NEW GARMIN DEZL 780 & 785

Like I said b4, I returned my dezl 785 and never looked back. I stay with Rand Mcnally 740

 

I was going east on 24 towards nooga the other day and at Manchester mine just up and said interstate closed, rerouting. I went up Monteagle the hard way. Found out nothing was wrong but the Garmin. Called and they told me they get traffic from "Here". I was so pissed.

 

To be fair, google maps showed plenty road or freeway on-ramp closure that turned out to be wrong. I don’t think I can return google or apple maps.

 

Then you should know that to get live traffic, it uses Bluetooth with Smart Link app. You can safely turn off hotspot or WiFi.

 

I told you in an earlier post never to trust the Garmin traffic it receives through WiFi or Bluetooth, without question. You have to cross check with google. 8 out of 10 times it’s reporting false or out dated information. I figured this out the first day I bought it in Ohio. It’s a real weakness in the garmin presently but has great potential once they work out the bugs.

What happens in many cases is it interprets a lane closure as a road closure.

It’s more localized data it pull from FM traffic is more reliable but only for nearby issues.

Also as I pointed out in earlier post. Turn off the option to automatically reroute.

 

It's paired with my phone. I don't use the satellite cord. What traffic does Google use?

 

Google uses a blend of sources from what I can gather. I’m not sure what garmin uses via their Smartlink App but it sucks whatever it is.

The smartlink app will look far ahead into your route into bad, outdated, misreported, mis-inputted data and assume it’s correct now and will be 3 hours later when you’re projected to arrive at a given “problem spot”.

Whatever garmin is using to gather and translate construction zone and road incident information, it must be different than what Google uses because Google rarely gets it wrong.

But again I’ll state for the record. If garmin can get the traffic and incident aspect right, and leveraging real-time data via internet, they will have a promising device. But if they don’t correct it soon, they may as well get out of the automotive GPS game and let RM and possibly Tom-Tom have it all.

 

I have zero faith in being re-routed now. I don't trust it at all. Especially in Atlanta.

 

I bought the 785 and took it back. Got the 780 and bought a separate dash cam with it. Seems to be a lot better that way.