Article Zumo 590 & 595 Trip Planner & Basecamp - What Goes Wrong and Why

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A detailed analysis of how the later Zumos (with the Trip Planner App) work together. This is the result of many hours of working out how my Zumo 590 and 595 behave with routes created in Basecamp and results in some recommendations for trouble free route planning.

Latest Version Sept 2021 v4.2 - published Dec 2021 on Issuu. Best viewed in full page mode


Edit - 23 Jan 2023. Issuu have informed me of changes to their terms of service - files must be kept smaller; files must be public, rather than unlisted or I will have to pay £15 per month in order to have it hosted.

I have no intention of doing any of these things, so from the date above, this document will no longer be available on the Issuu site. I'll have to find another way to make it available. PM me.
 
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I will have to watch these. I like my 590, but my old 550 seemed easier to use.

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I have been stocking up on 550s and now also have a 665 I like the way they work and will use them as long as I can.
 

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Jeff there is a guy over here called the PalmDr who repairs GPS's He did one of my 550's recently it lost the XM radio it just disappeared well it was not expensive and the service was very fast he also replaced the internal battery which speeded up the device dramatically. I haven't had a chance to use the 665 yet but will soon.
 

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I finally had some time to read through this last night. After using a 550 for many years and upgrading straight to a 590, the learning curve has been steep. I was starting to figure out the via point difference and some of the other changes. This article helped speed up my learning curve.

Thank you for taking the time to capture this information and share it a very easy to understand format. This kind of stuff is what makes this forum great.

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Re: Zumo Trip Planner & Basecamp - What Goes Wrong and Why

Yes - it does go on a bit doesn't, it?
On the contrary. The important parts were stressed often enough that only an idiot would make that mistake. I have to try and lead a lot of idiots at work, so I'm well versed in trying to get a point across. You did a fine job.

Thanks again for a very informative article.





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Your information posted here was real helpful today on my way to OH-STOC. I made the mistake of converting all of my in between waypoints to silent shading points. I then made a side excursion and had the ZUMO recalculate. My custom route was wiped out. I them remembered your instructions about the Zumo changing everything between the waypoints which was my beginning and end, OOPS.
So I then deleted the loaded route and reloaded the route from trip planner and all was well. I am now able to better understand what happens and why.

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mlheck

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Actually I found out that I had loaded the wrong version of the trip. So the route was different than I expected. Deleted that route and loaded correct route.

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Oh - that's good.
I don't know if I wrote this in the pdf file, but another way of dealing with the recalculated route - when you are in an unknown area, is to save the route as a track in Basecamp and then export both the route and the track to the Zumo. There is an option to load the track from the main menu, and then in the 3 bar menu for the track, you can choose to show it on the map (in addition to the route being followed) and you can choose its displayed colour. Most of the time, you won't see it, because the route will sit on top of it. But as soon as you deviate, you will be able to see where the original route is in relation to the newly calculated route that your satnav is offering. Of course, the satnav can't navigate using the track.
 

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Re: Zumo Trip Planner & Basecamp - What Goes Wrong and Why

Yes I believe that was covered in the .pdf, not that I would remember it when needed though. LOL

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I've been playing with my Zumo 590 again - still trying to get to the bottom of a few little oddities - things that I have seen to go wrong, but I haven't been able to work out why - nor have I been able to reproduce them. I'm not having a problem with it - I just hate it when it does something that I don't expect!

In delving around, I found a few things that I didn't already know, and one or two things which could easily mess up the expected routing - when the Zumo recalculates.

It's a fairly detailed document showing screenshots of the experiments that I did, and detailed explanations of what I reckon goes on, but it finishes with a summary of the key points - which I have reproduced below.

It finally lays to rest the myth that the Zumo 590 has to have its routing preferences set to what you had in basecamp, and joins up other bits of information which I knew, but hadn't realised that they were linked.

As usual, any comments or information that enhances or corrects this stuff is most welcome.

