

Have not heard the traffic announcemnts on my 2797LMT. I just get visual clues.

Personally I don't give a hoot about these anyway, when I'm on the highway which cuts right across our city, getting off would be just as bad as sitting it out in most situations.
Though we just had a huge accident east of me where traffic was slowing down and/or stopping and some idiot 18 wheeler did not see that and plowed into cars ahead killing three people. Closed both sides of the highway for many hours.

In a case like that what do you do, limited access and you can't get off anyway.

It is my understanding the GPS traffic reports are initiatd by radio stations, so until they have the info the GPS would not have it either.

Many times, the supplied traffic info can be too little, too late.

First, the traffic thing as many say is of varied value. Sometimes timely and pertinent and other times not. This is no fault of Garmin but rather the provider. I'd rather have it than not though. It has saved my bacon a few times.

On another note, I got a kick out of today's trip. The 2689 had me turn right off the freeway, go 3/4 of a mile west, do a U-turn and backtrack over the freeway a half mile to the west. Huh?! Why not have me turn left at the light on the off ramp off the freeway. That was goofy. And frustrating.

I've had similar goofiness on my old 265WT.

Oddly, in this case, approaching the off ramp, it was telling me I was going to need to turn left from the off ramp but once I was on the off ramp, it had changed its mind and was telling me to turn right, which I dutifully did. Oh well.

We bought a 2689LMT when our 660 started acting up (mount interface went dead, fixed with custom USB cable so unit would power up and work off USB connection, though with the loss of traffic)

We love new 2689LMT unit!

660, now working off USB though sans traffic now is in our 2nd car.

Felicitation.J'aie acquis le meme nuvi chez Costco a Quebec,J'en suis tres heureux.Le seul hic c'est que garmin dit que leur site CYCLOPS n'est pas compatible avec ce nuvi.J'aie l'intention de me procurer ici le fichier RED LIGHT& RADAR.j'attend une confirmation d'un user que cela fonctionne
vraiment et compatible.....Merci Robert F.

robob48, if you're asking if the POI Factory redlight and speed files will be compatible with a nuvi 2689 even though the Garmin Cyclops files is not, you are in luck. These files are compatible with a 2689:

http://www.poi-factory.com/poifiles/us/red-light-cameras

You may have better luck if you could translate your messages into English before posting them here. In any event, welcome to the POI Factory.

thanks a lot.

Just bought a 2689 too, only had it on for a day at work where I was local all day so no real test yet.

However, one discouraging problem, when trying to set up a favorite (using a nearby intersection), it said the intersection did not exist, "no matches found" to be exact. This is a major intersection in a major city. When I put the actual address in sure enough the intersection names showed on the map, so how can an intersection both exist and not exist?

I read with great interest on the connection possibilities between 2689LMT and Smartphone... Seeing that:
1. We have this GPS, and
2. It did not come with a manual,
We'd like to know more about this feature.

Has anyone real world information on this?
How much data did the smartphone use to assist the 2689LMT, and what features were seen?
How easy was it to "Turn off" -- Just tuning off bluetooth on GPS and Phone?
Wife has an Iphone 6 by the way..

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/42961

Cheers

It all depends on what you want the GPS to display from the cell phone connection. Traffic is on the average a couple hundred K bytes per several hundred miles. The more the Nuvi displays (think big jams in major cities) it will go up but mostly less than a couple MB per month. (think sending a couple pictures worth)

I don't use the traffic cam ability (they really are pretty useless for the average motorist) and weather I can get from the radio.

Garmin has not being shipping a detailed manual with the Nuvis for quite a while, I believe. The Nuvis come only with a "Quick Start Guide" booklet.

Have you downloaded the owner's manual from Garmin? Or are you looking for more information?

https://support.garmin.com/support/manuals/manuals.htm?partN...

I had already found how to look up an intersection, the trouble was the GPS said "no matches found" when the 2 streets were entered, yet it's a big intersection in a big city and when I found it a different way, by a nearby address, you could see the intersection, names and all on the GPS, but to do a direct search of the same intersection it couldn't find it.

ETA: both street names appeared in the bar of suggestions, but according to the GPS they didn't intersect, I've run into this twice now, the 2nd being a minor intersection in a small town.

I also don't like that you can't enter a city or zip code, at least I haven't seen a way yet, (playing with this blind, no manual,) the very few searches I've made so far bring results from my state plus 3 other nearby states, needing to wade thru to find the one I want.

I do like the multiple route choices for my successful searches, that is cool. Over-all, and I've only used it twice now, I'm liking more than I'm disliking.

All I know is 660 came with manual, and 2689LMT, a much more complicated unit, didn't come with a manual........

Thanks for that link....

I'm printing it out for reference, as I like reading, cover to cover about a product, to learn correctly, instead of blindly proceeding on, and making errors right and left...

Am I to assume the area I'm trying to get more information on is the "Smartphone Link" on page 10 of that manual?

Is there any other hints and suggestions others have come across?

Thanks -- Off to read a manual...

PS did find this video link: https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/on-the-go/apps/smartphone-li...

And further instructions on the app: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/garmin-smartphone-link/id567...

I never owned a nuvi 350 but I think it came with a case, AC power adapter and full owners manual...I'd much rather have my 3597 without these

I can see Garmin not offering an Owners Manual but I do wish new nuvis would at least come with a more obvious indicator of how to download the manual. A lot of thread in the forum here could have been avoided if new owners had known about, downloaded and read their device's manual.

As others have reported, if you own a smartphone, the Garmin Smartphone app is well worth the free price. Try it out. Many here including me are also supporters of the one-time payments for enhanced features like premium weather and traffic. The traffic portion of the app is much better than any previous or alternate traffic option offered by Garmin. As a Tracfone owner, I get no monthly allotment for data so I pay for each MB used. The data used by the Smartphone link is very small and not an issue for me.