Garmin GPSMAP 67

1 review for Garmin GPSMAP 67

1. 

   4 out of 5

   Ian S – July 19, 2023

   The context of this review is using the Garmin GPSMaps 67i on 13 walks of total 80 miles in the landscape of the Southern Uplands of Scotland in July. Many of the walks are near habitation, but tend to rise quickly over rugged high terrain with frequent areas following only feint tracks or unmarked peat/ bracken/ heather. Each of the walks has peaks of around 450-800m (1,500-2,500ft), and remote enough that incidents may require assistance/ rescue of some kind or other. More so as each walk was solo, though being July weather was favourable with just wind, rain and wet terrain being the main variables.

   The Garmin GPSMAP 67i contains impressive technology, but the Garmin user manual is inadequate. The online store’s additional getting-started sheets were therefore welcome. The inadequate user guide means that users, reviewers, advice-givers (and even Garmin technical support) promote different justifications, theories and processes for why the unit acts in certain ways, the terminologies used (routes, tracks, activities, and courses) and how each should be used. Garmin’s sprawling online help can be difficult to interpret and hard to assess whether it is relevant to your own device. The ease of set-up/ use wasn’t helped by a bug that crashed the device repeatedly when I was using Garmin’s ‘TOPO Active’ maps – if ‘more detail’ or ‘most detail’ was selected for course maps display, the unit would frequently crash and restart after pressing the MENU button. Since using instead the 1:25,000 OS Maps card (which also includes 1:50,000 maps), that error has not reoccurred.

   On my old Garmin Fenix watch I can select the option ‘Do course in reverse’. The 67i functions is much fussier. Most courses that are imported from Ordnance Survey’s OSMaps and other walking web sites/ apps cannot be hiked in reverse on the 67i (because they use ‘road’ data apparently even when off-road). Garmin Support say that this is to prevent one going down a one-way street the wrong way, yet the 67i is promoted as an outdoors activity device and hikers in reality are safely and easily able to go down one-way streets in a counter direction to traffic. Just daft. What makes this feel even more pointless is that Garmin Support gave me this risk-avoidance justification in the same email that they provided a TEN step guide for getting-around the ‘design feature’.

   My Garmin watch also intelligently identifies turns, and provides turn-by-turn alerts for courses. Whilst the 67i does provide alerts when one has departed the track of a course, it does not give the same turn-by-turn notifications for such courses. In national parks, OS and Garmin claim to have turn-by-turn directions, but I’ve not tested this. In other words, the satellite tracking feature of the base (TOPO Maps) 67i is the primary benefit over the Garmin Fenix watch. And there are growing options (Garmin and others) for satellite tracking and messaging if you already have such a watch.

   So to that satellite tracking… my satellite tracking (InReach) account tells me that it’s tracked around 80 miles of walks in its first three weeks, which has sent 155 ten-minute interval tracking points. As these are charged at 10p each on my Safety Plan and the month has another week to run (of say another 50 tracking-points), that’ll be about £20 to add to this month’s £12.99 base-cost of the plan. But this is peak walking season for me, and this minimum-level plan will still work-out at better value throughout the year than the more expensive Recreation Plan (double the price but unlimited tracking). In the first month, I’ve sent 27 ‘free’ check-in messages (a set of 3 preset messages such as “I’m fine”) and 1 free-text message (of 10 included in the plan). I’m hiking on the hills partially to escape such things, but if you are more indispensable than you’d be paying 50p per free-text message.

   Satellite tracking has been a brilliant reassurance after breaking an ankle on an easy walk last year where I was barely able to get a phone signal to someone to assist me off the hill to hospital. But what made the device worth more than other satellite tracking devices was adding in the Ordnance Survey maps card. I have a bug-bear about the auto-zoom switch from 1:50,000 to 1:25,000 and vice-versa (which cannot be altered) because it stays in 1:50,000 a click too long so that one sees 1:50,000 magnified rather than the 1:25,000 at roughly the size it’d be on an OS Map. This means that 1:25,000 maps are always magnified, and consequently one sees less map of the landscape. This can be important when trying to head to a distant wall boundary which is just not represented on the 1:50,000 map, but for the most part it’s OK. It’s worth that slight frustration to have the whole of these two scales of excellent UK-wide maps available on a robust device with mega-battery times.

   On that battery… yesterday’s four-hour hike was satellite-tracking at ten-minute intervals, with 3 satellite preset messages sent, following a course and then a ‘trac back’ to the start. The map screen was on OS Maps at mostly 1:25,000 scale displayed, and consulted perhaps 10 times at say a couple of minutes per instance with some zooming in and out to see the names of peaks, wall-breaks, check water-courses, etc. and paused for a lunch. It was set at 80% screen brightness and activity-tracking (internally as well as the 10-minute satellite tracking) set to ‘most frequent’. On returning to charge 5.5 hours after leaving home, the device reported a 76% battery level. That’s enough for me so I can afford to be that frivolous, but there are many options to minimise the battery usage. However, the advertised 180 hours (15 days of 12 hours each?) of satellite tracking seems enormously ambitious, though I’ve not tried. What’s been more of a concern to me is that the waterproof rating is listed as IPX7 which Garmin defines as “splashes, rain or snow, showering”, but only its next-level IPX6 includes “heavy spray” and “driving rain”. It’s that lack of “driving rain” in the GPSMap 67i’s waterproof rating that disturbs me hiking in the Scottish hills. Having said that, the unit has appeared to deal with extreme driving rain for at least an hour on one occasion (more than my boots did).

