New Nuvi 2699 Impressions

21% of 8GB is 1.68GB of free space. This will last you for ages of map updates.

One thing you could check is the number of English language voices you have. If you just have 2-3 and would like to try the others, you could fill some of that free space with the rest of the voices, seven of which speak street names:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/42708

Search the earlier threads in the forum for Karen, for example.

One word of warning. I've never tried it but I've read reports here of folks trying the Less Fuel option. Most drop it soon, possibly because it avoids all high speed limit highways and keeps you on residential streets.

We look forward to more reports. I hope you plan to back up your device soon.

While I'm not much of a fan of Foursquare, I don't think that it's accurate to say that "no one knows" them. Foursquare has 45 million users.

Craig,

It is great to hear that I still have plenty of room for map upgrades. It was just that Express implied I should look into getting an SD card because I was so full.

I definitely want to download more voices. However when I went to the Garmin site, they just had some novelty ones, and not ones like Karen. I will follow the link.

Avoiding interstates is the last thing I want to do. Maybe Fuel Saving will not be the best choice for me.

Thanks again!

P.S. I already backed up my 2699.

Use Garmin Express to add voices. As much as you'd think to go to the nuvi's Vehicles & Voices tab to find the addtional TTS3 voices, in Garmin Express in your new nuvi's page, instead click on Tools/OptionalUpdates/LanguageFiles/English, then Install Now.

Smart not adding any of the novelty voices since they won't speak street names or talk about stop lights, stop signs, end of road, etc. Since we've been talking about free space and voices and since you've already made a backup, you can go to the Voice folder in the nuvi and remove voices in languages you don't and will never speak. That should add a lot of free space. In fact, it might be smart to remove unneeded voices before adding all the additional English language voices.

Don't let me talk you out of Fuel Savings. Try it for a week, and come back with your results. We love horror stories.

Karen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AniDSfX2j5w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq2TvEsd2Uk

That is the problem I am finding MM. No one in my region of the US who has not bought a highend Garmin recently has not heard of them. However if I mention TripAdvisor, then at least 80% of the people have heard of them.

Probably FourSquare is more popular outside the SouthEastern portion of the US?

You may want to look at this also when selecting the voice you want. https://goo.gl/utMUeN Main reason I use Samantha is has both Garmin Real Directions & Garmin Real Voice.

charlesd, I've tried to find an example noticeable by users of improvements from using a Real Voice voice and I've not been able to hear anything different. Can you steer us to a simulated route where a Real Directions without Real Voice is different from a Real Directions with Real Voice? There must be something but I haven't found it yet. Maybe it's very subtle or maybe it only occurs (like expanded Real Directions) in only a few locales to date.

More for holydoc:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/44485

This is a wholey different world than navigating with a nuvi 660, huh?

Craig,

Thanks so much. I have loaded my voices back up. I wonder why those voices were not under "Vehicle and Voices"? /Shrug...

Oh well...

I will definitely try out everything on the 2699 including the "Fuel Savings". I enjoy trying new things.

Thanks Charles! Since I do not even have traffic reports where I am, I doubt that real directions are ever going to happen. However I will give it a try. I will let Karen rest a while.

Real directions helps with navigation instructions from point a to b ." Devices with Garmin Real Directions provide spoken instructions using not only street names but also recognizable landmarks, buildings, and even traffic lights. This helps minimize the need for you to find and read street name signs".More navigation landmarks according to Garmin are being added to other map updates.

Ok, I have added an 8GB MicroSD card to the 2699. I can see the card when I connect the 2699 to my computer, but I do not know what difference it is going to make to the 2699 itself.

Will the 2699 work like the 660 and allow you to save POI's (like from this site) to the SD card and be able to read them from the card?

I guess I will see.

Yes, but you should have plenty of room on your device for custom pois.They don't take up that much space.

No, I haven't taken the time to compare the other voices.Since Garmin confirms that American English - Samantha has Real Directions & Garmin Real Voice.May be just a small change but it works for me.Compared to my 265 the voice quality is a great improvement.Not as many words mispronounced with Real Voice to me .

Yes, Real Directions are noticeable everywhere (and even more so in certain large cities). With TTS3 devices, we have seven Real Directions voices to choose from and two also offer Real Voice.

