Forced to use Garmin Explore – what do I need to know?

[BillaVista]

Hi all,
I purchased the Zumo XT last week to use with both my street bike (‘25 Honda CB750 Hornet) and my ATV (2014 Can Am Outlander 1000 XT). It replaces an old Nuvi and mt Oregon 450. At the time of purchase my primary use cases (hopes) were:
Street –
• Make use of the Garmin’s Adventurous Routing functionality on the XT.
• Use BaseCamp to create detailed custom routes and upload to the XT.
• To have a trusted navigation source independent of cell or internet service.
Offroad –
• To load and display custom topo maps based on Natural Resources Canada CANTOPO 1:50,000 topo maps.
• To display local trails on a “moving map” display so I can navigate them. These trails are compiled from GPS tracks ridden by myself and others.
• To mark and return to interesting waypoints while riding.
I had a bunch of the typical teething pains with the XT such as having to charge it for 18 hours initially, having to put a spacer behind the power cord plug to keep it from loosing power while riding, which I was able to solve thank to the amazing folks on this forum.
I then began a detailed reading of jfheath’s excellent tutorial – fully expecting to use his method of “divorced from Explore” trip preparation. However, I quickly learned that the XT will not simultaneously display on the map more than 15 tracks imported from Basecamp. Big Bummer. My favourite ATV riding area requires display of about 150 tracks to “map out” the local trails.
However, I tried the Explore app as a last-ditch effort prior to returning the XT as unsuitable for my use. Lo and behold, it works really well for my offroad use – I export waypoints and tracks from Basecamp to Explore (as an aside – it looks like crap on the web version but really good on the phone app version of Explore), then sync the XT with Explore and all my data is there with the added bonus of being able to turn on or off the display of whole collections – excellent.
This bring me to road trip navigation and my questions:
Do all the lessons in jfheath’s tutorial and FrankB’s TripManager still apply – or will being synced to Explore mean this is all not applicable now ?
Is there a quick and easy way on the XT to jump from “Explore sync enabled” to “divorced use”?
Here are some pics:

The Bike:

Bike.jpg (318.64 KiB) Viewed 750 times

The ATV:

ATV.jpg (234.24 KiB) Viewed 750 times

Custom topo on BC:

BC Map.jpg (392.82 KiB) Viewed 750 times

ATV trails in BC as tracks:

BC trails.jpg (276.03 KiB) Viewed 750 times

Tracks in Explore on PC:

Explore.jpg (445.67 KiB) Viewed 750 times

Tracks and waypoints in Explore on phone 5km scale:

Explore - 5km.jpg (275.62 KiB) Viewed 750 times

Tracks in Explore on phone 500m scale:

Explore 500m.jpg (213.25 KiB) Viewed 750 times

[BillaVista]

Custom Topo on the XT - 5km scale:

XT CANTOPO 5km.jpg (251.92 KiB) Viewed 749 times

Custom Topo on the XT - 300m scale:

XT CANTOPO 300m.jpg (362.76 KiB) Viewed 749 times

ATV tracks on the XT with custom topo layer underneath

@5km scale:

XT CANTOPO Tracks 5km.jpg (291.24 KiB) Viewed 749 times

@500m scale:

XT CANTOPO Tracks 500m.jpg (397.94 KiB) Viewed 749 times

@300m scale:

XT CANTOPO 300m.jpg (362.76 KiB) Viewed 749 times

@80m scale:

XT CANTOPO Tracks 80m.jpg (228.49 KiB) Viewed 749 times

ATV tracks on the XT just using XT maps:

@5km scale:

XT Tracks 5km.jpg (338.69 KiB) Viewed 749 times

@800m scale:

XT Tracks 800m.jpg (278.16 KiB) Viewed 749 times

@120m scale:

XT Tracks 120m.jpg (215.94 KiB) Viewed 749 times

[jfheath]

This bring me to road trip navigation and my questions:
Do all the lessons in jfheath’s tutorial and FrankB’s TripManager still apply – or will being synced to Explore mean this is all not applicable now ?
Is there a quick and easy way on the XT to jump from “Explore sync enabled” to “divorced use”?

I've only just come across this post - and the question that you ask.

