GPSrChive Discussion Forum

Got mine yesterday. The device overall looks fine and also works most of the time.

SW bugs GPSr:
1) Bluetooth connection not stable. After switching off the device or the iPhone (X) I have to go through the whole pairing process again. Really bad. WLAN on the other hand works fine. Obviously not much progress against the Oregon 700 series.
2) Every time I switch on the new Expedition mode (battery saving mode) the device is crashing and the batteries need to be removed.
3) I have chosen GPS+Galileo. When I switched off the device it turned back to GPS only after powering on again.

Conceptual bugs:
4) Whoever created this cumbersome process to onboard to the new Explore web page and to the apps should be moved to the HR department. Don‘t give him/her a computer again. You have to use Explore App, Connect App, websites and follow a completely crazy process. Don‘t spend your time for creating nice graphic features and pictures and instead invest in a seamless workflow!
5) You can‘t use Explore on your iPhone AND iPad. You will loose Bluetooth Connection. Sync is not working. Either/or. This is not cloud computing at all.
6) The Explore App is not even Beta. It will take a very long time just to compete with the outdated BaseCamp application. This is probably ok to create and track jogging in the evening but will for sure not allow to plan a trip of several weeks in foreign countries including a lot of routes and tracks. If you can‘t use the automotive and other maps installed on your device this is not working. The software is not able to create a meaningful route from a bunch of Waypoints. Useless.

Regards
Werner

Out of curiosity, what firmware version is your device running?

Good point:
SW Version 2.10
GPS Software 2.4

Not sure what happened to my GPSr. Over night all my settings went south and everything (really everything!) was back to the factory settings this morning.

On the other side I have now a stable bluetooth connection and the collaboration with Garmin Explore works on iPhone AND iPad (of course the limitations of the apps remain).

Let‘s see if this is happening again or if something was not ok with the installation on my device which is now fixed after the crash.

Regards Werner

wwerner, I sent you a private email.

Hi all

As reported here I had several crashes and data losses with my new GPSMap66 and also a lot of connection issues. Paravan-shop.ch, an outdoor shop and Garmin re-seller found the issue.

If you are using CleanMyDrive 2 on mac make sure to update to the newest version (2.1.13). The older version caused several crashes and data losses on my GPSMap66. The issue has been solved after the update.

After solving this problem the device runs very smooth now. There are some issues which is not a surprise for a new device but overall I'm really happy. The device works faster than Oregon 700. A first fix after switching on the device is incredibly fast.

Regards Werner

Thank you for keeping us in the loop, Werner!

Unfortunately the daily crashes did not stop. I sent the device back to the reseller for exchange/repair.
WWERNER

wwerner wrote: Thu Nov 01, 2018 4:35 am Unfortunately the daily crashes did not stop. I sent the device back to the reseller for exchange/repair.
WWERNER

The files you sent did not contain any crash data, so I will be very curios how your 'replacement' unit works out. Please let us know!

Not sure crash is the right term. All menu settings got lost, all profile changes have been sent back to factory settings, the connection settings for Bluetooth and WLAN got lost. Maps, waypoints, entries in txt files remained.

There is a strange pattern. It turned out the first connection on a new day normally failed and/or the "crash" happened. All subsequent connections did not show any problems. On the next day the device crashed again. Not sure there is somewhere a date file or a log file which caused the crashes.

The extension CleanMyDrive had some impact as well but was for sure not the only problem.

I keep you posted. I hope the reseller can fix it.

WWERNER