My question for everyone here at The Factory is whether anyone can tell me of an example of where Real Voice offers anything new. Samantha's and Serena's TTS3 voices offer both "Reals" while the other five TTS3 voices offer only Real Directions. My tests with Samantha and Serena (simulated route in Las Vegas NV) have not offered anything more than the other five voices so I remain unclear as to what Real Voice offers or is supposed to do. The lack of a YouTube or other internet example of Real Voice has me thinking that no one has found what Real Voice is supposed to offer.

Garmin says Garmin Real Voice uses refined speech technology to provide spoken instructions using a voice that sounds more realistic and friendly. What do—or how do—Serena or Samantha say things that are more realistic and friendly than what or how Daniel, Jack, Lee, Karen or Sangeeta do in giving directions?

Here is a video on real directions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6RGl_-EyY8

@Holydoc

You say you haven't noticed the volume level change ... isn't that the point? It stays at the same level to your ears, being adjusted subtly as the noise within the car raises/lowers?

Sus,

I think you interpreted what I meant to say incorrectly. Let's say I am listening to my 2699. It sounds great. Now turn on my A/C in the car. I cannot hear the 2699 over the sound of the A/C so I have to turn it up. I open my windows or put down my top of my car while driving. 2699 does not seem to adjust at all.

In other words, I have to still adjust the volume manually.

In that case it doesn't seem to work

(I assume you have selected the automatic option in the volume menu)

On my 3597LMT there is a option called "prompted". When used it computes and displays all three of Fastest, Shortest, and Less Fuel.

At least around town, a quick glance at the display (which shows the three on a map in different colors) often gives me a good guess of which I like, while the selection process also displays distance and ETA for each of the three, which also helps.

I often choose the Less Fuel option, as Fastest will take me miles out of the way on an Interstate to save a minute or two, at the cost of fuel and wear and tear. One downside to "Prompted" is that waiting for route calculation takes longer, but I generally don't ask for route calculation to places terribly far away nor for complex routes--generally just to the next place I want to go.

One last thing--when I first tried Prompted I did not realize that the up and down arrows to the left of the screen are the means to move among the three options.

OK, so what do I need to do? I assume I need to choose Prompted Route for my 3597. Do I also need to input my vehicle's mpg, etc? As I wait for your response, I think I'll delve into my device's settings.

Thanks for the tip. I definitely will try it out. So often, with Fastest Route chosen, my nuvi puts me on I-40 just to get to the other side of town—and I usually avoid that and choose city streets.

[Later]
Help! I can't find Prompted on my 3597. Where do I set Prompted? For my 3597's Navigation choices, I only see Faster, Shorter, Less Fuel and Off Road. If I select Less Fuel, I get a warning that I need to set to set up a profile under Apps>EcoRoute, but that requires a ecoRoute HD device.

I do see two routing options when I choose a destination, a Pink one and a Blue one, (plus a non-clickable 3rd option saying No More Suggestions.) I assume the pink is the Faster Route and the Blue is the Shorter Route, but I don't see that described anywhere. Am I right about the pink and blue? Why can't I find a Prompted Setting?

An earlier thread here that didn't help me:

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/35137

Yes, I do have the latest Garmin updates on my 3597.

Any help will be appreciated.

Hmm... the "Prompted" option does not seem to exist on the 2699. I only have the three I mentioned plus Off Road.

Ditto with my 3597. Let's wait a while and see if someone can help us find it.

I loaded some POIs from this website onto the 2699 using Garmin's POILoader program.

I organized them in groups by first downloading the POI's from this site and placing them into directories with the Group names (e.g. Restaurants, Malls, etc.) that I wanted to see on the 2699. I then ran the POILoader program and when it prompted me for the device, I selected the 2699 Memory Card that I installed. Program installed everything smoothly with no problems. I was able to install both gpx and csv files without any problems.

But I do have questions concerning custom POI's.
1) With the 660, you could not tell the GPS to only show custom POIs along your route. Has that feature been incorporated with the 2699?
2) Not really sure what the mps files are for. How does the 2699 utilize these sound files?
3) Will custom POI files show their bmp on the GPS constantly or only when you are searching for a particular POI file?
4) If you wish to remove a POI or group of POI's, it appears that POILoader only allows you to remove ALL or None. Is there a way to just remove a single or set of POI's or do you just remove them all and replace?

I know I could discover these answers as I go, but I am curious if anyone has already resolved some of these questions.

Thanks again for everyone's help.