The information is summarised below, but added in detail to a new section of my pdf file v 4.2
Just ask if you want an update.



Summary - Use of Basecamp Profiles for a Zumo Route.

The Zumo can be used to plan ad-hoc routes.
In this case, the Zumo can be configured with its own:-
  • Calculation Mode (Faster, Shorter, Curvy, OffRoad);
  • Avoidances;
  • Transportation Mode (Car, Motorcycle, OffRoad)

The Zumo can also receive routes that have been planned in Basecamp.
A Route plotted in Basecamp should appear in the Zumo exactly as planned. If not, the maps are not the same, or there are settings in Basecamp that need to be changed.
In addition to the route and the routing points, Zumo sends two pieces information that are useful should the Zumo need to recalculate the route. These are:

  • Transportation Mode (Car, Motorcycle, OffRoad),
  • Routing Preference (Curvy, Faster, Shorter, OffRoad)

When a Basecamp Route is active in the Zumo
  • The Zumo Transportation Mode is switched to match the Profile Name from Basecamp (Regardless of which cradle is in use)
  • The Avoidances that are set in the Zumo for the route’s Transport Mode will become active.
  • The Route Preferences in the Zumo will be set to match the Route Preference set in Basecamp (Faster, Shorter, Curvy, OffRoad)
  • The Display settings for the Transport Mode will become active.

When a Basecamp Route is selected from the Trip Planner
  • It is possible to edit the Route Preferences
  • It is possible to edit the Transportation Mode
  • It is possible to edit and move the points around and make Shaping Points into Via Points and vice versa.
  • If the routing or transport is changed, then the entire route gets recalculated, and saved with the route.
  • If the above happens, it is possible to delete the route and re-import the original from the Zumo.

None of the above settings will have any effect on the original plotted route as long as the route is not recalculated.

If the route IS allowed to recalculate:
  • Only the current section of the route will be calculated, up to the next Route Point (Via, Shaping or End)
  • The new route will take into account your riding trends and trafficTrends unless these are cleared or disabled.
  • The new route will use the Zumo settings for Avoidances for the routes Transport Mode.(The Avoidances set in Basecamp are not used)


If a motorcycle route is loaded into the Zumo when it is in the car cradle
  • The Transportation Mode switches to Motorcycle and the route is navigated with settings from the route(In effect the route is navigates as it it were in the motorcycle cradle)
  • The setting for the car cradle become ‘Motorcycle’ even after the route is stopped.
  • The next time the Zumo is placed in the car cradle, the unit will switch to Motorcycle Mode.
  • But it is easy enough to switch back.
 
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I wrote this document over a year ago when I first got my Zumo 590. It was driving me nuts in that it didn't behave how I expected it to behave. So I tested it, tried to find out when it went wrong and why, noted apparent changes in the way that Zumo define the way in which routing points are treated during navigation. Basically, I shook it until it started behaving itself.

No - that's unfair. My Zumo behaves exactly as it did before, but I understand it better, and I know how to avoid the numerous traps that present themselves between planning a route and clicking 'Go' on the Zumo. And this is what the attached document is about. Loads of screenshots to illustrate the points, and hopefully written in a way that makes it clear.

The issues discussed are peculiar to the recent Zumos that have the Trip Planner App - like the 590, 595, 390, 395. But there is stuff in here that is also relevant to the way in which Mapsource and the Zumo 500 series work.

This thumbnail below will download the complete pdf file with all 4 sections. (35 pages).

View attachment 188812


--------------------

I've also split the document into 4 separate sections, and these are attached below:

Part 1 is to do with routes and how the Zumo treats the different type of routing points when navigating.

Part 2 is a complete route put together in Basecamp and getting it to work correctly in the Zumo. There is a lot to go wrong - this will fix the issues.

Part 3 is a reference section for both Basecamp and the Zumo. A series of "How To" descriptions - focusing on the things that go wrong - including why the carefully planned route ends up as something different in the Zumo; how to clear those unwanted routes, favourites and trip logs; Basecamp's 'Ghost' Points; ..... stuff like that.

