Yay! New Garmins (for cars) announced

Eh... Not impressed. "Dual-orientation display" (as shown in the specs on garmin.com) for portrait/landscape mode is only available on the $350 drivesmart 86 model.

The two lower models appear [nearly] identical to the previous gen versions. Probably faster soc/more memory (maybe?).

The 66 and the 86 have high resolution screens. The 76 has the traditional resolution from the previous models. I’m excited for the upgrade and debating about either the 66 or the 86! I’ll have to debate about it with my wife!

^^What unit are you upgrading from? I have 3 at the moment, driveluxe50, drivesmart 61 and 65. My favorite is the DL50 - portrait mode and magnetic mount.

The latter isn't such a deal breaker as I made my own magnetic mount with the DS65. But lack of portrait mode.....

magnetic mount
https://i.imgur.com/jm5upuJ.jpg

I'll stick with my older smaller Garmin devices that have powered mounts.

Just a quick glance at specs and I’m not seeing lifetime maps.

^^In the specs it says "Includes map updates". It's unclear how many updates are included¿?

https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/720310#specs

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=2OUy7nW5bO3JjrdEKgyoi5

Garmin is queen of ambiguity.

Won’t be upgrading or buying a new GPS anytime soon. Pointless to have a new GPS synced to a smartphone to get real time traffic, weather, gas prices etc. These things should be pushed to the GPS without the need for a second device with data.

I live in Los Angeles

There are a lot of places where Cell Coverage is not solid...

Nothing worse than driving in a canyon and being 200-400 feet past a turn when your cell phone and Google maps says to turn....

GPS still has a bunch of advantages to me...

If anyone has an Iphone, the new BETA IOS 15 is a horrible battery drain.

Even with a ton of features turned off... it drains a battery...

So I will still consider GPS for the cars...

Wouldn't that be reinventing the wheel? Google maps already exists. All of those functions already present on the smartphone.

Apps like locus, Here and gaia work well for gpx routing and online/offline maps. I still like my garmin. It's single purpose keeps the failure rates down. Screen form factor is another issue. Phones are becoming more rectangular. The garmins are still more square.

Old fashioned, I guess. DriveSmart features don't impress me, as it seems to rely on listening to everything I might say in the car, with a program connectivity.

I know. A "program" is an archaic word. I understand the proper word now is "app." Do kids today even know that it derives from the word "application"?

And I certainly don't want Amazon's Alexa listening into everything I say. Nor pay for a service that I'd disable the first chance I get.

I'm just glad Garmin still has a very basic model, though it only comes with a 5" screen. But that's still larger than a phone that fits in my pocket. And no, I never understood a point of making a phone holster into a fashion statement.

Sorry for the rant. I'm a dinosaur.

I really want the new Garmin model only because my last upgrade DS61-DS65 had some unexpected benefits. I have to convince my wife, and myself, that the purchase price is worth additional benefits that aren't being promoted by Garmin. I wish they did a better job highlighting the clear upgrades for customers, like myself, who want to upgrade but haven't been given a clear purpose to proceed with a new purchase.

^^It's like they don't want you to upgrade.

I just glad Garmin is still making stand alone GPS units. I like my phone to be a phone and my GPS to be a GPS. I love my DS61 especially for the larger screen than I had in previous models, an 8 inch is mighty appealing to these old eyes. I'll wait a bit though and see if the price for the 8 drops some.

Recent trip back from Long Island to Philly area, and while negotiating heavy traffic on Long Island, my wife's phone kept on getting images of a 2-year old nephew. She was using the phone pretty much for navigation as the Honda built in system doesn't keep up with rapid traffic changes. Unfortunately I had forgotten to throw the Garmin into the car as it was a quick emergency trip.

Using the iphone for a gps will drain your battery real fast. We took a 45 min trip using the wife's iphone as a GPS and the battery went from 100% to less than 60% by the time we got to where we were going.

I like the magnetic mount.

More info:

Announcement:
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/newsroom/press-release/automoti...

DriveSmart 66:
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/721098

DriveSmart 76:
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/721063

DriveSmart 86:
https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/720310

From what I can tell it's a DriveSmart 65, with various screen sizes (6", 7", or 8") and now it all includes Alexa w/ a slightly new interface.

