Does anyone have any experience with the Garmin GPS units? Specifically
the Drivesmart 55 and for US/Canadian travel?

I am looking for a unit that will allow me to customize my route, i.e. if
it picks the fastest or shortest and I decide I want to take a side road
that I have heard is more scenic.

In past I have not been so interested in GPS because I would rather use
maps. However, in recent years, my eyesight has gotten where it would be
nice to have something tell me where to turn, but only if I had some input
in setting the route. :)

Mike


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** On Friday 17.03.23 - 15:10, you wrote to ALL:

Does anyone have any experience with the Garmin GPS units?
Specifically the Drivesmart 55 and for US/Canadian
travel?

I have a Drive 50. I've never used it for what you describe,
but remember options for selecting alternate routes.

In past I have not been so interested in GPS because I
would rather use maps. However, in recent years, my
eyesight has gotten where it would be nice to have
something tell me where to turn, but only if I had some
input in setting the route. :)

Nothing beats planning and envisioning a route with a map
first. ;)


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Does anyone have any experience with the Garmin GPS units?
Specifically the Drivesmart 55 and for US/Canadian
travel?

I have a Drive 50. I've never used it for what you describe,
but remember options for selecting alternate routes.

Thanks for the feedback. I assume you are happy with your Garmin product?


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I have a Drive 50. I've never used it for what you
describe, but remember options for selecting alternate
routes.

Thanks for the feedback. I assume you are happy with your
Garmin product?

I've had it on the road for a while. It's spot on wrt to
speed, and elevation. It's designed to be used in a vehicle
and thus I assume always connected to a power source. I got it
primarily to demo the GPS products that I sell; as such, the
battery doesn't seem to last too long even when the device is
turned off for several days. Maybe your Drive55 model
overcomes that. Anyway.. now that I know that batt power can
be conserved by turning it off, the Drive50 can make a decent
portable unit for hiking.

I presume that the "50" in Drive50 means a 5" screen, and the
Drive55 has a 5.5" screen?

Anyway.. explore the menus. There is some modest prompting on
how to program an alternate route.


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Quoting Dumas Walker to All <=-

Does anyone have any experience with the Garmin GPS units?
Specifically the Drivesmart 55 and for US/Canadian travel?

Hi there, I have a Garmin Drive 61 which is the predecessor to the
DriveSmart. I also still use a Garmin Nuvi-1450.

I am looking for a unit that will allow me to customize my route, i.e.
if it picks the fastest or shortest and I decide I want to take a side road that I have heard is more scenic.

Both of my Garmin GPS units will let me set a route and then pick
an alternate. The directions step you through doing this. The
reason I have 2 is that I have one for my vehicle and one for my
wifes vehicle.

In past I have not been so interested in GPS because I would rather
use maps. However, in recent years, my eyesight has gotten where it
would be nice to have something tell me where to turn, but only if I
had some input in setting the route. :)

I still have maps in my vehicle as well. There have been one or two
times where the GPS has tried to send me 'Off road' in Pittsburgh at
a mall. Other than that, these units are great. They may not be
the newest thing on the market, but I can and have recently
downloaded updates for the US maps. Unbelievably, I have the latest
maps on my Nuvi (granted I did have to buy a 4GB SD card for it).

I also owned a Tomtom GPS, but I found the Garmin better for me
personally.

Best regards,

Cougar

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turned off for several days. Maybe your Drive55 model
overcomes that. Anyway.. now that I know that batt power can
be conserved by turning it off, the Drive50 can make a decent
portable unit for hiking.

I have not actually bought one yet, I was just looking into them.

I presume that the "50" in Drive50 means a 5" screen, and the
Drive55 has a 5.5" screen?

I am not 100% certain on the screen size, but it is bigger than the 50 and smaller than the 65 so you may be onto something there.

Anyway.. explore the menus. There is some modest prompting on
how to program an alternate route.

I have watched some youtube videos about them and it does sound like the
route is "changeable" enough to suit my needs.


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Dumas Walker wrote to ALL <=-

Does anyone have any experience with the Garmin GPS units?
Specifically the Drivesmart 55 and for US/Canadian travel?

