Garmin GPS Features

Just bought my dad a Garmin and it comes loaded with POI (points of interests). Does anybody know if these POI include Home Depots?? I'm supposed to get it this Monday but was curious of it's features. It's a 260w BTW.

 

it does and if not you can just type it in

 

Wow. So, theoretically speaking, the GPS can tell me where any business is located? When it says preloaded does that mean it shows up on the map without requests for it's location?

 

When it's preloaded, it should already be programmed. But when it's not, you can type it in and it'll find the closest locations.

 

No...You have to ask for whatever you are looking for. It will show places you set as favorites on the map and that's about it. (At least that's how my 265WT works...) The preset POIs are a HUGE list- I've found all sorts of stuff with mine.

 

Just a tip, you can create your own POIs for whatever you want. One of the most useful in my opinion are the POIs for red light cameras as well as speed cameras/traps.

 

I am not sure about Garmin, but with my TomTom if I go online with the software with it I can download cuustom POI such as for example Tim Hortons here in Canada and as I drive along it will show a little Tim Hortons symbol on the map. I also downloaded Provincial Parks for going camping, great when you are going somewhere different or new.

 

You can create your own Garmin POI file. It is easy but a little time consuming. It is simply a comma separated text file you can create in Windows Notepad. Here is an example of a POI file:

-119.64721,36.25566,Hanford CA Visitor Lot,10652 Jackson Ave
-112.033625,43.514049,Idaho Falls ID Plant,1840 North Blvd
-122.039348,47.544237,Issaquah WA Sales,22530 SE 64th Place

There are 4 fields seperated with commas. The first two fields are the GPS coordinates. The third field is a description. The fourth field is the address. You enter one location per line. You can have as many locations in a POI file as you want. Whatever name you give the file will be the POI description on the Garmin.

If you have an address, you can find out the GPS coordinates using this website: http://www.gpsvisualizer.com/geocode

Hope that helps you...

 

The file is called CSV...
You can not find convered is if fine 0s2 file...

Pre-loaded means, the data is loaded on to the Memory card or hard drive.

Also Garmin onlt have 6 to 8 million POI's..

Home Depot may or may not, but 99% of the real streets address should be find able.

POI's are nice, but using the real address is better and faster in most cases....