garmin zumo xt?

[Hammertime]

I have zero interest in mp3, streaming, satellite radio, etc.. My last experience with garmin traffic (quite a while ago) was that it was a feature in name only and almost useless. That could obviously have improved. Interface, screen visibility and waze are what I need (for now, waze will get passed at some point).

I use the Drive app to select my next destination. The device continues it's connection with my phone to get traffic updates. I find it very accurate. I found the weather radar helpful too, I wish it was a one-button push to open though.

 

[mixedup]

I’ve got the XT. Prior to that I had the 596 (and another model prior to that). The music streaming on the XT frustrates me. There is no wired option for headphones (hey, it’s the modern world!). The downside is that streaming from your phone to the Zumo and then your comms is buggy. The solution apparently is to put your music directly on the Zumo or on an SD card. Which is great, unless you have a ton of music (I do….that’s my thing…music and motorcycles!). Regardless of the SD card size it will only fit 5000 songs. I tried to dump 5000 on there and couldn’t get it to read the SD properly. Still looking for a solution, but forgot about it because it’s not riding season.

Other than that, as others said, it’s amazing. The screen is gorgeous, it can be operated in landscape or portrait mode, it’s fast, I love the traffic/weather, etc.

 

[shanekingsley]

I’ve got the XT. Prior to that I had the 596 (and another model prior to that). The music streaming on the XT frustrates me. There is no wired option for headphones (hey, it’s the modern world!). The downside is that streaming from your phone to the Zumo and then your comms is buggy. The solution apparently is to put your music directly on the Zumo or on an SD card. Which is great, unless you have a ton of music (I do….that’s my thing…music and motorcycles!). Regardless of the SD card size it will only fit 5000 songs. I tried to dump 5000 on there and couldn’t get it to read the SD properly. Still looking for a solution, but forgot about it because it’s not riding season.

Other than that, as others said, it’s amazing. The screen is gorgeous, it can be operated in landscape or portrait mode, it’s fast, I love the traffic/weather, etc.

I have the 590 and have a ton of music, although mine are generally 1-4hr dj mixed sets instead of individual songs. I bluetooth from my phone direct to the helmet comms (pactalk bold) for music. I bluetooth from the 590 to the comms only for alerts like traffic jams and school zones - all other 590 sounds are off including turn by turn directions. This way the 590 is the priority and the music is secondary, but I get very few interruptions in my music with the turn by turn off.

Not sure if that is something that could work for you.

 

[KenC]

What's the deal with real-time-traffic with the Garmin ? additional $ ? (it needs to fetch data from somewhere).
I currently use the TomTom app on my phone, a lot of people hate on it, but for what it is (and cheap $30 p/yr) it does an OK job, but I'm floating the idea getting of something more dedicated and robust.

 

[Wingboy]

What's the deal with real-time-traffic with the Garmin ? additional $ ? (it needs to fetch data from somewhere).
I currently use the TomTom app on my phone, a lot of people hate on it, but for what it is (and cheap $30 p/yr) it does an OK job, but I'm floating the idea getting of something more dedicated and robust.

Data from your cell via Bluetooth. The biggest advantage of the xt imho is the large bright display and the speed of the processor. Map redraws are lightning fast.I put mine thru torrential rain last summer and dropped it a few times.
Editing routes is super simple. No need for basecamp.

 

[GreyGhost]

Data from your cell via Bluetooth. The biggest advantage of the xt imho is the large bright display and the speed of the processor. Map redraws are lightning fast.I put mine thru torrential rain last summer and dropped it a few times.
Editing routes is super simple. No need for basecamp.

I'm glad they went back to the drawing board on traffic. Their old solution with the antenna didnt use any data but for all intents and purposes, it also didnt provide traffic data it was marketing only. You could see the list of traffic issues it knew about and it was never more than 10 issues in the entire province.

 

[regder]

I love traffic on my 595. It’s not quite as good as waze, but it’s not far off. I have had it give me traffic alerts for accidents that obviously just happened.

My assumption is they use the same service for their big rig gps’s and they obviously need reliable traffic updates.

EDIT: Also the weather addon which I want to say is included with the traffic is a lifesaver. It’s a little glitchy, sometimes failing to load information, but overall is so convenient when you want to know if you’re going to hit a thunderstorm head on or bypass it, as well as how far away you are from riding out of it.

 

[STARSHIP]

I don't have a tft screen I ordered one from Ali express for ***** and giggles. Maybe my next bike will have tft.

Sent from the future

Several are available but look like they are all similar C5 unit but marketed under several brands.

One potential niggle is that depending how you connect your headset and phone to the unit, you may not have a seamless transition between using the device and being able to use your Cardo/Sena intercom with your riding buddies without switching the audio output between headset or device and not certain how easy this is done while riding.

Regardless, My Garmin Zumo is getting tired and I am also tempted to order one as I would only connect to the Cardo when riding in a group making the intercom available.