Part 4 is new (4 Nov 2017) - I've been looking at the use of Basecamp Profiles and how the routing affects the Zumo. It is quite a detailed look at what happens when the mode changes, and where the Zumo obtains its information in order to recalculate routes. Long but quite revealing. I will post a summary at the head of this thread. Part 4 currently a separate document, and not included with the full 27 page document. (The whole lot has ended up too large to upload)

(Please excuse the crude covers - for some reason, these pages display any white part of the background of the thumbnail image as black. Hence the simple single colour.)
I wish that Garmin had put this in their manual. This is great and thank you for taking the time to post this.

I have a BMW NAV V and have been struggling with the via/waypoint/shaping issue and SELECT NEXT DESTINATION issue for over a year. A friend has been sending me GPX files that he uses with his ZUMO 660 but when I road with him on his routes my NAV V would never work right. For over a year now, through trial and error I have figured out most of the underlying issues importing these GPX files and using them on the NAV V but your guide will serve as a great reference tool in addition to confirmation of what I have learned by trial and error. Interesting that where you note on Page 5 that you are placing your start point somewhere on your initial start route and NOT where you are physically stopped - I have been doing this too. How illogical is this design feature! No other Garmin before this acted in this way. Also, the SELECT YOUR NEXT DESTINATION will get you in trouble if you don't understand what it is doing.
 

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Apropos of Garmin's Basecamp application, I have learned (the hard way) that routes created using Basecamp will not display or function correctly if they are uploaded from Basecamp to the Garmin 660 series navigator. The 660 series can only (successfully) import routes from the Mapsource application (the older, now deprecated Garmin map management application).

There is, however, a work-around for this problem, if users prefer to create routes in Basecamp rather than Mapsource: Create the route in Basecamp, then, open MapSource, and copy the route you have created in Basecamp into Mapsource, using standard Windows copy/paste commands. Save the newly-created Mapsource file, then upload the route from Mapsource to your 660 series.

The ability to do this is important for me, because I have two ST motorcycles: an older one with a Zumo 660, and a newer one with a Zumo 590. I prefer to keep all my work (routes, waypoints, track logs, etc.) in the Basecamp application because it has greater capability than the Mapsource application.

Michael
 
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After reading through all of this information (2 or 3 times) I now have an understanding of what is going on with my NAV V with custom routes (GPX imported). But I am wondering how the Zumo 660/665 handles the "off route" recalculation: Does it also abandon the route (like the 590) and recalculate to the next Via or is it somehow sticking to the original route by recalculating to a ghost point? I have friends that I ride with that have the 660 and they sometimes have issues and I am wondering if this might be where they are getting confused. For example, if there is a detour due to road construction my understanding is that my NAV V will abandon a custom route once you leave it (the route). To avoid this, I need to set auto recalculation OFF and somehow navigate on my own back to the route where the NAV will then once again continue with the route as planned. If I don't have auto recalc OFF then it will forget my route entirely and route me to the next Via using the navigation settings on the device (fastest, curvy, etc.). Does the 660 operate in the same fashion? Or, does it somehow route back to the original route by going to the nearest ghost points?
 
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jfheath

jfheath

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After reading through all of this information (2 or 3 times) I now have an understanding of what is going on with my NAV V with custom routes (GPX imported).
Good stuff - glad its helping. It is far from easy to get your head round.

But I am wondering how the Zumo 660/665 handles the "off route" recalculation: Does it also abandon the route (like the 590) and recalculate to the next Via or is it somehow sticking to the original route by recalculating to a ghost point?
The 590 / 660 doesn't abandon the entire route. It plots a new route up to the next Shaping Point or Via Point. Beyond that, the route should be exactly what was sent from Basecamp or Mapsource or what was saved having created it on the Zumo. The Zumo 660 behaves in exactly the same way. If it doesn't, then something is amiss - eg your Zumo map is not the same version as the map in Basecamp or Mapsource - or some of the stings in Basecamp are wronf when transferring to your Zumo.