With that being said, the DS65 w/ Alexa is a pretty awesome GPS and I expect these to be the same. The real win: You can say, "Ok, Garmin. Find the nearest " and it understands you. I presume this is from multiple mikes and some additional processing needed by Alexa that's being borrowed for Garmin. All my other Garmin units w/o Alexa get confused on anything I say. The DS65w/Alexa gets me about 97% of the time.

All that said - it's a bit of a disappointment that an opportunity was missed. The units all have WiFi. This means that if I have a hotspot in my car (and many modern cars have this and it's easy enough to add) I shouldn't have to have my phone between the internet and my GPS. The GPS should be able to directly ping it's servers, via the WiFi hotspot, for traffic and weather data. It can certainly do updates (software / maps) via the WiFi hotspot. It's dumb that it can't get Weather/Traffic info the same way.

The Drive app should only exist:
- To allow those w/o a hotspot to get live data
- To make a bridge for addresses on your phone so that when you click on an address it can open up Drive and transmit the address to your GPS (which it currently can which is nice).

I shouldn't have to make sure the Drive app is up and running to have traffic and weather. Sometimes it closes or isn't running and then you have to reach into your pocket, pull out your phone, and start it up / connect it to get data.

DUP - Delete

More pics
https://photos.app.goo.gl/UqNKu9fimwQUmMKR7

I thought I had a thread about that on here but can't find it.

In essence I jb welded two ferrous washers to a standard clip in mount. First washer was smaller than the magnetic mount itself. Thought it'd be sufficient but effort to disengage gps from it seemed little. Last thing I needed was the gps to separate if I hit a bump in the road.

In my collection of crap found a larger 2" diameter washer. This was the ticket. More jb weld.

I've used this set up for several thousand miles in the accord with no issues of separation, even on some nasty bumps in the road.

The magnetic mount itself is an arkon SPHDMAGKIT. Under the rubber cover are 4 high power magnets. The socket portion fits the garmin ball. The only catch is there's no self centering when two pieces come together. So I manually center by squeezing the entire assembly.

https://www.arkon.com/product/SPHDMAGKIT-magnetic-phone-moun...

The only other missing feature is power. Can't have everything.

These models look pretty nice, but I don't see anything compelling enough for me to upgrade from what I have (DriveLuxe 51 and nuvi 3780). The Alexa capability is nice and I like that they switched to USB-C, although I still prefer the powered magnetic mounts on my current devices.

Garmin probably gets a kickback from the data mined using alexa. They have to. Why else force feed alexa into all the new units.

I was hoping for something like more than 30 waypoints per trip, dynamic multi-stop optimization, and / or traffic light estimation data built in.

I know that this already exist on Google Maps. What I meant was pushing these real time things to the Garmin GPS without having a second device synced/attached to it. Doesn’t exist yet on a Garmin device.

^^No I understood what you meant. My point is garmin would be duplicating these existing functions in their own units then. I can only imagine the bugs created once they add a modem. There's much more compliance involved now too as the device is now a cellular transmitter. More loyalties to pay to qualcomm (or who's ever SoC they decide to use). Not going to happen IMO.

My car ('22 kia stinger) has a modem built in. For now it receives HD radio traffic but has the option to interface with kia's UVO platform for more features (remote unlock/lock, start, view car's cameras, and more). It's been nearly 3 months since I got the car. I don't plan on activating this service any time soon.

I have no doubt the car already transmits various data to the mothership. Last thing I want is more data sent. If I could, I'd disable/removal this modem & antenna entirely. That's one of the saving graces of the garmin devices. They are NOT connected unless you CHOOSE to connect them. With this car i have no choice. It also comes with other nannies like blindspot alert, forward collision avoidance (car will brake on its own) and other crap I wish I could opt out of.

/rant off

I've driven with a Garmin on my dashboard all the time for far over a decade.

As a brand-new smartphone owner, I've tried out my shiny new iPhone doing car navigation using both the native Apple map application, and running Google Maps on the iPhone.

The navigation and display were surprisingly good compared to my expectation. I especially like the hope of getting useful traffic advice and route modification (Albuquerque gets none on my Garmin 3597).

The power drain is a major objection. Yes.

As my 2002 Audi A4 is too old to have a USB power connector sitting and waiting, I plan to spend $10 to get something to plug into the 12V accessory outlet (aka cigar lighter) that provides a USB power socket. Without something like that my iPhone lacks the endurance to be useful for car navigation.

