what3words & Garmin Drive App

[simoncrewe]

Until recently I have been successfully using 'what3words' to find locations & send them to my XT via the Garmin Drive App.

Over the past few days, when I try to do this, I get an error message in the Drive App : 'location information not present in the link provided'.

Has anyone else come across this? I have sent a note to both Garmin & what3words, however, I think Garmin will show no interest as it is not their software.

Regards

Simon

[Stu]

Just had a look at mine and its doing the same thing

[simoncrewe]

Many thanks Stu, I assume when Garmin updated the Drive App recently they changed something, intentionally or by accident!

[Stu]

I'm not sure! as it could be what3words that could be causing the issue

[jfheath]

I never thought of sending what3words to Drive.

In W3W there are some settings, one of which is what format the Share option uses. I suspect that this may have changed, but I couldn't get any combination to work. I don't know whether this was always the case or not. I haven't updated either recently - although I do seem to have the latest version of each app.

But regardless of that, Drive is happy to accept ///what.three.words format when typed.

So when you have found the location in W3W, if you long press the ///what.three.words link at the top -

* The android phone copies that to the clipboard automatically
* My ipad pops up a copy button that you can press

In Garmin Drive, this can then be pasted and sent to the XT.

Not quite what you wanted, but it is a quick enough alternative to get the job done.

[FrankB]

My guess is that Garmin Drive has changed. If you try to 'share' a location from 'Google Maps' to Garmin Drive you will get the same error. I have no proof, but am quite certain that it has worked in the past.

The search function in Garmin Drive works. What more can you do in What3Words? Why do you prefer that?

[simoncrewe]

Thanks for your observation, It looks like Garmin Drive was updated on 15/11/23, maybe the functionality changed the. I find what3words very useful here in the UK, as post codes tend to cover very large areas & are not that precise.

I seem to remember Garmin did a similar thing a few years ago, when they removed the ability to use Google maps with Basecamp.

[lkraus]

I seem to remember Garmin did a similar thing a few years ago, when they removed the ability to use Google maps with Basecamp.

Garmin (and Furkot, and many other companies) dropped Google Maps when Google boosted the price for access to their API by several thousand percent. What had been nearly free became too costly to use, especially in programs which were free.

[bundanoonboy]

Hey guys,
I have been using what3words daily to send coordinates to my garmin 65 satnav. It always worked seamlessly until this month and now I have the same issue you mention.
My satnav needed update so I tried that but it didn't fix the issue, I contacted what3words and they say it must be a problem with Garmin. I contacted garmin, and get this, they say I must be imagining it because their devices have never worked with what3words!!!!

[simoncrewe]

Typical Garmin - it used to work perfectly!