It doesn't recalculate up to a 'Ghost Point'. There are hundreds of these little fixing points, maybe as close together as a few metres. Once the Zumo 590 / 660 recalculates a section of a route, the ghost points from that original section are lost. A 'section' is from where you are now up to the next Via Point or Shaping Point (or whatever the Zumo 660 calls them.


I have friends that I ride with that have the 660 and they sometimes have issues and I am wondering if this might be where they are getting confused. For example, if there is a detour due to road construction my understanding is that my NAV V will abandon a custom route once you leave it (the route).
As above, only the current section between where you are now and the next Shaping Point or Via point is recalculated if AutoRecalc is turned ON. The rest of the original route beyond the next Via Point or Shaping Point remains intact. But yes, you would now be following a completely different route up to the next Via / Shaping point.


To avoid this, I need to set auto recalculation OFF and somehow navigate on my own back to the route where the NAV will then once again continue with the route as planned.
Now this is where there can be lots of confusion. If Auto-recalc is turned OFF, then the original magenta route remains where it is, without being altered on both the 590 and the 660. You can use the map on the Zumos and head to intersect the magenta route somewhere up ahead. What happens next when you meet the magenta route is different for both the Zumo 590 and the Zumo 660.

The Zumo 660 doesn't care what came before. You have intersected the magenta line and it will start to navigate you towards the next via point or shaping point from where you are now. It doesn't care about any points that you plotted and which you may have missed while you were off route. It is brilliant.

The Zumo 590
will behave in a similar way if you have missed out a load of shaping points while you were off route. It realises that you are back on route and continues to navigate you to the next shaping / via point in its list, from where you are now. It will not nag you to go back to the ones that you have missed.
Example: You are heading East, on a route that has Start, Sh1, Sh2, Sh3, Sh4, Sh5, End. Your detour started sometime after Shaping Point 1 (Sh1) but before Sh2. You rejoin the route after Sh4. So you have missed out Sh2, Sh3 and Sh4. Just like the 660, the 590 doesn't care about missed shaping points. It sees you have rejoined the original route. There are no Via points missed out, and it will continue to navigate you along the original route towards Sh5. This is just what you want.

However, the Zumo 590 has software which redefines the behaviour of Via Points. It insists that you visit them.

So same route, heading east, but this time your route has Via Points: Start, Sh1, Sh2, Via3, Via4, Sh5, End

You leave the route after Sh1 and rejoin after Via4 and before Sh5. You are back on the Magenta line, but the satnav is telling you to do a U turn. It is trying to get you back to the points you have missed. Definitely back to Via3, but I think that it will also be trying to get you back to Sh2 as you have not yet rejoined what IT thinks is the route. It is as if it is treating the section between each Via point separately.

That's OK though. There is a Skip button. Press it once to skip each point you have missed, including the shaping points. Keeping track of this and knowing where they are is a problem though. In this situation you would press it until it started to navigate you eastwards.

Simple solution. Restart the route. If you know that you have already passed Via4, then select that as the next destination on the new route, and press Skip once to stop it trying to take you west to Via4.

On the 590 this makes you think carefully about where you put Via points and where you put shaping points.
Why bother with Via points then - because the 590 will not display shaping point information in the trip data display at the side of the screen (Time to Via, Distance to Via), and crucially, it will not present shaping points as an option in the list off next destinations when you start a route.

If I don't have auto recalc OFF then it will forget my route entirely and route me to the next Via using the navigation settings on the device (fastest, curvy, etc.).
This is always the case. If the SatNav 590 or 660 recalculates a route, it always uses the settings in the device, and may come up with a different route from the one that you planned. However, it will always come up with a route that includes all of the Via Points and Shaping points.

Does the 660 operate in the same fashion? Or, does it somehow route back to the original route by going to the nearest ghost points?
Yes it does - as above. When recalculating, ghost points for the present section are, in effect, lost.


