Gaia GPS For Beginners

[Varun Mehndiratta]

Anyone tried Gaia Maps or GPX files on Apple Watch or Garmin watch? Any feedback.. planning to go for one of these watches, wasnt able to get direct feedback on using GPX/Gaia on these. 

[Benjamin]

Hi @Varun Mehndiratta I don’t have a ton of experience with it but I have tried it before 

With the Apple Watch variant you can do a number of basic things with it 

1. Navigate: from here you can go onto your iOS version of Gaia gps and switch your tracks to ‘routes’ after doing that you can then send any desired route to your Apple Watch to of which it’ll sync for a few mins around 5-10 mins. On the watch it’ll show the route you saved to it and will display basic info like distance travelled or elevation. From there you can navigate to start route. And your watch will record your track as you follow the route. The watch then displays a few other taps one of which being an off route tab (basically tells you how off route you are and what direction you gotta be to get back on course) it updates relatively slowly in my opinion so I don’t see massive use in it but maybe other people have had other experiences with it. You also have access to adding waypoints and pausing your movement which will also stop recording your Bpm and distance travelled. Apart from that the final tab allows you to see how many kilometers you have travelled the total time you have taken and how fast your going per Km. Once ending your session it will display things like average bpm and the max alongside how many calories you have burnt.

2. Record: I don’t have tons of experience with this one but all I know is that you can create tracks and waypoints where your standing. 
 

conclusion: for off-roading I don’t see the need for the app in most cases you’ll have your phone on a mount which is probably safer than looking at your wrist. For hiking and other such activities it can be a nice aid but usually the app will ask you to look on your phone if your lost or to find a more accurate way to your route. So you’ll be carrying your phone with you anyway; still a nice piece of software apart from that if your looking to record your activity your better off using apple’s exercise app as this records all bpm, distance travelled, and exercise rings only massive difference is you can’t make tracks with it. 

I’ll attach some pics below so you can have a look of what the app should look like on an Apple Watch 

[Varun Mehndiratta]

On 4/28/2023 at 7:31 PM, Benjamin said:

Hi @Varun Mehndiratta I don’t have a ton of experience with it but I have tried it before 

With the Apple Watch variant you can do a number of basic things with it 

1. Navigate: from here you can go onto your iOS version of Gaia gps and switch your tracks to ‘routes’ after doing that you can then send any desired route to your Apple Watch to of which it’ll sync for a few mins around 5-10 mins. On the watch it’ll show the route you saved to it and will display basic info like distance travelled or elevation. From there you can navigate to start route. And your watch will record your track as you follow the route. The watch then displays a few other taps one of which being an off route tab (basically tells you how off route you are and what direction you gotta be to get back on course) it updates relatively slowly in my opinion so I don’t see massive use in it but maybe other people have had other experiences with it. You also have access to adding waypoints and pausing your movement which will also stop recording your Bpm and distance travelled. Apart from that the final tab allows you to see how many kilometers you have travelled the total time you have taken and how fast your going per Km. Once ending your session it will display things like average bpm and the max alongside how many calories you have burnt.

2. Record: I don’t have tons of experience with this one but all I know is that you can create tracks and waypoints where your standing. 
 

conclusion: for off-roading I don’t see the need for the app in most cases you’ll have your phone on a mount which is probably safer than looking at your wrist. For hiking and other such activities it can be a nice aid but usually the app will ask you to look on your phone if your lost or to find a more accurate way to your route. So you’ll be carrying your phone with you anyway; still a nice piece of software apart from that if your looking to record your activity your better off using apple’s exercise app as this records all bpm, distance travelled, and exercise rings only massive difference is you can’t make tracks with it. 

I’ll attach some pics below so you can have a look of what the app should look like on an Apple Watch 

Thanks Benjamin got the Garmin 😀 As my wife always says - moment I start comparing a well established/well known/commonly used product with something, more often than not I am just finding excuse to prove the other one is better, in my mind I am already sold 😊😀 So yeah map rep on Garmin is better is the reason I used to convince myself 😂

[Benjamin]

@Varun Mehndiratta seems like a great way to get the product you actually want! 
 

I have seen Garmin’s watch products they look awesome funnily enough when you mentioned it in your post I had to go check it out as it’s the first I’m hearing of the brand. Good choice though in the end! 

[Varun Mehndiratta]

50 minutes ago, Benjamin said:

@Varun Mehndiratta seems like a great way to get the product you actually want! 
 

I have seen Garmin’s watch products they look awesome funnily enough when you mentioned it in your post I had to go check it out as it’s the first I’m hearing of the brand. Good choice though in the end! 

Yeah got some nice features and looks smart - only thing holding me back was no LTE option despite high price tag (in the models I was looking for). 

[Looper]

I want to touch upon something I learnt in recent times.

Download Maps: if you have a plan track, then download the map for it. When Route is selected, click on “… More” and then click on “Download Maps for Route”. This way you will have good quality map even when there is no data.

These days for every drive I am doing this irrespective where I drive. When the phone looses good data connection the app starts to hangs searching for stable connection.

Switch off Data: do this for better recording of your track. I have seen many times the track will have straight lines for track because it didn’t record that portion of the track. This is because of poor  data connection. Even if you don’t have a plan route and you are just driving in a convoy, switching off data while recording GPS track will give you better track recording.

[Aser]

Dear Gaia gurus, I recently started recording tracks and I found that after driving for a couple of hours if we do a long break, when I come back to the car (using a dedicated phone with no sim) I find the app stopped recording and the track was saved automatically.

I was able to merge the tracks editing the gpx files but it is a pain to remember to pause/resume the recording...

Is this normal behaviour?  Am I missing something?

[Frederic]

10 hours ago, Aser said:

Dear Gaia gurus, I recently started recording tracks and I found that after driving for a couple of hours if we do a long break, when I come back to the car (using a dedicated phone with no sim) I find the app stopped recording and the track was saved automatically.

I was able to merge the tracks editing the gpx files but it is a pain to remember to pause/resume the recording...

Is this normal behaviour?  Am I missing something?

Hi @Aser this usually happens when the phone overheats. Some phones heat up quickly when being charged and if they are close to the windshield. Perhaps try to see if you can mount the phone in front of an AC vent, or try to keep it away from the sun. My previous phone (Samsung) was very sensitive to this, while my recent one (Honor) hardly ever hangs due to heat.

[Luke K P]

30 minutes ago, Frederic said:

Hi @Aser this usually happens when the phone overheats. Some phones heat up quickly when being charged and if they are close to the windshield. Perhaps try to see if you can mount the phone in front of an AC vent, or try to keep it away from the sun. My previous phone (Samsung) was very sensitive to this, while my recent one (Honor) hardly ever hangs due to heat.

yeah mine starts and stops constantly from the heat with messages saying 'phone operations reduced due to overheating'

I now just use the phone on the dash to see where we are going etc see the preset waypoints, and record using my regular phone in my pocket.