New Garmin Zumo XT Motorcycle GPS

[betoney]

34 minutes ago, tktplz said:

I had to position mine a little differently because I couldn't see the turn signals.

[tktplz]

36 minutes ago, betoney said:

I had to position mine a little differently because I couldn't see the turn signals.

Yeah i catch it from buds on rides for leaving the blinker going, LOL!I had a good habit of turning them off till I owned 3 VMaxes. They have auto cancelers. So I'm trying to get it back, old dog old tricks. Must Make Mind Work, MUST.

[hammer]

14 minutes ago, tktplz said:

Yeah i catch it from buds on rides for leaving the blinker going, LOL!I had a good habit of turning them off till I owned 3 VMaxes. They have auto cancelers. So I'm trying to get it back, old dog old tricks. Must Make Mind Work, MUST.

I barely use my signals on the bike. That's what my left arm is for. I have followed too many people who are going on a trip making left turns all the time (forgets to cancel his signal). Drives me up the wall! Lol

[daboo]

Great topic, and timely for me.    FWIW, the Halocam M1 dash camera works well enough to watch your Garmin 595LM depart the bike, bounce at least 4 feet in the air on the first hit on the pavement, and then disappear forever.  So now I'm looking for a new GPS.

The 595 is out of the question.  Prices are about $150 more than the Zumo XT.  At first glance, it seemed great.  Then I got to noticing the HUGE speed info and the other info area on the right bottom.  And then there's a lot of features, I really don't need.

So I'm pretty much looking at either the TomTom 550 or Garmin Zumo 396.  Not sure which to chose.  

For those of you with a TomTom...how do you listen to music?  I've heard you can do something with Siri or Google Now, but I'm not sure how well that works.  I don't listen to music often, mainly on those long straight stretches of freeway that you sometimes can't avoid.

Chris

[SKYFLIX]

Just FYI, that info on the bottom of the screen can be changed. You can change it to such things as the music you're listening to, or upcoming turns, or POI, etc. It doesn't HAVE to be the speed. And you can turn off the speed alerts, too.

[dazzler24]

11 minutes ago, daboo said:

Great topic, and timely for me.    FWIW, the Halocam M1 dash camera works well enough to watch your Garmin 595LM depart the bike, bounce at least 4 feet in the air on the first hit on the pavement, and then disappear forever.  So now I'm looking for a new GPS.

The 595 is out of the question.  Prices are about $150 more than the Zumo XT.  At first glance, it seemed great.  Then I got to noticing the HUGE speed info and the other info area on the right bottom.  And then there's a lot of features, I really don't need.

So I'm pretty much looking at either the TomTom 550 or Garmin Zumo 396.  Not sure which to chose.  

For those of you with a TomTom...how do you listen to music?  I've heard you can do something with Siri or Google Now, but I'm not sure how well that works.  I don't listen to music often, mainly on those long straight stretches of freeway that you sometimes can't avoid.

Chris

@daboo - Have you considered the TomTom Go app?  I've been using it for a little while now and it seems to work well and for a fraction of the price of a dedicated GPS - It's a subscription option of the Tom Tom line.

I have listened to tunes stored on the phone from time to time when the mood strikes me while using the app.  In my case I'm doing that via Bluetooth through my Cardo Freecom 2+ device either using Cardo's app or the generic music app on my phone which run in parallel with GO.

Pehaps something to consider?  My two bobs worth FWIW.

[daboo]

I have used the TomTom Go app in the past.  Unless I'm mistaken though, you can't import a route from another program like MyRoute.

The other reason I'm not going in that direction is that unless you buy a ruggedized phone like a Kyocera, you're taking a good chance on ruining your smartphone.  I've seen several threads where someone ruined several phones.  It isn't the phone or GPS portion that dies, but the optical image stabilization.  

But it is a good suggestion and I'll take another look at the TomTom Go app.

Chris

[roadrash83]

You all got to stop this GPS crap, your going to bankrupt me🙂

[keithu]

17 hours ago, daboo said:

So I'm pretty much looking at either the TomTom 550 or Garmin Zumo 396.  Not sure which to chose.  

For those of you with a TomTom...how do you listen to music? 

No experience with the TomTom but I have a Zumo 396. I found the Pandora music feature to be pretty terrible. Once I set it up, the Garmin app would force-launch Pandora on my phone every time the GPS powered on, whether I wanted it to or not. If I tried closing Pandora Garmin would just force it open again, over and over. I went through all the settings and couldn't figure out how to stop it so I uninstalled the Garmin app from my phone. 

I haven't heard of other people complaining about this. I was running the Garmin app on a Kyocera phone so maybe that was my problem. You mentioned Kyocera in another post, and let me just say their software is absolutely terrible. I had two (Duraforce and Duraforce Pro) and although the hardware was bomb proof, their Android implementations were awful. I recently replaced my Kyocera with a Blackview BV5500 Pro ($140 unlocked!) and it is far, far better than the Kyoceras. Blackview is a no-name Chinese company, but if you want a rugged phone to mount on your handlebar they are better and cheaper than Kyocera. 

[daboo]

19 hours ago, SKYFLIX said:

Just FYI, that info on the bottom of the screen can be changed. You can change it to such things as the music you're listening to, or upcoming turns, or POI, etc. It doesn't HAVE to be the speed. And you can turn off the speed alerts, too.

Agreed.  I'm familiar with changing those info fields.  But the size of them is far larger than it needs to be.  I wish there was a way to make them smaller and in the proportions of what you see on the 396 and 595.

Chris

[SKYFLIX]

Oh, I can't speak to that, having never owned either of those models. I prefer to run my XT in portrait orientation, and the bottom display size hasn't been an issue.

[daboo]

I think I've found a "bug" in the Garmin Zumo XT.  I also own a Uniden DFR9 radar detector.  Interestingly, when I went to pass someone, I was getting a Laser warning.  Or on hitting some bumpy roads, I might get a K or Ka band warning.  At first, I'm telling myself that oh dear...I've bought a ticket.  But then, I realized it had to be false warnings.  But why?

The Zumo XT has a feature to send a message to someone when you get into an "accident".  I think that was sending some electronic vibes that were picked up by the radar detector.  Once I turned that "feature" off, the radar detector acted like normal.

Chris

[SKYFLIX]

That's strange. I don't see how the two could be related. That feature just uses your cell phone to send the message, and AFAIK, it uses its accelerometer to determine if you've been involved in an accident. Neither of those operate in the K or Ka bands, and there is certainly no laser being emitted from the device. The accelerometer is also used to switch between portrait and landscape mode, so I don't think you really disable anything. Definitely a curiosity.

[daboo]

I posted the quirk above on the rdforum.org and had several replies that it isn't uncommon for one device to affect another.

[fddriver2]

Just a thought for the budget conscious. Go on facebook marketplace. Buy a used gps I've seen them as low as $30 with lifetime map updates. Then use silicone caulk to seal up the screen and around the edges and off you go.

I've had an old (got to be going on 10 years old) Garmin 750 that has been on the bike almost non-stop for a year and has been used off and on for 2-3 years. 

I live in South Florida so it gets plenty wet and it's still trucking. YMMV