No, but I've been having a blast playing with some rather inexpesive USB GPS units. My Dad had the idea of using them for a clock in his ham shack. The raspberry PIs don't have a RTC (Real Time Clock), and these get you close.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09Z61KYS9

They get detected as a simple USB device under linux. Comport under Windows. Pretty interesting and it's been fun to have something to tinker with and decode. Unfortunately, the GPS traffic doesn't have date (just the time), so daylight savings time changes aren't possible.

The gpsd (linux) handles some of that, and uses the system clock. Which won't work with the PIs.

So now I know what time it is, and where I'm at! I don't have to leave the house to know where I'm at.

Take care,
bugz


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Both of my Garmin GPS units will let me set a route and then pick
an alternate. The directions step you through doing this. The
reason I have 2 is that I have one for my vehicle and one for my
wifes vehicle.

I still have maps in my vehicle as well. There have been one or two
times where the GPS has tried to send me 'Off road' in Pittsburgh at
a mall. Other than that, these units are great. They may not be
the newest thing on the market, but I can and have recently
downloaded updates for the US maps. Unbelievably, I have the latest
maps on my Nuvi (granted I did have to buy a 4GB SD card for it).

I also owned a Tomtom GPS, but I found the Garmin better for me
personally.

Thanks for the input! I have since found some YT videos where people let
the Garmin pick a route and then they "shape" it to add the side roads they would rather take.

It sounds like it would be a close fit to what I am looking for.


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Thanks for the input! I have since found some YT videos
where people let the Garmin pick a route and then they
"shape" it to add the side roads they would rather take.

Yes.. I believe selecting alternate routes is as simple as re-
drawing your route on the display by touch.

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Re: Re: Garmin GPS Units?
By: Gamgee to MRO on Mon Mar 20 2023 07:54 am

If you don't activate it, it won't work unless on Wifi. Not much Wifi
out on the open highway. Duh.

I don't know about Google Maps, but there are navigator packages such as Osmand which
work offline. You need some Internet to update the map database every now and then,
but while you are out in the woods the phone uses GPS only.

Most of the time you may benefit from IP Geolocation too, in theory. I don't have it
enabled in any of my devices.

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Dumas Walker wrote to COUGAR428 <=-

Thanks for the input! I have since found some YT videos where people
let the Garmin pick a route and then they "shape" it to add the side
roads they would rather take.

Back around 2014-2015, there were a couple of GPS apps for your phone
that would pick side roads and points of interest between point A and
point B. I used it to discover ghost towns, birthplaces of celebrities,
oldest buildings in their respective counties, and so on. Lots of fun
when you're not on a tight schedule.



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Back around 2014-2015, there were a couple of GPS apps for your phone
that would pick side roads and points of interest between point A and
point B. I used it to discover ghost towns, birthplaces of celebrities, oldest buildings in their respective counties, and so on. Lots of fun
when you're not on a tight schedule.

That does sound pretty neat!


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Re: Garmin GPS Units?
By: Dumas Walker to MRO on Sun Mar 19 2023 09:18:00

I remember fussing in one of the echos about that last one only to be
that Google Maps had turned off their "don't route through bad areas" because people complained it was not "politically correct" to do so.

When did it become "politically incorrect" to steer clear of danger? '-)
Regards,
HusTler

...Some of the crowd have decided to voice their opinion by staying away.

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I remember fussing in one of the echos about that last one only to be that Google Maps had turned off their "don't route through bad areas" because people complained it was not "politically correct" to do so.

When did it become "politically incorrect" to steer clear of danger? '-)

I don't know but it is. :(


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Re: Garmin GPS Units?
By: Hustler to Dumas Walker on Mon Mar 27 2023 07:20 am

Re: Garmin GPS Units?
By: Dumas Walker to MRO on Sun Mar 19 2023 09:18:00

I remember fussing in one of the echos about that last one only to be that Google Maps had turned off their "don't route through bad areas" because people complained it was not "politically correct" to do so.

When did it become "politically incorrect" to steer clear of danger? '-)
Regards,
HusTler

...Some of the crowd have decided to voice their opinion by staying away.

If an area is considered high crime or a place where people from outside the area are prey for the local gangs, that is a good enough explanation without going into the socio-economic or other conjecture based on race or culture.
If there is a riot zone in my path, I don't care who it is or what they stand for. Chances are they have their opponents gathering on their borders and
the entire area is a hot zone.

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