What's new

garmin has switched to bing??

jdd

Maximum Pace
Hardest Crash
Jul 26, 2008
3,512
2,058
I'm not sure, but after uploading an activity today, when I then looked at it the map looked decidedly different. Turns out it's a Bing map. Older activities also are now displaying via bing...

I'm sure I haven't reset anything on my computer that would've done this, I guess it must be a switch by garmin?

A map or two of some hill rides lacked the same resolution that they'd had with google maps (showing no info available at the resolution I wanted), but on the positive side, after looking a bit I did like a thing or two about the bing maps.

Anyone know if there's a way to toggle back and forth depending on what you might like?
 
Looks like garmin has switched...

"In the latest update at Garmin Connect, we introduced several improvements to our free online community that is home to more than a million users and their activities. Here are just some of the highlights from this week's update (for best results, we suggest clearing your cache):
1. Ability to manually delete entries in the Health Tab
2. Improvements to the Calendar Page
3. Streamlined RSS feeds
4. Improved use of 'embedded' activities without location data
5. Enhanced map availability and Player function availability
6. Transitioned to Bing maps"

Uh, can I complain about this?
 
You can still export the data from Garmin Training Center to google....

But to be honest Im not that fussed.... the map is pretty but the data is the meat and veg that I work from.
 
I don't like the Bing maps because there is no terrain view available. Also the colours are not great.

Fortunately mapmyride has not switched - that would be a disaster as it would make ride planning a lot harder.
 
I'm using an edge 500, a tracker, so now the bing maps are what I'm getting when I upload activities to garminconnect. Probably this doesn't affect others, say with a 705, that have other map packages downloaded and are using those for navigation during rides.

But I'd like to be able to refer others to my rides/courses, and it seems that even just a little turn into the hills here (admitted not Tokyo, and perhaps bing looks at the fringes of my area as inaka) and it quickly falls off in resolution--a definite step down from what googlemaps was showing me.

I've written to garmin, but that's probably like pissing/spitting into the wind, and I'm not holding my breath.

The bing overhead view can be nice--e.g., seemingly anyplace that's settled/built up.

But turn even a bit into the hills and it gets useless real fast. Via googlemaps, anyone could really zoom into see details of this course, via bing, two zoom clicks and for the aerial and/or hybrid view and most of the course goes blank.
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/56608588
With google you could zoom in way past any usable level, and the refresh was far better, too.

It also seems to load more slowly than they did with googlemaps, but that's only a subjective impression.

Again, this is just a change in how garminconnect displays uploaded activities on maps, and those that use dedicated/purchased maps for their garmin units may be puzzled as to what I'm talking about.

I can't imagine that garmin had been besieged by requests to do away with googlemaps in favor of bingmaps. There must be some money involved somewhere.
 
It seems to me that the biggest difference is that at the same scale, Bing displays less, i.e. uses a lower resolution. But you can get every detail you can get on googlemaps by zooming in. I definitely like more details so I find Bing annoying.

I'm not sure about the speed difference. For me, Garmin Connect with Bing seemed to work faster than before - maybe not surprising as less detail is being downloaded.

If you want to see your track against googlemaps, download the GPX file from the Garmin Connect site and upload it to mapmyride. Slightly time consuming, but definitely possible.
 
Or for even beter results and load it in to Google Earth, enter Flight sim mode and fly the ride!
 
Alternative to Garmin Connect

As an Edge 500 user, I myself am frustrated with Garmin Connect. I have just come-across http://ridewithgps.com, which allows direct upload from most Garmin devices (using the Garmin Communicator browser plugin). And although I haven't used it extensively, my impressions so far are pretty good, especially using full-screen mode.

I'm using Firefox on Windows 7 and it was pretty seamless :D
 
RidewithGPS

I have just switched from Garmin Connect to Ridewithgps.

I am impressed.
-- a very nice interface,
--a "bulk uploader" so I could upload the last year's rides with a few clicks ... but I will need to go through now to add names and make the reference ones "public" since I defaulted to "private" when I uploaded them.
--Googlemaps, not Bing (of course)!
--Looks easy to draw tracks, and easy to download other riders' data for use in your Garmin.
--The default display looks just great on my screen.

I just embedded last week's Kazahari Rindo ride into the Positivo Espresso blog report and it looks much nicer than the Garmin Connect embedded summary (left in for comparison).
See http://positivo-espresso.blogspot.com/2011/02/kazahari-rindo.html

As for the actual power, cadence, HR , speed and other data, it does not show as much detail (splits/laps) as Garmin Connect can ... but I have that data in Garmin Training Center and don't really see a need to share it with the world online.
 
Very nice. So much better than the Garmin Bing monstrosity.

I have just switched from Garmin Connect to Ridewithgps.

I am impressed.
-- a very nice interface,
--a "bulk uploader" so I could upload the last year's rides with a few clicks ... but I will need to go through now to add names and make the reference ones "public" since I defaulted to "private" when I uploaded them.
--Googlemaps, not Bing (of course)!
--Looks easy to draw tracks, and easy to download other riders' data for use in your Garmin.
--The default display looks just great on my screen.

I just embedded last week's Kazahari Rindo ride into the Positivo Espresso blog report and it looks much nicer than the Garmin Connect embedded summary (left in for comparison).
See http://positivo-espresso.blogspot.com/2011/02/kazahari-rindo.html

As for the actual power, cadence, HR , speed and other data, it does not show as much detail (splits/laps) as Garmin Connect can ... but I have that data in Garmin Training Center and don't really see a need to share it with the world online.
 
Back
Top Bottom