First of all a tip about using the forum:

If you want to quote someone's name - so that they get alerted, then use the '@' symbol in front. So you type @BillaVista - rather than BillaVista. BUT before you finish typing the name or before you press the space bar, just glance up at the screen. You will see a popup of all of the names of members that start with the letters that you have typed so far. As soon as you press the space bar - or in your case if you add an apostrophe (as in the words jfheath's tutorial), that pop up disapppears. So select the name from the list before it disappears.

It will them change to a show the terms: mention and /mention in square brackets either side of the name. If you wish to add the apostrophe 'S' then just put it immediately after the closing square bracket. Then @BillaVista will appear like this @BillaVista - and the person will got alerted by the Banner in the top right corner, and if they have selected the option, also by email.

Ok - back to the question.

To be honest - I do not know. I did a lot of experimenting with the XT1 when I first got it, and so much was going wrong with the XT1 when Explore synch was enabled, that didn't go wrong when it wasn't enabled - I just abandoned any hope of it ever working. It wasn't just the routing - there was other stuff regarding BT and connection to the phone.

I would have Explore installed on phone and linked to the XT1, but I did not allow it to synchronise. That allowed me to email gpx files that I had created in Basecamp to my phone and then open the attached GPX file using the Explore App. That would install the route and data into Internal Storage. I quite liked that, although I never got out of the habit of connecting the USB cable - mainly because that is the only way of ensuring all old data is removed.

For road use - I don't do off road - I'd fix the route to make it think it was an saved one rather than imported. And that got rid of the RUT behaviour.
@FrankB's Trip Manager has evolved since those days and it is an excellent tool.

This link and subsequent pages app.php/ZXT-P69 was as far as I ever experimented - As you can see - I had Explore active at the time. So I found out plenty about how to get it to work. I did experiment with the transition from a road route to an off road route - but it isn't documented in that section that I can see. I THINK that I didn't get it to work and resorted to two routes. I'll try to find out. But if so that clearly indicates that I had a road route and and off road route in the same Zumo at the same time.

I do know that once you have Explore enabled and synching it is impossible to remove it without reinstalling Explore on the phone from scratch and restoring the XT1 to factory condition.

I'd have to go back through my email conversations with Garmin to remind myself about what the specific faults were when Explore was active. As you can see from my signature - I decided that it offered nothing that I wanted to use.

You can disable Explore synch by breaking the bT connection with the phone. But that will affect all other BT connectivity with the phone.

I still have the XT1, and I could set it up to replicate your issue - but maybe by bouncing this topic and replying someone with more recent experience with Explore active, would be able to chime in with more recent observations.


As I understand it - your concern is more related to using a synching XT1 with off road routes and then seemlessly switching to on road.
My questions would be whether recent updates to Explore have fixed the problems that Explore had.

Sorry - I haven't answered the question because I cannot as yet - but it has brought it back up the list !!

[FrankB]

A while ago I connected my XT1 to Explore. I wanted to find out how it works together with TripManager. viewtopic.php?t=3150
My main conclusions can be found in the PDF attached.

After a few tests I reverted back to not using Explore. The most annoying thing about Explore is that the tracklogs lose the time.

@jfheath Explore is still disappointing!

[FrankB]

@BillaVista
The PDF I attached earlier is not answering the questions directly. Here it goes:

This bring me to road trip navigation and my questions:
Do all the lessons in jfheath’s tutorial and FrankB’s TripManager still apply – or will being synced to Explore mean this is all not applicable now ?

Yes, they still apply. That is for the on-road usage driving routes. On the XT called trips.

Is there a quick and easy way on the XT to jump from “Explore sync enabled” to “divorced use”?

No, See the last page in the PDF. But you dont have to 'divorce' to use it as you want. Or better as I think you want.

My suggestion would be:

- For off-road usage use tracks that you upload to Explore and let it sync to the XT. You can use collections to control which tracks to display on the map.

- For on-road use routes, best created by Basecamp and exported as GPX. Use an USB cable and TripManager to 'Send to' the XT, and check the option 'Trips'. That will save the route(s) immediately as trips in the Trip Planner, automatically by passing the Explore sync completely.
If you like you can also transfer Way Points, and even Tracks, to the XT. They WILL get synced back to Explore.

Hope this helps.