From Google Maps to Garmin device

[weisan]

I have been traveling for the last 4 weeks - first SF, then Melbourne, last stop Singapore.

It's hard to imagine that there's not a seamless connection between Google Maps and my Garmin 530 via my phone.

I am talking about getting directions on Google Maps on the phone and then a press of a button to "share" or send directly to the Garmin device.

The bicycle routing in Google maps have its issues, yes I know that but it's still the best option out there so I will continue to use it.

[weisan]

It is possible to "share" to ridewithgps but you can't send to your device as a pinned or saved route.

[cp43]

Originally Posted by weisan

It is possible to "share" to ridewithgps but you can't send to your device as a pinned or saved route.

If you link your RideWithGPS account to your Garmin Connect account, you can set it up so that routes that you pin in RideWithGPS will be automatically transferred to Garmin Connect. From there you can send it to your Garmin device with your phone.

Not as seamless as you want, but it does work.

Chris

[tellyho]

I don't know of a Google to Garmin connection. I always build routes in RWGPS.

[Mr. Pink]

You could try this: https://youtu.be/c2pLw2DzfDQ?si=8uyXF2YcFheEW090
You need the route formatted in .gpx in order to use on a Garmin device. Only other way I can think of is paying for Ridewithgps and manually tracing out the route in that software and then uploading to your device.

[meyatt]

I would use an intermediary like RWGPS, but with the 530 you will also encounter the problem that maps are geolocked — you will need to install maps from other regions yourself manually.

This was a never-ending frustration for me since I travel back and forth between the U.S. and Sweden quite a bit and would need to reload the other each time I arrived. Newer x40 models allow for multiple maps as a "feature" that Wahoo and Hammerhead just have off the shelf.

[CAAD]

I travel a lot and never use Google maps for bicycle routes. Google maps is good for locating multi use trails, that's about it. Google maps gives you an idea where bicycles ride but in cities it's just someone commuting on a sketchy road.

I use ridewithgps for finding routes no matter where I'm at in the world. I use the rwgps app to find a route, top right download the file, click the file once it downloads, use Garmin connect to open the file, it imports it, then send to device. Takes like 4 clicks to get it into an edge device.

[Mr. Pink]

When I travel in Europe, I don't use Google maps, I use HereNow, which can operate offline and isn't clogged up with ads and commercial links like Google, so, maybe you want to look into that app and see if you can easily download gpx files.

[benb]

Are you talking about pre-planned routes or routes you need to start on the fly?

If the 530 has full navigation on board I would just use that if you are on a ride and all of a sudden have a need to navigate to an address.

IME for bike specific directions my 1030 gives better directions than Google Maps, Google Maps is too tuned for cars and doesn't have everything the Garmin maps have.

The thing I find annoying is the Garmin "bike map" is in the devices but it's not on Garmin Connect for pre-planning routes.

Am I misunderstanding the specs and the 530 doesn't actually have full on-board turn-by-turn navigation? I thought in the past 5xx devices didn't have everything the 8xx and 1xxx devices had, but the specs for the 530 make it sound like it has everything.

[Jdm]

My 530 has the worst auto-navigation of any device I’ve used in my life. I would never use it to navigate me somewhere. For example, I took a slight detour going home at mile 95 of a 100 mile ride. My 530 re-routed me such that I had another 95 miles left to ride.

[prototoast]

Originally Posted by Jdm

My 530 has the worst auto-navigation of any device I’ve used in my life. I would never use it to navigate me somewhere. For example, I took a slight detour going home at mile 95 of a 100 mile ride. My 530 re-routed me such that I had another 95 miles left to ride.

That's nothing. I used to use a Magellan Cyclo for GPS navigation. If you ever went off course (or just a momentary GPS glitch made it think you went off course) it would try to renavigate you, but from the point where you first went off course. And if you kept moving while this was happening, it was so slow that by the time it had calculated the updated route, it needed to recalculate a new route because you weren't at the starting location it had just calculated from.

Basically, if you ever lost the route, you would be stuck in an infinite loop of recalculating unless you stopped riding--and even canceling navigation wasn't possible at that point because you couldn't cancel while it was "calculating."

[benb]

Interesting. I have had zero issues with the 1000 and now the 1030 in terms of directions actually generated by the device. As in I go into navigation and ask it to navigate to an address.

Every single issue I have ever had was the result of weirdness when downloading a pre-planned route into the computer. (Including ones I made)

Mostly because pre-planned routes seem to sometimes have a point in them that makes no sense to actually ride through that point and it adds an extra turn to make you go through the point followed by a u-turn or something stupid.

Probably the worst case for me has been the official routes for events that were/are hosted on RideWithGPS.

Last weekend I had pre-planned a couple routes and I had it try to put me on the sidewalk on a stroad. I have never seen it do that on directions generated on-device.

[gospastic]

The new Hammerhead Karoo has this functionality. It’s dead simple to use and has been really handy.

[Dana Kilalps]

Cycle.travel has a button that puts a route directly into Garmin Connect.
You can make your own route or let it suggest a few options if you put in the start and end points. You can make it show a profile of elevations.