However the Zumo 590 has other tricks up its sleeve. It has different settings for mode of transport (car, bike, offroad) and each of these can store different settings. So routing preferences for the car can be different for the preferences for the bike.

If using Basecamp, the mode of transport (bike, car, custom) is saved with the route, and when you load the route, it uses the routing preferences in the Zumo 590 for the mode of transport that was set in Basecamp. This is quite complex and covered in detail in Section 4 of the document that is attached to the first post of this article. It was added later if you don't have it in your copy.

It also has things which affect the route, including your riding style and Traffic Trends. The latter is updated with the maps and it stores historic traffic flow for roads. So as it gets close to 4:00pm on a Friday, your precious route might suddenly change to quieter roads. Find Traffic Trends and turn it off.


I've attached a new document. Something I wrote a few years back mainly for myself to record some testing. It has all faded in my memory now, but at the time that I wrote it, it was what I observed and deduced about the behaviour of my 660. Terminology has changed since then, as have functions of the software.

I used 'drag point' to indicate what was a shaping point, and I used 'Mid Point' to indicate what is now a via point.

But now if you drag a point and drop it onto a known favourite or waypoint - it actually becomes a Via Point !


Parting Shot

I have assumed that routes are being prepared on Mapsource or Basecamp and are being transferred to the Zumo. If the maps on the Zumo 590 or 660 are not the same as the maps on the computer, then routes are always recalculated. You lose your original planned route before you have even loaded it in.

The same applies if any of the 3 settings in Basecamp for Device Transfer are ticked. It recalculates.

If the route is created and saved in the Zumo 590 or 660, all is OK.

If the route is produced on 3rd party software such as Google maps, then you may have problems. The original route seems to be OK, but as soon as it recalculates, any shaping point s that you put into the route are ignored by the Garmin software, and your route is calculated to the end point.
 

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I am so glad I still have my now non-supported Microsoft Streets & Trips for route planning!

I plot my desired route in S&T, set intermediate waypoints by grabbing and rubberbanding the route at critical turning points, then export as a .gpx file to my download folder in my computer.

With my Zumo 550 connected to a computer in mass storage mode via USB cable (having removed the SD card before connecting), I merely drag & drop the S&T created route files from my PC to the Garmin/GPX directory in the Zumo, dismount the Zumo, disconnect it, then turn it back on.

Zumo informs me that new routes have been loaded -- do I want to import them? I tick the checkboxes, Zumo calculates the routes, and offers a preview.

When riding, I load the desired route. If the internal mind of the Zumo finds a little shortcut on an inadequately pinned-down route, I just ignore the turn notice -- and "recalculating!"

Makes no difference if the 550 is on the bike cradle or the car cradle. No audible cues while on the bike unless I am pairing a Bluetooth earbud.

The process to be able to access the entire North America is a bit of a PITA with saving to a computer, then transferring to an 8GB SD card, but right now it is working exceedingly well.
 
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I am so glad I still have my now non-supported Microsoft Streets & Trips for route planning!

I plot my desired route in S&T, set intermediate waypoints by grabbing and rubberbanding the route at critical turning points, then export as a .gpx file to my download folder in my computer.

With my Zumo 550 connected to a computer in mass storage mode via USB cable (having removed the SD card before connecting), I merely drag & drop the S&T created route files from my PC to the Garmin/GPX directory in the Zumo, dismount the Zumo, disconnect it, then turn it back on.

Zumo informs me that new routes have been loaded -- do I want to import them? I tick the checkboxes, Zumo calculates the routes, and offers a preview.

When riding, I load the desired route. If the internal mind of the Zumo finds a little shortcut on an inadequately pinned-down route, I just ignore the turn notice -- and "recalculating!"

Makes no difference if the 550 is on the bike cradle or the car cradle. No audible cues while on the bike unless I am pairing a Bluetooth earbud.

The process to be able to access the entire North America is a bit of a PITA with saving to a computer, then transferring to an 8GB SD card, but right now it is working exceedingly well.
 
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