^^My car has 2 usb ports (one in front, one in rear) to power various devices. The front one currently houses a usb flash drive to play my music, while the rear powers a dash cam via long usb cable.

There's also a front and rear 12V cig socket. I use the tampon below to run another long cable to a suction cup phone/gps holder on the lower left of the dash. The front 12V socket is reserved for the radar detector or something else as needed.

https://www.amazon.com/Qualcomm-Quick-Charge-Charger-HUSSELL...

This thing is supposedly capable of providing up to 3A per usb port. I can confirm it definitely provides up to 1.5A as that's the most any of my current devices draw.

Deleted

How about setting the phone to automatically turn on "Do Not Disturb" when connected to the cars BT

I have 'do not disturb' set on my phone for the hours I sleep, no calls messages, notifications come in during the set hours. Not sure there is an auto setting for when an app launches, or anything other than timed timeouts.

Probably something "tasker" can do.

Drove me nuts when I was trying to pass and I got too close.

Glad Garmin is still working on new products.

I’m glad Garmin is coming out with new products too. The way I see it the new drive 66/76/86 = DrivesMart 65 with Alexa software + Rv890 series hardware + some GUI(graphical user interface) updates. Please tell me if I’m missing anything. More than likely I will buy it and be able to do a better in depth test but for now on the surface this is what I’m seeing.

I have been a fan of Garmin for years and will likely buy one of these after seeing some reviews but I'm disappointed that the 5 inch is no more. The larger units seem to big for me but I had the same thoughts about smartphones when they started getting larger.

I think you'll be quite please with a 7" if you have room for it in your car. I had reservations about using it on our accord at first, but position as pictured, it proved quite useful without obstructing anything.

https://i.imgur.com/ZV93c5Y.png

Sadly, there's no place for such a thing in the new car, at least not without sticking a flat disc to the dash. For now im using the driveluxe in portrait mode on the far left.

So no GTM or traffic cables can be used with these new units? I have the DS55 and it still can use my GTM-60. Guessing these cannot?

All 4 new models.
Outsmart traffic jams or slowdowns with alerts that suggest alternate routes. Garmin Traffic comes ready to use right out of the box with the included traffic cable.

Of course, you can order them without Traffic. But why?

I am also glad Garmin has new models. I have a new DS65 and love it. For long trips, I use both Waze and Garmin at the same time. Waze does important things my Garmin does not. Garmin does important things Waze cannot do.

The bigger size LCD screens are nice. My distance vision is great, but it's getting tougher reading the small print on my current Garmin screens.

Traffic with my Garmin GPS is pretty sketchy and rare in the city where I am. I have been using my 1390T, 2495LMT and DS55 and very rarely do I see any traffic on them. And when I do get traffic it is so inaccurate it's not even funny. On my DS55 that I have been using for over a year now, I have only seen traffic pop up twice. Both times showed a long delay but there was no delay anywhere.

That's because the built in Traffic Coverage is very spotty and only in the Larger Metropolitan areas. I never use the built in traffic. I either use Smartlink or Drive, depending which unit I use.

Still works great. Have iPhone anyway.

I wish Garmin, and other devices - many of them have stopped, would stop using my phone as a middle-man.

These GPSes have WiFi. My car has WiFi. I can connect my GPS to my car's WiFi. Why do I need to have my phone as a middle man in this situation for traffic and weather.

Yes, for those of you without in-vehicle WiFi, or who just don't want to pay for it then, yeah... They still need to support the Drive app.

It's dumb, however, that the GPS can't get Traffic and Weather directly from WiFI without the phone.

Love the big screen version. Bigger than my car radio!

For what it is worth, I entered a chat on line with Garmin about the maps and 3 times the person answered "it is a subscription" and I closed the chat and will wait to find out what he meant.

Right there with ya.

Might as well buy a cheap phone and only use it for GPS at that point.

I spoke with a lovely lady from garmin last night. She indicated the new units do have lifetime maps, but lifetime of the unit's lifetime, not the owner's. She said when they used the term lifetime before, many were confused by its meaning and thought it related to the owner's.

IMO by not explicitly stating unit lifetime, I think they're opening a hole to weasel out of providing free updates at some point in the future. Even if the unit is still functional.

Good to know. hope it is cheap

All this talk about a new Garmin and my poor 2460 has not been out of our closet in 4 years. Don't even know if it works anymore
Mary