Garmin Montana notes
Sometimes, I get waaay too excited about gadgets, and I have to share
it. So, sorry, here it goes
For some reason that is not very important, I was looking for a better
solution for GPSes with maps.
Side-note: if you ask why Android is not good enough , here's the
story: last year, knowing that Google Maps supports caching (finally),
I upgraded Maps, preloaded London, and went on a trip. Only to exit
the Victoria underground station and to stare ~20 minutes in light
rain at my phone, wondering why it doesn't get a fix. I gave up in the
end, and used the cached maps for getting around. Later I learned the
reason: Maps was not broken, but without data, Android can't get a
lock easily; and more-over, the recent Maps update without GPS active
even once afterwards, to do whatever it needed, meant I couldn't get a
lock until back in Switzerland.
Or, alternatively: while on a trip to Japan, it turns out that Google
Maps caching is not supported there, probably because of rights over
mapping data. So I had location, but only temporary cached maps (from
the wifi in the hotels).
Due to this kind of problems makes I consider Android maps a toy, so I
wanted a GPS device with proper maps (on the device, not in the
cloud), and with good GPS capabilities (no fancy A-GPS or anything,
just plain good standalone GPS).
Having had good experiences with the sport line of Garmin (but which
doesn't have maps, so it's out of the question), I looked at
Garmin. Many people complained about some things (same all over the
place):
- newer devices less tested, software with lots of bugs
- dumbing down of devices, ultra-simplification of the UI
The latter is something that jumped at me from many of the blogs/fora
that I read; I like customisable power tools , not one-button mice.
The other thing that I didn't really like was that most devices are
very focused on a niche: the n vi line on automotive, the Zumo line
on motorbikes, and the hand-held lines with some blurring of
hiking/geocaching/etc. So no one-size fits all device
Features! Customisation!
That is, until I found out the Montana series. My my, I was
blown. Both by the price (I couldn't believe how expensive it was,
without maps!) and by the features.
As it turns out, the Montana has different profiles , and it can act:
- as a hand-held device for hiking/geocaching (yay!)
- as a bicycle-mounted device for biking through the woods (yay!)
- as a motorcycle-mounted device (hmmm )
- as a car-mounted device, for automotive use, including guidance,
both TTS and non-TTS voices, lane assist, speed limits, etc.
That is for flexibility. As for performance/features:
- it has a Transflective liquid crystal display screen,
so it works best (as opposed to worst) in bright sun, and of
course also works in the dark, via its back light
- the touchscreen is resistive, so glove-friendly: tested it with my
regular gloves on and with my biking gloves (which are very clumsy),
and it works like a charm
- it is water-proof (IPX7); that means I can keep it in the open in
the rain, and not worry about dropping it in the snow
- it has both a (replaceable) LiIon battery (many hours of runtime, >
10) and support for powering via 3 AA batteries (> 20 hours), which
coupled with some Eneloops is awesome
- GPS sync is awesome; from hard poweroff, it syncs in ~3 seconds I
would say (exited building, powered on, was already synced by the
time I entered the satellite menu); even in-house, it gets around 2
satellites, and sometimes manages to get a lock
Now for the downsides. Being a multi-functional device, it's not as
good as a dedicated one:
- for handheld use, it's a bit heavy; I personally don't mind, but
it's something that has to be said: ~300 g
- for motorcycle use, it's worse than the Zumo: no bluetooth
compatibility, so you can't have it talk to you in the helmet; but I
don't have a motorcycle, so
- for automotive use, it lacks many things compared to a
top-of-the-live n vi: no voice recognition, no junction view, no
birds-eye view, etc.; but I don't have a car, so
But the small (for me) draw-backs aside, it's definitely not a
dumbed-down device. It's the first device that I have which I feel it
a bit too customisable . From completely changeable menus, to
profiles that remember their maps selection, to many dashboards, to
almost-programmable shortcuts (e.g. a shortcut to change profile, set
destination to a given way point, reset the trip log, and turn track
logging on) a bit overwhelming at first. Add the 3-axis compass,
barometric altimeter,
ANT+ support and you get a very
powerful device.
