Etrex alternatives?

[gallowayboy]

My Etrex 20X, bought from classifieds on either here or Singletrackworld a few years ago, is dying - getting (even) slower, glitchy and refuses to upload more than one 8okm, 250 turn point, route. Hard reboot doesn't solve it. I have a 12 day trip coming up at the end of the month, saved in 11 gpx files and, although i'll have my phone with OS map downloads as back up that'll be stashed away ; I want a gps on the bars for navigation. Ive only done two day trips with the etrex, it would run two GPX files over two days OK.

It seems I have three options:
1. A new Etrex (32X) - same benefits (Battery life, AA batteries, tough, I know how to use it) and disbenefits (slow to load, limited capacity for turn points, the awful basecamp software). Id probably add a Micro SD with Talkytoaster map with contours.
2. Garmin edge 530 - same price roughly but an unknown quantity - Id need to work out how to use it, smaller screen, no idea how many GPX files it can run, I'd need to charge it rather than pop a couple of rechargeable AAs in, battery life seems to be less than the etrex, cant add memory.
3. wahoo bolt, same as the edge 530 really.

My instincts say stick with an Etrex , but......am I wrong in my assumptions about the alternatives? Am I missing something else? Has anyone used an etrex and then moved to something else, or have comparative experience of more than one of the above? I Don't really want to spend more than 250 quid; although I can see the sense in using an android phone with mapping, I'd have to buy a (waterproof) phone and the means to attach it.

[Bearbonesnorm]

If you save files as .gpx track then multiple days should fit onto the etrex fine .... unless of course it is really broken.

Have you considered something in the Oregon / Montana range? (gps not mountains).

[gallowayboy]

Thanks for reply ....... yeah, I save them as tracks, its just not playing any more!
Montana/Oregon are out of my price range at the moment. Id like to go there, however!

[fatbikephil]

If you are looking for cheapness, Garmin Dakotas seem to go for a lot less than etrexes on ebay. I bought one new in 2015 (old stock) and have since bought 2 for £50-£60, neither of which had much use. Same system as an Etrex just with a touch screen which is a PIA in the rain but otherwise dead easy to use and similar battery life.

[whitestone]

There's a difference in "routes" and "tracks", unfortunately common parlance thinks of "GPX routes" which aren't what you want.

Routes are actually a series of waypoints or locations and the unit, err, routes you between them. The Etrex (and other units) have a limit of how many waypoints they can handle, 250 in the case of the Etrex.

Tracks are a trace of where someone has been - think along the lines of the old style hunter following the tracks of an animal. They are a set of points linked by straight lines. In the Etrex there's no limit on how big these can be.

So as Stu says, save your files as "tracks" (most mapping sites/software will let you do this) and then download them onto the unit. Before you do that clear out everything you don't need - it's likely that you haven't deleted old recordings (tracks!) from previous rides, copy them to your main computer for backup and then delete them. If you haven't seen this site before it's a good series of setups for GPS units, this is the Etrex page - https://www.navigation-professionell.de ... -settings/

[Bearbonesnorm]

Another fan of the Dakota here too. I did buy a SH Oregon 600 from FLV and whilst it has a bigger and better screen, I still use the old Dakota a lot.

[gallowayboy]

@whitestone I do save routes as tracks (on basecamp) before uploading them - I thought there were still limits on number of turn points though? If not then that's reassuring.
That link you posted is the best explanation of the Etrex ive seen, thanks, i'm reading it now. I will try to clear data once more and reload....worth a bit more perseverance.
Not keen on the Dakota because of the touchscreen really (it will rain) but ta for the suggestion.

[ripio]

Dakota 20 touchscreen works just fine in rain.
It uses older technology than smartphone touchscreens that don't work in rain.

[Huwblut]

I sent my glitchy Etrex 30X to: www.satnavrepairservice.com

I wasn't massively optimistic but it came back working perfectly in about a week for £29.99.

[gallowayboy]

Well, there seems to have been a bit of user error (ahem! ). Went through the files on the etrex unit, and in amongst the tracks for the upcoming trip were two routes. Cleared everything, loaded CAREFULLY all the TRACKS and its OK. Still slow to load and monumentally slow if you try to move the map, but everything is there, and the first leg is navigable from the door.
I'll take a chance on sticking with what i've got......
Thanks all, as you were!

Edit thanks Hublut ill look into that and bear it in mind.

[whitestone]

Not sure what you mean by "turn points". Are you referring to "turn by turn" instructions or "waypoints"?

