Garmin's Response to Our Concerns with the Colorado

[+BiT]

Meet & Greet Groundspeak & Garmin in Seattle

 

I would like to see what the Garmin folks say about our concerns with the Colorado.

 

If you attended, please report your findings here. We are all very interested.

Edited January 26, 2008 by BiT

[+BiT]

Or if there is any other links to forums or websites that discuss Garmin's response, please post them here.

[+Marky]

There's also one next week in our area:

Meet & Greet Groundspeak & Garmin in the Bay Area

I'll report back anything I learn there.

 

--Marky

[teamdw]

I too will be at the Meat and Greet in the Bay Area and reporting back.

[+SnoWake]

Ditto: I'll be there, too - with 400t in hand, and a laundry-list of issues. Looking forward to what kind of responses we here, now that the unit is "out in the wild". I wonder if the Wherigo cart I've downloaded in the South Bay is at/near the event?

[+MartianRabbit]

It would be nice to see Magellan do this... Do I see a trend or bias towards "in favor" of Garmin? If I were a large company that was getting the "Signal" for geocaching usage and features I would be doing damage control too!

 

I frequent Trade shows with software and hardware vendors in My job, and they all drool at the chance to hear your feature requests and usage requirements, to always better their products. Even if Magellan used this as a means of doing by example, they can redeem themselves.

 

To demonstrate perseverance, you have to stand and take the lumps along with the good things, and demonstrate your willingness to incorporate usable features.

[+BiT]

Any one go to the morning session today?

[+CelticDave]

My wife and I attended the morning session. First let me start by saying the event today was to show off Wherigo, the features and problems with the Colorado were not discussed as part of the event. The information that I received was from my conversations with the Garmin and Groundspeak folks and I appreciated the time they spent with me. I don’t have any specific information about what they are doing and I did not really expect to get that. I will share with you that Garmin and Groundspeak are VERY aware of all of the problems encountered with the Colorado. They are monitoring the forums closely and are hearing everyone’s complaints and concerns. I got a severe roll of the eyes when I talked about my negative experience with the customer service tech. For those who have not read that one. I called customer service and tried to get information about the problems I was encountering. Customer Service told me that they did not even have the units in hand and could only talk about the functions of the unit. He refused to take any of the information about bugs or issues because “we have beta testers and they report those problems directly to the engineers”. I think the Garmin reps were surprised by that.

 

The fixes to the geocaching features are a top priority and there is a group dedicated to that end. Yes geocaches will be shown on the map. The problems with streets not showing up on the maps are also being addressed. Suffice it to say that there WILL be a way to show caches as found. I don’t want to lead anyone on that I have any super secret information because I don’t. The questions that I asked were acknowledged and I was given what I thought were credible and sincere answers. I did suggest they needed to do a better job of letting their customers know what is going on and what timeframes we should expect for the needed changes.

 

Like the rest of you who have gone out and spent the $$$ for the Colorado, I would have hoped they would have had a solid unit with each and every feature that I would want in a GPSr. Obviously the Colorado was released prior to being ready for the geocaching world. I am willing to be somewhat patient though . I have had mine for a week now with one update to both firmware and the chipset that solved some of the biggest problems like battery life and the backlight problem so those are good things. Without those updates I would have a different opinion at this point I am sure.

 

For me, I have learned the work arounds needed for the Colorado to function better than my 60cs so I am ahead of the game already. Right now I have over 5000 caches on the main memory (as poi files and 1000 of those have full cache descriptions and logs) with mapping of the western U.S. and part of Canada. I will wait patiently and give Garmin the opportunity (and a little breathing room) to make the needed changes to improve the caching features.

[+coreynjoey]

We went as well, but really can't add anymore than Celtic Cacher did. The event really was more about Wherigo than the Colorado. We did get to team up and use the Colorado to play a Wherigo cartridge. The Garmin rep that was there is Jake, who does the Garmin.blogs.com blog. He's really nice and approachable (just don't ask him for a Garmin/Wherigo coin, he won't budge). Like CC said, they are very aware of the problems and are working on them. From what I've seen here in the forums, Garmin has a very good reputation in regards to fixing these things. If we'd had the extra funds available, we would have bought one today. The next event is in San Jose, and Jake said there would be more places in the future (I think he mentioned Chicago and Pittsburgh as 2 possible places).

[+Manatee87]

My wife and I attended the morning session. First let me start by saying the event today was to show off Wherigo, the features and problems with the Colorado were not discussed as part of the event. The information that I received was from my conversations with the Garmin and Groundspeak folks and I appreciated the time they spent with me. I don't have any specific information about what they are doing and I did not really expect to get that. I will share with you that Garmin and Groundspeak are VERY aware of all of the problems encountered with the Colorado. They are monitoring the forums closely and are hearing everyone's complaints and concerns.