   Without the Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 maps add-on (which shows field boundaries, micro-bodies of water, fords, bog/ marsh, etc) I don’t consider that the device provides great value for a hiker over other satellite trackers. And it’s bulkier and heavier than the others. The device with just 1:50,000 maps add-on might be worth-it, but doesn’t provide enough identification of features on-the-ground for my local circumstances. Scotland’s responsible-right-of-access comes with an equal right to irresponsibly or accidentally wander into problematic territory, requiring the best map to avoid ‘a clear easy stretch’ turning into 1/2 metre of dark peat up both legs and forearms.

   When the GPSMap 67i is paired with 1:25,000 maps, it provides real benefit and reassurance… at a big price. I’m pleased to have my Garmin Fenix watch to do the nitty-gritty turn-by-turn stuff whilst the 67i gets on with the glamour of its sat-tracking, international rescue and OS Maps magic-in-a-box. On that note, the Fenix talks with the 67i so that satellite tracking can be activated from the watch, preset satellite messages can be sent and the satellite SOS can be initiated – but all of which can be done from the 67i itself.

   Which brings up the matter of the numerous Garmin apps residing (in my case) on iPhone. Between Garmin Connect, Garmin Explorer and Garmin Messenger (putting aside the Garmin IQ app that can help with updates), they each assist in different ways with course import, synchronisation of activities, and satellite messaging. I find Garmin Connect best for course import, and with activity synchronisation with other activity eco-systems like Strava and Apple Health. The Garmin Explorer app is annoyingly distinct from the Garmin Explorer web site, and feels overloaded with visual stuff as a default. Garmin Messenger’s main claim appears to be that it’ll try to send a message by your existing phone SMS connection before using a satellite message. For me, I like to know how a message has been sent since they are distinctly different on the receiver’s end, and if it goes by satellite then each and every reply from the recipient will rack up 50p against your satellite account. It all takes a bit of getting used to to work out what ‘workflow’ is best for the individual. If I wasn’t so afraid of the result, I’d advocate that Garmin take all their different legacy apps and web sites and begin again, incorporating the functionality into one app and site.

   I expected adding another Garmin device to what I already owned to be a bit like adding to Apple devices. For it to just appear; for it to function in a logically-similar way to the previous device from the same manufacturer, for it to use the same kind of terminologies, share the same technical under-pinning. Plug it in and get on with it? Not here. This is my third Garmin device but the activity watches and activity GPS/ satellite devices’ similarities end at the Garmin logo and black case. Expect the first days, if not weeks, of use to be about working out the discrepancies between the reductive basic user guide and what the watch actually does. About trying to work out in real-world application the difference between a course, a route, a track, an activity, one type of tracking vs another type. Then there’s routing – which can happen on a route, a course or a track. And which is different for each. When you ask for help or explanation, expect to be left with the feeling that the person responding is trying to explain the inexplicable. In short – just be prepared for contradictions and some frustration. I find owning the 67i can be perplexing at first. Be prepared to be told by Garmin that things which are plainly illogical (like being prevented from hiking down a one-way street in the opposite direction to vehicular traffic) are a ‘design feature’ rather than a bug/ error. Oh – and it’s a bit of a kerfuffle updating the Garmin TOPO maps because the device hasn’t enough memory to do it without either an additional memory card or having a desktop/ laptop with Garmin’s extra software.

   Behind these niggles, though, is a device that helps – with OS mapping – to reduce the potential for danger whilst hiking, and – with satellite comms – to reduce the potential severity of consequence. And all the while provides reassurance for those back home. That’s a heck of a bonus… and in the UK with OS Maps added is a heck of a price. The map bundle helps to mitigate that.

   My recommendation is to either buy the Garmin GPSMap 67i with OS Maps bundled *OR* buy a cheaper satellite tracker.

   I have to take off a star for the crashes on course maps and Garmin support’s assertion that reversing a course is unsafe even when activity is set to hiking – it’s a real inconvenience to halve the slots available by loading two versions of every course or performing a ten-step process on-the-hop. I had taken off another star for the UK price with better OS maps, but affordability is also about personal circumstances and choice. So, I settle on 4/5 stars for the Garmin GPSMap 67i bundled with the OS Maps card. The online store was prompt and helpful, and offered a support package at a price – the value of which I can’t comment as I didn’t take the option.