Garmin Oregon Beta Adds Dashboards, Improves Track Nav
Garmin has gone crazy with the concept of dashboards in their newest beta software which was released yesterday for the Oregon 300/400 and Oregon 550. Dashboards are widgets which give you the ability to customize the appearance of pages on your GPS. Prior to this release Garmin had provided five different dashboards to customize the top one-third of Trip Computer page:
- Recreational: Sunrise/sunset, elevation, trip odometer
- Automotive: Nuvi-like speedometer, compass and odometer
- Geocaching – Nearest: Closest geocache, find count and days since last find
- Small Data Fields: Four additional small data fields
- Large Data Field: A single big data field, the time, battery and GPS strength
In the 3.41 beta software for Oregon 300/400 and 2.71 software for the Oregon 550 Garmin has added the following new dashboards:
- Geocaching - Active: Bearing and distance to selected geocache with quick access to description and geocache related functions.
- Compass: Miniature version of Compass page
- Stopwatch: Start, Stop, Lap and Reset functions.
- Elevation Plot: Miniature version of Elevation Plot. Pressing the dashboard takes you to the full page.
Garmin has also gone one step further and made all the dashboards, both old and new, available on the Map page and the Compass page. The new dashboards are well designed however the one thing I would like to see is transparent dashboard backgrounds. They take up quite a bit of screen real estate so it would be nice if the Geocaching – Active, Elevation Plot and Stopwatch dashboards didn’t have a solid background. Other than this, the dashboards are a welcome update and give you almost infinite flexibility to customize the look of your GPS. In order to see the dashboard on your map page you need to go to Setup>Maps>Data Fields>Dashboards and select a dashboard from the list.
The second new improvement is around the Elevation Plot. When you are actively navigating to a destination the right side (blue) of the elevation plot will display your predicted elevation change along that route or track. The left side of the plot (green) is your actual elevation history stored in your tracklog. I’m assuming that the predictive side is calculated using the elevation data (DEM) contained within your maps such as the preinstalled topo maps on the 400t and 550t.
Garmin has introduced some improvements that make track navigation much more powerful. If you select a Track in your WhereTo? menu you’ll notice that your Active Route and Map include new waypoints called Start Point and End Point as well as the elevation High Point and Low Point (these two don’t show up for all tracks). In addition, any waypoint that is close to your track will be displayed in the Active Route tool with a distance away and time remaining before your arrival.
With this update Oregon 550 owners will notice that waypoint lists display the waypoint symbol ahead of each waypoint name. Unfortunately the geocaching lists don’t seem to have this same capability. Geocachers who own the Oregon 300/400 (some more than others!) will be happy to know that they can finally see the earthcache symbol for that increasingly common type of geocache.
On the negative side I have noticed a few minor issues and one significant issue: creating new tracks (Save Portion or Copy Reversed) on the unit does not seem to work any longer. I’ve reported these to Garmin so hopefully we’ll see fixes soon. If you want to keep up on the latest issues or have questions, join us at Oregon wiki discussion thread.
And finally — the official release notes from Garmin for these beta software:
- Added ability to view elevation plot of upcoming active route or currently navigated track in blue.
- 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.
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December 8th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Thanks so much for all the helpful posts, as a new Garmin Oregon 300 owner (hello REI deal) this blog is now a regular stop. Trying out the beta here and really like the additions, but would strongly urge Garmin to add a dashboard function to the map view to directly record a waypoint. If they can add all those other things it sure seems doable and that is the one thing I dislike the most about the Oregon as it stands when compared to the 60csx. Or maybe open an app store and let the geeks make their own dashboard widgets too!
)
December 8th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Any news onvthe gps fix to lock onto the waas quickly and better reception like my etrex h. Current reception is rubbish.
December 8th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
LOL..love the nod.
Great summary as usual.
December 9th, 2009 at 1:09 am
Thanks for your great information..
Need your help, can u tell garmin to provide distance measurement freely from one point to one point on the map screen?.. The problem now is user can only measure distance from current location to another..
Thank you..
December 9th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
[...] Audio Chat Darrylw4 Saturday Picts Darrylw4 Sunday Picts Cachercon 2010 Garmin Oregon Beta Adds Dashboards, Improves Track Nav Delorme Firmware updates Geocaching Swiss Army [...]
December 11th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Great and clear description of Beta 3.41 features.
Once I saw the captured screens, I decided to upgrade.
Thank you very much.
December 11th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Hallo Scott
Any idea how the (elevation plot + tracklog) display will look like when you are e.g. not on ground level, but in the air navigating to an airfield;
Just a guess, do you tink this will become available on the CO?
Thank you
December 12th, 2009 at 9:04 am
How do you get the big red arrow pointers? Mine just has skinny arrows, which are hard to tell which way the arrow head is. I have an Oregon 300
December 12th, 2009 at 10:05 am
The big red arrow is a feature of the the Oregon 550 and unfortunately not available on the 300/400.
-Scott
December 12th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Not sure Pieter, but I’m guessing that you’ll see your actual elevation/altitude on the left/green side and it will drop down to the ground elevation on the right/blue side.
-Scott
December 12th, 2009 at 1:30 pm
not sure if this is what you are looking for but I have used it to measure the distance between 2 waypoints
To measure the distance or get the bearing between two points first select the starting point:
WhereTo?>”Target Button”>A Waypoint>[select a starting point]
You will be returned to the WhereTo? menu where you can select
Waypoints>[select an end point]
After this you will see a map page with a status bar at the top. The status bar will have the distance and bearing from start to end.
December 13th, 2009 at 11:34 am
@oystercatcher: tq, it works! but i hope they will make the measurement much more easier like garmin mobile xt..
December 22nd, 2009 at 3:54 pm
YES
I suggested one of the new features to Garmin during the summer and here it is, perfect! Ok, it is not exactly the same but quite similar.
“Added ability to view elevation plot of upcoming active route or currently navigated track in blue.”
It would be great to preview the upcoming election of a saved track. Perhaps it is coming soon
December 22nd, 2009 at 6:21 pm
[...] nice this year AND they will be getting more than a lump of coal for Christmas. Similar to the beta released a two weeks ago for the Oregon units, this beta gives Dakota users the same cool new dashboards and [...]
December 22nd, 2009 at 6:27 pm
mindy,
You can view the elevation of a saved track and if you are navigating along a track you will also get predicted elevation change with the new beta.
-Scott
December 23rd, 2009 at 10:13 am
It is very a pity, but 4 times (one year ago) wrote in Garmin and there is no result.
To GARMIN: Please make in Settings/Time menu Settings/Time and Date and Time that it was possible to set the beginning of day of week. For example since Monday. At all European users such problem.
It should be displayed in Calendar, Sun and Moon, Hunt and Fish.
It would be very convenient and beautiful.
January 25th, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Have you been able to use the new predictive elevation plot? On my 550t, this feature works if I navigate to a single point ( ie click something on the map and “go” there ), but if I enter a route and then navigate using it, every time I ask for the elevation plot to be displayed ( either through the elevation dashboard, or just going into the elevation plot ) my unit powers itself off in an ungraceful way, leaving “pixel residue” on the screen. I’ve tried this several times over the weekend, and have found the feature less than useful … so I’m wondering whether it’s a problem with my particular unit, or with the software in general?
August 15th, 2010 at 9:46 am
I found the same as galporozali. And could not use the oystercatcher method. I did not ever think that my new Oregon 450 could not just “measure distance” on the map(like with a measuring tape) as does my old etrex Venture. I really think it needs to be fixed!!!