Garmin Nuvi 660, 670, 760, 770 Tips and Tricks

This page contains a number of tips for enhancing your Garmin Nuvi 770. I'm a new 770 owner, and I had to do a bunch of digging to find this stuff -- it's not mentioned in the manual. Hopefully this collection of links is helpful. If you find any others you think I should include here, please send me mail (my address is listed at the bottom of the page). While this page is focused on the 770, many of the tips here should also work with the 660, 670, and 760 models.

Disclaimer: you assume all responsibility for the use of these instructions. I am not liable for any damage to your GPS or any consequences of following these instructions or any inaccuracies contained herein. If you are not comfortable with this, you should not proceed.

Copy a Google Maps Route to Your 770
	Create a route in Google Maps, then transfer it to your 770. [Instructions]
View the Tracks and Routes on Your 770 via a Web Page
	Use GPSVisualizer to show your routes, tracks, and other information via your web browser. [Instructions]
Load Additional Points of Interest (POIs) Created By Others
	Find tons of additional POIs created by others and load them onto your 770. [Instructions]
Add a POI from a Google Maps Business Location to your 770
	Find a business using Google Maps or MapQuest, then send its information to your 770. Garmin has a good video overview of this already, so here's the link to the blog entry with the video: [Link] Note: I think you have to have the Garmin Communicator Plug-In installed for this to work. You can get it here. And, your GPS will need to be attached to your PC via the USB cable, of course.
Use the Garmin Developer Kit to Explore Your 770
	developer.garmin.com has a bunch of ways to further interrogate your 770. You'll need the Garmin Communicator Plug-In for these examples: Hello Device, Send Waypoint, Read and Map Waypoints. For each of these examples, first visit the link, then find the 'Try It Out' link with your GPS connected to your PC. In addition to the Web-based APIs, they also have a C-based SDK for more in-depth application development.
Update the Software on Your 770
	You should do this occasionally. If you're a new Nuvi owner, you should definitely at least do it once when you get the unit. The latest version for the 770 is 2.90 [as of 10-May-2008], and it fixes a number of things. One of the main complaints about the 770 is the difficulty it has in acquiring satellites when you first turn it on; software versions 2.60 and newer fixed this problem, so you'll definitely want to update if you're on older software. 2.90 also fixed problems I was having importing routes from GPX files. [Link] Note: I also received a free upgrade to the 2009 maps (North America only) when I purchased my unit. You have to register your unit and create an account first. Once you've done that, you can go to the mapping updates page to see if you qualify. It's under construction right now, so they may be moving things around; you may have to poke around a bit to find it. These updates are normally not cheap, so look into this as soon as you get your unit. I'm running the 2009 NA maps and the 2008 Europe maps on my unit.
Other Links that Look Interesting
	GPSBabel - "Converts waypoints, tracks, and routes between popular GPS receivers and mapping programs" GPSUtility - "For managing, manipulating, and mapping GPS data" MotionBased - "Performance tracking with GPS." See the demo. MapMyRun - Mapping and planning runs. Can export as tracks in GPX, but they won't import on the 770. I may try converting them to routes using GPSUtility to see if that'll work. GPSReview - The final word in GPS reviews. See the review for the 760 (same as the 770 with no Europe maps). If you scroll to the end, there are hundreds of helpful comments.
Miscellany
	Garmin claims the 660 will support up to a 4GB SD card (and presumably for the 7xx as well, although they don't specifically say). At least one poster in this thread claims to be using an 8GB card. I'm using a 2GB card in my 770 with no problems. My 770 appears to have 4GB of internal memory. There's about 1GB free when you get the unit. You can't import GPX files from the SD card; they have to be on the unit's internal memory. You can create nested folders on the SD card and put music and pictures in there wherever you want; the unit will find them. Map updates (aside from the free update I mentioned above upon purchase) do not appear to be free. The Photo Viewer seems to do funky things with resized photos sometimes. They show up as a small image in the center of the screen, not maximized to one dimension of the screen as you would expect, even in slideshow mode. I'll update this if I figure it out.

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