Garmin Hazard Reporting

[Dogtrousers]

Owners of snazzier Garmins may have noticed that this feature has been added in a recent update. Garmin Link

You can report a hazard - like a pothole - and other riders get beeped and warned as they approach it. Then after you've passed the point it asks you if the hazard is stil there. So you get crowdsourced info on road hazards.

It first started appearing on my GPS on a night ride and I couldn't figure out what it was so I ignored it, but I've now done some distance while aware of it.

I'm pretty underwhelmed by it. It's distracting, and there's a risk that you'll end up peering so intently at your GPS trying to figure out what its telling you that you ride slap into the pothole, thus defeating the object. The "is it still there?" nag question is pretty annoying and only has yes and no options - there's no "cancel, stop asking stupid questions" option - at least not that I've found. That question is another unnecessary distraction, but it's necessary to keep the data fresh, otherwise it will just get clogged up with irrelevant warnings.

Aside from the distracting nature of it, the data is naturally going to be variable and unreliable.

Functionally it's great, and is really well implemented. I just think it's a bit of a flawed idea. I've disabled it. (Activity Profiles/Alerts and Prompts)

Has anyone else had this feature thrust upon them?

(Or maybe you use another brand of GPS and have become a fanatical brand advocate? Or perhaps you prefer pages torn out of old road atlases supplemented with compass and sextant and the very idea of a GPS fills you with rage and contempt.)

 

[lazybloke]

This is why we all need to be on tandems. Then your stoker can do important work in addition to pedalling .
Their job could be to operate the sextant, but also potentially to monitor Garmin and other data feeds:
Pothole warnings would be almost continuous - i'd probably ignore
Road closure notifications could occasionally be useful, particularly the odd one where even a bike can't squeeze past

Of course, some data feeds always need an immediate response. I'm of course thinking of :
New and increasingly bizarre threads started by Accy
Cute kitten videos
Latest news of Chris Rea

 

[Psamathe]

I've noticed the feature but not really found much detail - details are important.

eg if somebody reports a pothole hazard to Garmin so others will be warned, do they report it fixed or do Garmin estimate that eg 6 months later it will have been fixed so remove it or does Garmin keep warning you about it decades after it's been fixed?

eg does the system work through your phone Garmin Connect app or does it require a direct network connection (eg hotspot)

eg are the hazards pre-loaded with map updates or is is a lot more dynamic? is it batch updates for all mapped areas or dynamic as you ride?

Details important as I don't want to be warned every 10m about potholes that were fixed 8 years ago, just as I might expect to be warned about a major safety hazard that never gets to me because I have not enabled a hotspot on my phone or because like much of my cycling area minimal to zero phone signal coverage.

Ian

 

[Brandane]

The only warnings I have noticed on my Garmin (Edge 530) are for sharp bends. Thanks Garmin, but I do have eyes; I am not doing motorcycle style approach speeds; and if I hadn't looked down at my Garmin to try and read the micro writing warning then I might have a better chance of dealing with the hazard! So if I can ever figure out how to set the warnings to ignore, that is exactly what I will do.

 

[Psamathe]

The only warnings I have noticed on my Garmin (Edge 530) are for sharp bends. Thanks Garmin, but I do have eyes; I am not doing motorcycle style approach speeds; and if I hadn't looked down at my Garmin to try and read the micro writing warning then I might have a better chance of dealing with the hazard! So if I can ever figure out how to set the warnings to ignore, that is exactly what I will do.

10 minutes after getting my 1st Garmin Edge I'd turned off the "Sharp Bend Warnings".

Latest device seems to have "High Traffic Warnings" - something that pops-up and beeps shortly after getting into busy traffic, just when you should be focusing on not getting crushed your Garmin calls for attention! Must get round to disabling that as well.

My long term opinion of Garmin devices (cycling GPS, watches, etc.) is that it's very good hardware and rubbish software. Start of this year I got a top of the range Garmin watch and after a couple of months it went back for a full refund as the software was terrible. It's not only bugs (which can be fixed) but features that don't work and are not wanted

eg the watch was logging me as having several snoozes through the afternoon yet I never snooze during the day - and they are so determined about logging these non-existent snoozes that they don't allow you to manually delete them in Garmin Connect (or anywhere). Checking and loads of people complaining about the issue yet Garmin resolutely try and fix and don't put in a "Disable Snooze Detection" setting that would solve the issue for 95% of people.

eg on a cycle ride after maybe 15 miles my heart rate recorded would drop to not far from the rate sitting at home watching TV. So I'd experiment and push really hard, legs burning, breathing really hard yet heart rate stays low. Whilst I have little interest in heart rates out of curiosity I got a really cheap Polar chect monitor and ... the Garmin was recording complete fiction (though that issue might be hardware).

Ian
Edit: Fixed typo "ogg" should have been "off"

 

[Brandane]

10 minutes after getting my 1st Garmin Edge I'd turned ogg the "Sharp Bend Warnings".