After I posted I looked over a user manual for the 2699--and agree that the "prompted" option appears absent. Maybe Garmin did not get favorable user feedback from including it on the 3790.

Quite often the three routing methods give the same answer, or they have just trivial differences, but often enough the differences are interesting and useful that I'm glad I have the prompted option on my model.

On my 660, you were able to select to have a Notification/Proximity sound (loud tone) go off before the GPS gave instructions to "turn in 1 mile" for example. This was always nice to grab your attention before the navigation instructions began.

Is that still an option with the 2699? It appears that when they removed the "Recalculating.." notification, they also removed this notification tone.

Thanks again for all the help. Hopefully this post will aid those that purchase the 2000 series of GPS's.

1.Custom Pois along a route.That feature has been around for sometime. Select your destination from Where To and touch Go. Back to Where To ,touch custom pois icon,select the All Category or a single category.At top right touch Searching near then My Active Route.You will now see the custom pois along the route.
2.Sound files.The newer unit requires a sox.exe file and a wav file to get voice alerts. Mp3's will not work with the 2699.See http://www.poi-factory.com/node/25730 also have video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsJTUmvb6_o
3.Bmp or icon see https://goo.gl/jkbwst
4.Removal of custom pois. If you load them all at one time then yes poiloader will remove them all at once.If you use the rename process then yes you can remove them one at a time see http://www.poi-factory.com/node/16639 and http://www.poi-factory.com/node/8779

Since you appear to be really getting into what your gps can do. You may want to look at this.Some members use this method to build the alerts into their custom pois.That allows you to use poiloader in the express mode instead of manual.EPE only set up for PC no MAC See http://www.poi-factory.com/node/28521 video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMAbHO4DI6I

That sounds like a nice feature. Not sure if that is really needed now.My 2597 alerts me in plenty of time unless it is one of them turn left then next right because of how close the turns are.I have never seen that as a problem since I can take a quick glance at the screen if needed.

I tried a new feature today called, Trip Log. Basically it draws a trail behind you marking the paths you travel. This does not depend on navigating at all. The trail is just made whenever you have the GPS on.

Areas I can see where this would be useful is:
1) Making sure you cover an entire housing section. We have a neighborhood that decorates every house during Christmas. We were able to travel with the 2699 and it showed us the roads that we already traveled so that we did not have any repeat showings.
2) If you were exploring and wanted to find your way back to a place that you passed. You could follow your trail right back to the place.
3) If you had a route for sales, delivering paper, or patrolling an area, this would show you if you covered a spot or not.

All in all, it is a nice feature but not something I will use much. You can clear your route by going to Settings-> Device --> Clear Travel History.

Now you can rinse and repeat!

Trip log has been available on nuvis for a while, my 1310 and 1490 both have it, as does my 2508. Generally as you say it's not of much use.

Sus,

Remember, this is my first GPS I have bought since the Nuvi 660 came out. Back then it was the "Cat's Meow"!

Is that like Cat's pajamas? Are we dating ourselves? Have you chosen a navigation voice for your newvi yet?

Craig,

I selected Samantha for the reasons listed in the above posts. Karen is my favorite but I want to not miss any of the features that this GPS may have.

I have a 16G card in my Garmin and with the latest map, large Junction View and custom POIs, I have 5G free space left.
Unlike many of you I have TourGuides on that card which takes up most of the space such as Nebraska Historical Markers TourGuide at almost 1.4 gig large.
You can never have to large a card unless you don't use all the ways possible with your unit.

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/45490

Craig,

The problem I have with the post that you linked is that I do not know:
"Who was asked?"
"What was asked?"
"Why the responder answered the way they did?"

Even the person that sits across the cubicle from me has absolutely no idea what I do. If they were asked to answer my emails, I am scared to think what they may say.

Using voice commands, I did find a time where the 2699 stopped responding at all to voice. We were giving it commands when for no apparent reason it just stopped listening. Screen prompts was still accessible to touch and maneuver but there was no response vocally. Once you touched the screen and manipulated the directions that way, the 2699 seemed to start responding to voice again.

Using the Smartlink app, I sent an address to the 2699 only to have no response from the 2699. By returning to the menu from Map view and then back to Map view, I was able to get the 2699 to yield a PROMPT asking me if I wanted to navigate to the address. It was as if the 2699 had received the address but it kept it hidden until I went through a series of screens.