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Adventure Labs and Garmin GPS


Wolfke2070

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Hello,

As this is my first post in this forum, I hope I am in the right place...

I was just wondering:

When I use the Geocache app on my Android phone, I see all kind of caches AND the Adventure Labs on the map. When clicking on an AL, the other app opens and I can play the Lab.

Now for the question:

I use my Garmin Montana for geocaching and what happens frequently is the following:

I find myself somewhere (for an appointment e.g.) with some time to spare, switch on the Montana, do a quick refresh via Geocache Live to see if there are any caches in the neighbourhood. However, I do not get the Adventure Labs that might be close to me. I do understand that, if this would be the case, I would need to get my phone/tablet out to complete it.

Last time, I had my GPS showing me some caches and I had to balance both my GPS and tablet to have the combination of both....

So, in short: please get the "main" location of an Adventure Lab on the map of the GPS (as is the case on the Android map) so I can have an idea of the situation around me.

If the next step could be integrated into the Garmin GPS logic, it would of course even be better (GPS is linked to phone/tablet via Bluetooth and Garmin connect anyway and therefore to internet)

Thanks for follow up.

Best regards,

LVL

  • Funny 2
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Congratulations on discovering that you need either two devices or switch between two different apps to look for geocaches and AdLabs at the same time.  There are many discussions in this forum complaining about this issue, but it appears that the intent of the current AdLab philosophy is to stress the use of the AdLab app rather than support the use of a stand-alone GPS, or to fully incorporate AdLabs into the official geocaching app.

 

AdLabs can only be logged via the AdLab app, while you can log standard geocaches from a geocaching app or from the geocaching.com website.

 

To the best of my knowledge, there is no way to get the AdLab stages downloaded into your GPS directly from geocaching.com

 

However, if you have access to GSAK, you can download your standard geocaching.com Pocket Queries into GSAK, then make use of several GSAK macros (available in the GSAK Macro Index) to add some AdLab data to your GSAK database---unless geocaching.com intentionally disables their API against such use, which has already been done for some macros.  Hopefully some of the newer macros will work. 

 

Anyhow, once you have a GSAK database with combined geocaches and AdLabs, you can then download the database from GSAK into your GPS and then go look for AdLabs and caches---but you will still have to use the AdLab app to log any AdLab finds, and to recognize each individual geofence in order for the AdLab app to accept the answer.

 

Others may offer better advice.

Edited by TommyGator
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Hi,

Thanks @TommyGator for your reply.

I have found my workaround in the meantime:

  1. Put custom symbol for traditional cache in appropriate map of Garmin GPS (different from the closed treasure chest)
  2. goto https://gcutils.de/lab2gpx/#  and create .gpx file to your wishes (leave cache type as Lab cache and adapt options as you like)
  3. put created file into GPX map of Garmin GPS

On restart of the GPS, all Lab caches are now visible as closed treasure chests and thus different from the trads (which you changed in item 1). You can even see the questions if you have chosen that option. Answering of course has to be done via app. This does serve my purpose however: when checking GPS, I can see if there are any Labs in the neighbourhood I'm in and even see if the stages are close to each other or miles apart!

Hope this helps others!

  • Helpful 2
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Small addition to the above: make sure in your filter(s) that you have chosen the "type 11" or virtual caches ON for this to work.

Now I am only looking for a way to change the icon to the AL icon by using the Custom Symbol map. However, I do not know the exact name I have to give the icon .bmp file....

Anybody knows?

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