TBT is basically a set of cues appended to the file: "turn left at the next junction" sort of thing. It depends on both the mapping used by the site/software being able to generate them AND the unit to be able to read them and then display/announce them. Sometimes saved as TCX files.

Waypoints are essentially destinations. Each waypoint is looked at by the unit as if you'd asked it: "I'm here, I want to get there, find me the best way". Car satnavs work like this - you enter your destination address and the unit works out the best route according to current road and traffic conditions.

Track have individual points but they are treated differently from waypoints, they aren't "destinations" so the unit isn't trying to work out how to get from A to B, it just displays the point on the screen. There's essentially no limit. OK, there is, but it's likely to be a big number. The Highland Trail is sent out as 2 files of around 500kb and 600kb for example. I just opened one up and there's around 5000 track points each of which looks like this:

<trkpt lat="56.441164" lon="-4.711252">
<ele>256.6</ele>
<time>2018-03-25T06:09:06Z</time>
</trkpt>

So it's possible that smaller/older units have that sort of limit on track points.

Edit: checking that file the timestamps are irregular so it's likely that it has been sampled to reduce the filesize - there's several algorithms to do this, most work on limiting deviation in that if you've five points in a line then the middle three are redundant as a straight line drawn between the first and last will pass through them. At some point one of those points will be far enough off that straight line that the code will consider that to be a valid point and will be kept. The more aggressive the sampling the larger the permitted deviation. That's why you sometimes see a track cut bends in the road for example. Somewhere in the Google Maps documentation there's a good description of their algorithm that does this.

[fatbikephil]

Another thought re slow map scrolling - this was the case on my Dakota (OS mapping) until I bought a new card from that ioffer place and suddenly the map scrolling speeded up markedly. This was due to the card being a high speed one. After couple of years it slowed right down and eventually crashed completely - turns out the card had failed. I now used scan disk ones and so far they have been fine.

[gallowayboy]

Not sure what you mean by "turn points". Are you referring to "turn by turn" instructions or "waypoints"?
Yeah, I was getting them confused. Bit clearer now! Main issue I think was clumsily sending routes instead of tracks to the unit, then trying to view them on the map..

@fatbikephil don't have extra mapping on a micro SD - its just slow on the garmin supplied topo map, which I find OK if I've got paper/phone map in reserve.

[belugabob]

Hmm - my eTrex (35 touch) has a limit of 40 waypoints per route, if you want to get turn by turn notifications - not the 250 stated above.

I find this a bit puzzling, TBH, as it only needs the route you to the next point, then the point after that - not calculate the whole route at once.

It's only mildly frustrating, as long as you remember to split the route into sections containing 40 points, or fewer, each.
(Bloody annoying, if you forget, though)

[sean_iow]

But that's a Route, you only really need one way-point for a route, the destination. The gps is deciding the way between them, like a sat-nav does in a car.

If you want to decide the way you go on the way there you need a Track. The problem is that the devices don't follow a Track in the same way, it won't tell you which way to go, you you have to follow it on the screen. Think of it like a map that has your track drawn on but that automatically shows you where you are with an arrow.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Yes, I've never really understood the need of way-points and turn by turn direction ... but I don't have a satnav either.

[belugabob]

But that's a Route, you only really need one way-point for a route, the destination. The gps is deciding the way between them, like a sat-nav does in a car.

If you've planned a route for a veloviewer tile bagging session, then that tends to be more specific than "start here and go to there" - well, it's simply several of those, chained together, and turn by turn notifications (with associated beeps) mean that you don't need to be constantly watching the GPS, like you would with a track

[sean_iow]

The problem is Garmin didn't design it with us in mind, we're somewhat on the edge of the graph of typical users

It was originally designed as a walking hand-held, they had no idea we'd head out on a single ride that would take a walker 3 weeks

I don't know why they have such a small limit on waypoints for routes, the tracks it records can have up to 10000 points.

[belugabob]

It was originally designed as a walking hand-held,

If so, that was before they added the driving/cycling etc. profiles

[sean_iow]

What we need is some of the other manufacturers to bring out an alternative to make Garmin up their game.

My running watch is a Coros Pace 2, it's got a 30 hour battery life when tracking in GPS (60 hrs in ultra mode) is also a wrist based activity tracker, and has cycling/waking/strength/swimming modes and loads more. It has a much better user interface than any of the garmins I had before it, the app that goes with it is lightyears ahead of Garmin Connect and it just works without bugs or glitches. One of the updates means you can even control a GoPro from it. It's also their base model and was 40% of the cost of an equivalent Garmin at the time.

Since I bought it in 2021 Garmin have reduced their prices by a considerable amount, they must have been worried that they were loosing market share.