njkayaker

The newer Garmins can use your phone to make voice announcements. That is, they relay the turns to the phones and let the phone do the voice generation.This should let the phone run for much longer than doing everything on the phone. One reason the Garmins don't do this without the phone is because the computers in them are slow (another way to make them run longer).
I've never tried it.


There's no issue with car devices being large or running out of power.

The Garmin Edges are engineered for this use.

The screens they use are a special type called "transreflective", which allows them to be readable in sunlight without a backlight (which is the think that uses the most power). It's not perfect but it works reasonably well.

Tourist in MSN

That makes a lot of sense. As I mentioned above, I have my Garmin configured for maximum battery live (WAAS turned off, etc.) and the Garmin in my truck has a choice of dozens of languages, that might be a lot of power hungry computer power to do voice which certainly is convenient to someone in a car driving at freeway speeds, but not really needed for bicyclists.

Steve B.

Well, who knew !. I did look thru my 1030 manual, no mention of course. The Garmin manuals truly suck.

A thanks to NJKayaker for this little tidbit.

@OP, this means you can get voice prompts from a recent Garmin, and garmin has rally good navigation and maps so this might work for you. Only issue I can think of is I'd doubt the phone BT is going to be smart enough to do a simultaneous BT voice prompt to the phone at the same time you are trying to do a BT connection to a set of headphones, mostly as BT connections can be stupid this away, so you might need a set of cabled headphones.

sapporoguy

OP here. Thanks again, all. In my defense, I was aware of the smartphone angle. This sentence in my post appears to have gotten lost lower in the thread:

sapporoguy

That thought occurred to me. But I can run RWGPS in offline mode (GPS only) pretty much a full riding day on my iPhone 6s in airplane mode and low-battery mode with voice prompts. But I guess it isn't doing all the other stuff the Garmin would be doing.
Maybe I should stick to the iPhone and buy the 830 for my stoker!

Seattle Forrest

Sounds like it's Garmin to phone, and phone to earbuds. Your phone can do concurrent Bluetooth connections. I have my (Garmin) watch connected to my phone 24/7 and sometimes also use the phone to stream to BT speakers. Works fine. Never a hitch.

Steve B.

I have a set of BT headphones around, I'll try it next, but a big thanks to njkayaker for this link, I tried it on my 1030 and paired iPhone 8 with plugged in headphones when I got home, setup no problem, you just need to turn up the volume in the Garmin Connect App, but otherwise is a painless setup.

sapporoguy

Let us know what you find about battery life with this setup, for both the 1030 and the iPhone. And how seamless it is--or isn't. Thanks!

Seattle Forrest

How do you adjust volume for GCM? I didn't know you could do that. 🙂

Seattle Forrest

Agree, thanks @njkayaker!

Tourist in MSN

Oh, you did not explain that. With a stoker being your back seat driver to provide voice directions, you could use virtually any GPS without any extra hardware or software. <Insert chuckle here.>

Steve B.

In the GCM app for Device Settings, on the same screen where you enable/disable the assorted audio prompts, there's an Alert Volume button. It uses the phones Up/Down audio buttons to adjust.

Steve B.

Which begs the joke about the older gentleman riding solo down the road on a tandem, gets pulled over by a cop, who tells him his wife fell off the bike about a mile back. "Oh, thank God" the old fart says, "I thought I'd gone deaf".

sapporoguy

Ha! The way it works now, the stoker has the paper map. So I listen to the RWGPS lady telling me "In 1/4 mile, turn right." I repeat it out loud. Then the real-life lady with paper map says: "Oh she must mean turn at Olive Ave."

WheresWaldo

Hmm. The Garmin will actually display right turn on X street, so I don't see why you need another lady telling you there is a turn when your stoker can do exactly that. That is how my daughter and I ride, she will tell me that a right or left turn is coming up because the Garmin actually displays the needed information. No paper map needed.

Now if you are riding alone, that is a different story, but for tandem riding two computers or GPS devices are totally unnecessary.

urbanOrange

Another 830 user chiming in. I use and highly recommend Aftershokz Aeropex during rides. Once paired to a phone w/ Garmin Connect installed, with the alerts settings enabled, you can perfectly hear your surroundings plus the Garmin alerts, including voice navigation. These in no way physically cover/block your ears from hearing anything in your immediate environment. (They also sound pretty decent for music, although bass response will be less due to bone conduction tech. A fair trade-off IMHO when considering safety while riding.)

tunavic

Thank you for the recommendation. Does wearing them interfere with sunglasses and/or helmet?

urbanOrange

No problem. It hasn't for me. I wear glasses with a Bontrager Circuit MIPS helmet. Just to be safe, though, you may want to just swing by a retailer that sells them to ensure they work fine with your sunglasses. Aftershokz make a few other models you might want to test out as well. Aeropex is just the newest one.

You do have to make sure the headphones don't get caught in the helmet straps when taking them off, though. The first time I rode with them, I thought I had lost them after discovering they weren't still on my head after removing the helmet. Luckily, they just got caught in the straps when I pulled the helmet off. (That time, I believe, I put them on AFTER I put the helmet on. Now, I always put them on first, then the helmet. No issues with them inadvertently getting pulled off. ) The Aeropex are so light that I don't even notice them when they're not playing any audio.

Seattle Forrest

Thanks for this. I don't seem to have that page, oddly enough.

kaos joe

Told that one to my wife/ stoker IMMEDIATELY.

Steve B.

I think the device has to be powered on and connected to GCM for it to show up.

Seattle Forrest

The only Garmin computer I have is a watch, so it's always powered on and connected to the phone. But the feature set is close to an Edge, not identical. This must just be something you get and I don't.