Software
As to the software, yes it has some bugs - mainly that the device
crashes sometimes (abruptly) if you play too much with the routes
(didn't happen to me yet on the road , only when testing it at
home). On the PC-side, Garmin's BaseCamp is nice, but doesn't hold a
candle to Google Maps, for example, in terms of UI; I don't mean
shininess, but simply how well the UI works. The most annoying thing
is how it doesn't scale detail appropriately with the zoom level. But
it works, and I can plan hikes offline, and upload both tracks and
routes to it (this is important: it seems other recent Garmins can't
replay tracks, only routes). And I can load many maps, and toggle them
at will, etc.
The many maps feature is not to be overlooked. I could have, for
example, standard Garmin maps loaded, but just in case they're
insuficiently detailed or out of date (hey, Navteq is slow ), I can
also have
Open Street Maps from two days ago. The
routing is then done on the currently active maps, so you are not
restricted to a single mapping provider. And of course you can also
have custom POIs (
Point of interest) on it.
Bycicle use
The bicycle mount is solid enough, so that on a rough roads it's held
firmly. From my ~20 minute test this morning, a few things to note:
- it wanted me to take bigger paths, rather than the trails I like to
take; probably I haven't customised it well enough yet
- recalculating a route (when it realises you insist on taking another
path than it planned) is very fast
- whenever you approach a change-of-direction, it beeps (see below)
and turns on the back light (temporarily), so visibility is improved
- you can actually use the touchscreen with winter gloves (of course,
when stopped or at very very low speed)
Voice output
By default, the unit can only beep, but if coupled via a 3.5" jack to
headphones or via the automotive mount, it can properly speak; quality
varies with voice, and whether it is TTS or not. I managed to find one
voice (non-TTS) that sounds really well, but of course with less
information, and one TTS voice that sounds OK-ish but gives full
info. By full info , I mean the following: the behaviour of the
various TTS voices is not consistent. For example, on a simulated
route, various voices were saying the following:
- non-TTS: keep ahead (voice A), or keep-ahead, then keep right
(voice B)
- voice C, TTS: in 94 kilometers, exit right
- voice D, TTS: in 94 kilometers, take exit 14 on the right
- voice E, TTS: in 94 kilometers, take exit 14 on the right in the
direction Landquart, then keep right
I don't know why these differences, or if they are consistent across
routes. But I'll keep with voice E for now
Summary
So, sorry again for sounding like an ad (I don't have any relation
with Garmin the company), but I find this device awesome - powerful,
rugged, and working (so far) very well. I'm glad that there still
exist companies who don't believe they know better than their
customers, and instead offer you with a tool that you can make it work
just like you want. Or almost
Garmin's tag line: Big and Tough Goes anywhere, everywhere . I tend
to agree
here's the list of my contributions around release-critical bugs for the
last week:
Server management on daily basis in a growing environment could be a challenge. Most of the tasks is here done with 
Unfortunately this workflow is not scaling well for 200+ systems. I had a look into 
This will need more work since some of the sliders look a bit a awkward
now so any enhancements will be greatly appreciated. The docs for GTK3's
CSS are 
In fact, I like DPLs who don't like the idea of being a leader 
I am in some way flattered (en_FR?) that some people think that I should stand
as DPL candidate (
Soile, my beloved, is running a second Kickstarter campaign to
fund her first feature-length movie, Maria Eveliina.
This time, she and her producer are seeking funding to pay an
editor to do the final, professional cut of the movie. They've
found a professional editor who'd like to work on the project,
but need some payment.
The 
Playing the 
The undocumented telnet interface
The username and password for the web interface also allow telnet access to administer the router. The telnet interface actually has quite a lot of features, many more than the web interface.
The normal username is admin. If the admin password is not known it can be reset to 1234 using the factory reset button on the back of the router.
Silly question: when you use diff(1) to produce a file to be applied with patch(1), do you call the result a
diff or a patch? Do you name it 
Following the 
* Inspired by 