Furthermore, iust upgraded my iphone and was planning to keep the old iphone8 as my "Bike phone" but this C5 device may actually offer a better solution.

Ideally Garmin would offer an XT with integrated Carplay.

See the 2 options for connecting your phone and headset.

XPlay C5 Pro Motorcycle 5 inch Wireless Android Auto Apple Carplay

MAXCA XPlay C5 Pro 5 inch Wireless Android Auto Apple Carplay Screen For Motorcycle Navigator Monitor

www.maxcauto.com

 

[Scuba Steve]

So I received my AliExpress android auto/ carplay device. have to say actually pretty impressive pairs easily and connected to my phone and headphones. Haven't tried it on the bike but it seems like a winner.

Sent from the future

 

[Baggsy]

One thing I noticed early with the XT is that the glass has a mirror like finish, especially when angled between the Sun and your eyes.
I got a matte screen protector for it which cuts that down.

 

[mixedup]

One thing I noticed early with the XT is that the glass has a mirror like finish, especially when angled between the Sun and your eyes.
I got a matte screen protector for it which cuts that down.

Also on my “to buy” list!

 

[mixedup]

For those who are paranoid about dropping their XT, I bought a nice 3D printed “bumper” that also came with a cover for the mount. Grabbed it on Etsy.

 

[STARSHIP]

So I received my AliExpress android auto/ carplay device. have to say actually pretty impressive pairs easily and connected to my phone and headphones. Haven't tried it on the bike but it seems like a winner.

Sent from the future

Looks good and will likely get one as well to keep my new iPhone off the handlebars. Have seen several positive reports on ADV Rider.

Next time you’re near it, would it be possible to confirm if the the attached ball mount bracket is the normal Amps pattern? Looks very much so.



This way I can get an adapter plate for my BMW Navi cradle.

 

[Dunc]

Not sure the size of 5000 songs but you can put a big card in the XT, you just need to use an external program to format it in FAT32 first. Windows has a limit for formatting FAT32 but you can exceed it with these programs, Sandisk has one.

 

[Lightcycle]

Not sure the size of 5000 songs but you can put a big card in the XT, you just need to use an external program to format it in FAT32 first. Windows has a limit for formatting FAT32 but you can exceed it with these programs, Sandisk has one.

Even if you rip the mp3s at the highest bit rate, you're probably not going to be over 20MB per song. At that bitrate, you can easily fit 5,000 songs in 1 GB, but you'll typically be ripping at 128 kb/sec, so your songs will be between 3-5MB. You could probably fit 50,000 songs in 1 GB.

Pretty hard to find anything smaller than 32GB SD cards these days.

The extra space on the SD card is more useful for additional maps.

 

[Baggsy]

Had mine setup wrong last year I think. Every time I left the house the phone would connect to Spotify as per its programming, and the music would blast through the Cardo JBL speakers with no volume control. I manage to turn it off, but then couldn't get it on properly. The additional complication is that things were also connected to the bike's system, which I was hoping would run it all. I finally found that the volume control was on the phone which was in a charger box under the seat. My uncle made a career at IBM getting systems to talk to each other, looks like it's my turn in this minor area. That will be my task for this year. Having three devices: phone, bike, gps that want to be the master, can be a pain.

 

[Lightcycle]

I feel your pain. I have multiple interfaces that all want to control playback and volume: bike's TFT, GPS, comms or phone.

I just bypassed them all and have the phone go direct to the comms, which controls playback and volume. Easiest and most trouble-free.

I read up that there IS a way you can tie in more than 3 systems, but there is a very specific connection order everytime you start up.

Yeah... No.

I want to spend more time riding than farking around with electronics.

 

[Baggsy]

I feel your pain. I have multiple interfaces that all want to control playback and volume: bike's TFT, GPS, comms or phone.

I just bypassed them all and have the phone go direct to the comms, which controls playback and volume. Easiest and most trouble-free.

I read up that there IS a way you can tie in more than 3 systems, but there is a very specific connection order everytime you start up.

Yeah... No.

I want to spend more time riding than farking around with electronics.

I tried the "built in" GPS. Basically TFT talks to your phone through a Triumph app, and puts arrows on your display.
Warnings in the manual state that there may be slight lag, which could cause confusion as to where exactly to turn.
(imagine two streets very close together, or onramps in opposite directions).

I like the Zumo display and the ability to change stuff without messing around with the phone, which may be under the seat charging, better.

 

[Jayell]

... But the best feature of the XT is the fast draw and refresh. On the 395, if you scrolled through the map, it would take forever to redraw the new sections - depending on how detailed your map is. With the XT, screen updates are super-fast.

If you're used to how fast your smartphone is, do not settle for an older generation GPS. The slow re-draw will drive you crazy.

Yep, this is surely the biggest short coming of the 396, as well. Agonizingly slow re-draw. Very frustrating and painful. Otherwise, the 396 does the job. The XT sure looks tasty, though.