 

Thanks for the report, and for speaking with the reps. It sounds encouraging.

[+RRLover]

I too, made it to the Seattle meet & greet. As mentioned above, all of their preparation was geared towards

the Wherigo roll out. The game has a lot of potential, both commercially, as well as a means of getting the

younger crowd away from the video game scene. With the ability for the players to actually acquire the

skills and hardware to proactively build cartridges, it really really has potential, I give it a '9', "Easy to dance

to!".

My tech. questions (for Garmin) were few, waypoint projection "yes", but I had already had that one

answered here. The second question, I asked "Does Garmin intend 'Full blown' Mac support?" The answer,

"YES" came quickly, and with a confident demeanor, I think their commitment to the 'growing segment'

will come to fruition, albeit probably not fast enough for some, I'm patient. There is, after all a geographic

difference between Topeka, and Tempe, not a lot of 'water-cooler time' between the two camps, and no

sense of derision was detectable. I think a little road time might be a positive perc. for the Tempe fellas &

might be in order, a reward for working hard. That could also double as a positive affirmation to the to the

Mac crowd. Although Seattle is probably one of the bigger 'hot beds' of Mac users, maybe next time. I think

Wherigo will really take off, combined w/'Urban Dare', people would line up down the street! Are ya readin'

Groundspeak/Garmin? This is an instance where exposing yourself is a good thing! ;^)

On another note, to Groundspeak, having once been referred to as a "minion", I don't much like the term

"lackey", but if your staff* are good w/it, then so be it. (*I wanted to say assets but that didn't look PC, and

Seattle's all about being PC) The staff, knowledgeable and helpful, pleasantly worked with myself and others

confidently, Thank-You for a pleasant afternoon ladies, best of fortunes to ya!

 

Norm

[+DavidTO]

For me, I have learned the work arounds needed for the Colorado to function better than my 60cs so I am ahead of the game already.

 

I'm a complete n00b, not even started yet. I just sold my eTrex Vista and have a Colorado coming on friday, going out on my first geocache run this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it. Sounds like a blast.

 

Anyway, CC, I'm wondering if you could help a n00b out by sharing a bit about how you set up your Colorado, so maybe I can avoid some of the pain as I learn.

[+qlenfg]

1) Install MapSource and the USB drivers

2) Check for updates to MapSource

3) Download and install Garmin Communicator

4) Put fresh batteries in the Colorado

5) Connect to PC and use MapSource to check for firmware updates for the Colorado

 

Once done, leave your GPS connected to the PC, then visit the GC site, look up the caches you want to find. Click the 'Send to GPS' button to transfer the cache to the GPS

[+fourbeer]

Also, while you are out geocaching do not turn your gps off. When I turn mine off (event with full battery power), the batteries usually show low when I turn the unit back on or the unit will not turn on at all. The backlight will no longer work if the batteries are low.

 

I find that each time I take the unit out, I need to have fresh batteries.

 

1) Install MapSource and the USB drivers

2) Check for updates to MapSource

3) Download and install Garmin Communicator

4) Put fresh batteries in the Colorado

5) Connect to PC and use MapSource to check for firmware updates for the Colorado

 

Once done, leave your GPS connected to the PC, then visit the GC site, look up the caches you want to find. Click the 'Send to GPS' button to transfer the cache to the GPS

[+Marky]

Also, while you are out geocaching do not turn your gps off. When I turn mine off (event with full battery power), the batteries usually show low when I turn the unit back on or the unit will not turn on at all. The backlight will no longer work if the batteries are low.

 

I find that each time I take the unit out, I need to have fresh batteries.

That's not been my experience. I think you probably have a defective unit, and should return it. Also, the backlight dim/off on low power is an option now.

[+fourbeer]

Also, while you are out geocaching do not turn your gps off. When I turn mine off (event with full battery power), the batteries usually show low when I turn the unit back on or the unit will not turn on at all. The backlight will no longer work if the batteries are low.

 

I find that each time I take the unit out, I need to have fresh batteries.

That's not been my experience. I think you probably have a defective unit, and should return it. Also, the backlight dim/off on low power is an option now.

 

OK. I may have to return it. I have been running version 2.4 firmware. What is the option called? I disabled the option called "Backlight Limiting", but I still could not get the backlight to come on when the batteries were registering one or two bars. Are you referring to another option?

 

-Keith