Garmin Announces BirdsEye Satellite Imagery Subscription
Update 1/18: Garmin officially announced BirdsEye today. Availability is March 2010.
Details are still a bit sketchy but it looks like Garmin is finally releasing an all-you-can-eat satellite imagery subscription called BirdsEye for their outdoor handhelds that support Garmin Custom Maps. For $30 a year Oregon, Colorado and Dakota users who install a yet to be released version 3.0.0 of BaseCamp will be able to download all the “sub-meter” satellite imagery they want and then transfer those maps to their device. The subscription would work on only one device and would require a myGarmin account to take advantage of the new service which is obviously aimed squarely at Delorme and Lowrance who already offer similar services.
Here are some details from the Garmin site.
- Transfer an unlimited number of satellite and aerial images to your device with this subscription and free software BaseCamp™.
- High-resolution sub-meter color satellite imagery captures the world in brilliant clarity and detail.
- Allows you to layer the Garmin vector maps on your handheld (such as TOPO 100K, TOPO 24K or City Navigator®) with BirdsEye Satellite Imagery for a real-life view of roads, buildings and terrain.
- Makes it easy for hunters to perform preseason scouting, determine placement of stands and locate game pinchpoints.
- Helps hikers and campers find trails/trailheads and clearings for camping areas.
- Lets geocachers determine the terrain type around a cache and identify parking areas close to the caches.
- Allows travelers to view tourist hot spots and landmarks from an aerial view to make excursions memorable without getting lost.
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January 15th, 2010 at 11:59 am
$30 per year seems very reasonable. Thanks once again for the heads up. I look forward to checking it out.
January 17th, 2010 at 1:37 am
Very nice, I hope they hace Canadian coverage. I am looking forward to Tuesday.
January 18th, 2010 at 7:55 am
If resized tile for 4 time, to take maximum area increase possible.
For example:
ile 4000×4000 decrease for 1024×1024, and have a increase maximum area in bigger volume, but a quality not suffer in devices.
January 21st, 2010 at 11:17 pm
Does it cover other parts of the world, eg Thailand??
January 25th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
Hi Mark,
The map coverage isn’t clear yet although some of the initial marketing literature indicates “worldwide” coverage.
-Scott
April 2nd, 2010 at 9:26 am
[...] at delivering their newest mapping product — BirdsEye. As we discussed in a previous post, BirdsEye allows users of the “state-named” Garmin GPS units to download and make use [...]
April 10th, 2010 at 4:01 pm
I did it! Birdseye now on my Oregon and Basecamp. Unfortunately, when using Birdseye, you loose ALL labels on the topo map. And I mean ALL. By my understanding,Garmin knows about the problem and working on a fix. Don’t download to the 3.7 firmware that supports Birdseye until Garmin has a fix.
September 8th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
1. Does Birdseye cover northern Argentina ?
2. Once I download some images, can I keep them (on the 62s or in my computer)for further use after the subscription is over ?