After several years of Garmin ownership, your post finally prompted me to disable "sharp bend warnings"! They are hidden deep inside the menu though. To find them on an Edge 530 (and possibly similar on other devices)...... Go to Settings/Activity profiles/Road (or whatever else, each profile needs to be done individually)/Navigation/Sharp bend warnings.

 

[Dogtrousers]

This is based on reading, but I'm not providing sources because I'm lazy. Mainly from Garmin forums. Also my best source of info on this is DC Rainmaker videos.

eg if somebody reports a pothole hazard to Garmin so others will be warned, do they report it fixed or do Garmin estimate that eg 6 months later it will have been fixed so remove it or does Garmin keep warning you about it decades after it's been fixed?

You are prompted to report if it is still present after passing a hazard. I'm not sure of the details, but if a hazard gets sufficient "not there" reports, or insufficient "there" reports it will be removed. The aim being to avoid clutter. I don't know the exact criteria for removal.

eg does the system work through your phone Garmin Connect app or does it require a direct network connection (eg hotspot)

Via Garmin Connect. So a phone with a data connection required.

eg are the hazards pre-loaded with map updates or is is a lot more dynamic? is it batch updates for all mapped areas or dynamic as you ride?

They are dynamic - nothing to do with map updates.

Details important as I don't want to be warned every 10m about potholes that were fixed 8 years ago, just as I might expect to be warned about a major safety hazard that never gets to me because I have not enabled a hotspot on my phone or because like much of my cycling area minimal to zero phone signal coverage.

If the system works correctly then you won't get things that have been fixed ages ago because people will have stopped confirming them. But you may end up with nothing at all if you have no phone connection. One thing I don't know is whether it will download a bunch of hazards for your route at the start of a ride when you do have a signal, and buffer them up for later reference, or if it is constantly calling home and asking for nearest hazards. To be honest, I don't care because I've decided it's not for me.

Re other notifications like sharp bends and heavy traffic - I tolerated them for a while and then switched them off. There may be people who find this stuff useful. I'm not one of them. Choice is good. I have configured a lap notification that pings me after every 5km completed. That keeps me aware of progress.

 

[Psamathe]

A bit "off-topic" but

... I have configured a lap notification that pings me after every 5km completed. That keeps me aware of progress.

I've tried that cycle touring in EU as I have a terrible habit in that I don't drink whilst cycling (I've no idea why, it just never occurs to me even when cycling on 30+℃). So I tried an alarm every 10 miles the idea being I'd have a drink each time the alarm went off. But for the first few days I always seemed to be passing through a town or something requiring my attention so it didn't work so I disabled it.

Ian

 

[HLaB]

99.5% of rides my Garmin 1030 has no sound working. I think I prefer it that way and apart from that the unit is good so Ive resisted the urge to upgrade.

 

[Bristolian]

This new feature is reminiscent of a similar thing in the Waze satnav app. That warns of traffic jams, road works, broken down cars, police cars, etc., that have been reported by users and then asks if they're still there.

 

[freiston]

The only warnings I have noticed on my Garmin (Edge 530) are for sharp bends. Thanks Garmin, but I do have eyes; I am not doing motorcycle style approach speeds; and if I hadn't looked down at my Garmin to try and read the micro writing warning then I might have a better chance of dealing with the hazard! So if I can ever figure out how to set the warnings to ignore, that is exactly what I will do.

I also turned off the sharp bend warning - very distracting at the time one least needs distractions. Even after hearing it a few times and trying to condition myself not to look, I still found myself glancing down at it. iirc, mine only sounded when I was above a certain speed - being as I cycle mostly on single track country lanes, I really needed to concentrate on the coming bend and whatever might be round it at those times.

There are other annoying features that are not straight forward to turn off. One that comes to mind is "virtual partner" - I've never understood what it's supposed to do and I've no interest in doing so. I thought I had turned it off then discovered I had only turned it off for one profile.

 

[Drago]

Sounds a bit like Waze in that regard. Great, but a driver really should gave better things to do that reporting hazards.

 

[Dogtrousers]

There are other annoying features that are not straight forward to turn off. One that comes to mind is "virtual partner" - I've never understood what it's supposed to do and I've no interest in doing so. I thought I had turned it off then discovered I had only turned it off for one profile.

Virtual Partner is weird. Like you I've never understood it. For a while I would occasionally notice the little thingy on the screen and wonder what it was. Eventually I looked it up. It still makes little sense to me and I just ignore it.

 

[Psamathe]

There are other annoying features that are not straight forward to turn off. One that comes to mind is "virtual partner" - I've never understood what it's supposed to do and I've no interest in doing so. I thought I had turned it off then discovered I had only turned it off for one profile.

How did you turn it off. It irritates me (and on a couple of occasions has misplaced me on a map when I was close to the Visual Partner indicator). I've done lots of online searching and only ever found endless grips from people bemoaning that you can't turn it off. I only ever use one profile so happy to turn it off in all(one) profiles.

Ian

 

[Dogtrousers]

To be fair to Garmin, the hazard reporting did successfully help me to be aware of one mahoosive pothole ... Unfortunately it was on the other side of the road