Garmin Officially Releases Dashboards, Track Nav, Elevation Plot Improvements
The entire Oregon and Dakota line exited another beta phase today with new official releases of software from Garmin. Nothing very interesting to report since we’ve seen all of this in the prior beta releases but obviously Garmin is feeling good enough to make it official. The major improvements include support for new dashboards, dashboards on more pages, enhanced track navigation, symbols on list views and improvements to the elevation plot to show predicted elevation change along your route. Our latest posts on the Dakota beta and the Oregon beta contain screens shots and details on how to use these new features.
In order to update you’ll need to connect your GPS device to your computer and run the WebUpdater. Garmin’s official release notes for the Dakota (2.5), Oregon x00 (3.5) and Oregon x50 (3.0):
- Added ability to view elevation plot of upcoming active route or currently navigated track in blue.
- Added display of icons to the lists in Where To? > Waypoints and the Geocaching application.
- Added phone numbers when available to POI review pages.
- Added Compass, Stopwatch, Active Geocache, and Elevation Plot dashboard options.
- Introduced dashboard options to the Compass and Map pages.
- Improved track navigation.Visit http://garmin.blogs.com/softwareupdates/trail-tech/ for more information.
Related posts:
January 14th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
In the case of the Oregon x00 version (3.50) it is even buggier than 3.42beta!
Some people report missing magenta line (bearing/active route).
crash on some units with some cache descriptions (mine and at least two more users).
There is clearly a bug in the initialization part that makes the behavior on different units different. If you’re lucky you may get away without any problems…
Looking for it on the good side, at least we know there will be some more upcoming versions
January 14th, 2010 at 8:36 pm
Yes, there is a bug, but at least for me I could fix it by disabling certain maps. Try disabling maps until you find the one that makes a difference if you want to stick with this release.
-Scott
January 25th, 2010 at 1:42 pm
I’ve found another bug – either with the software, or my particular unit. I wonder if anybody else is seeing the same behavior?
When I click a point on the map, and tell the unit to navigate there, the new elevation plot functionality works as expected, with historical data in green and predicted data in blue. But when I set up a route and navigate using it, my Oregon 550t will attempt to show an elevation plot … and then simply power itself off.
January 25th, 2010 at 5:27 pm
Forrest,
I’ll give it a try later, thanks for the report. Have you submitted this to Garmin?
-Scott