Basecamp Zumo XT compatibility

[danham]

Good advice so far from forum experts. I'd just add that Garmin has been making "not compatible" noises about Basecamp for some years now. They said it about my old zumo 660 and other than a few quirks it worked fine. It works even better with my XT.

I think that a better phrase would be not 100% compatible. The 660 doesn't know about the use of shaping points and via points in a route. It used Via points, but they are not as we now know them. So the 660 and Basecamp are not compatible in that repsect.

The XT is designed to use the Explore app for route planning and employs the use of collections, and there are new routing profiles - Adventure levels 1-4, which Basecamp cannot provide. So yes - BC and the XT are not 100% compatible. But the XT will still accept gpx files created on Basecamp and other route planning software - and if it receives things that it doesn't understand, it has default settings of Motorcycle and Faster. And on the whole, BC routes work very well.

There are a couple of things to take care of to avoid the failure of a route in certain circumstances (RUT, changed route point names, and disappearing route points). But these are easy fixes. BC is still the software that I use for the XT1 and XT2.


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Anyone reading the above and wanting the detailed information of these issues - see the link below and the following pages.

app.php/ZXT-P100

Thanks for clarifying the fine points. What I should have said instead of "compatible" is that BC is capable of planning long, complex, fun motorcycle routes to use on a 660 despite Garmin making the blanket statement that it is incompatible. In the same general sense, BC is suitable for similar use with an XT.

-dan

[Rofor]

@jfheath - your answer completely makes sense! For sure my thought was so that your post is meant in exact this way and i just want to verify that!

I only was talking about it, because especially in the german spoken forums i always read about 'using the Explore app with the Garmin Zumo XT' which is not quite right as the Explore app isn't meant to be used directly(!) with the Zumo XT and the people mostly are surprised when i direct them to the page of the Explore app on the Garmin Germany site, which stated that the Zumo XT is not compatible with it!

Often the people try to use the Garmin Explore app and are astonished why it doesn't work (synchronize), when the Garmin Drive(!) app not is loaded and connected to the Zumo XT - when using/working with Garmin Explore, it's important to know that and sadly this is another point, which Garmin has missed to describe enough!

You can use the Garmin Explore app, but it is always necessary to have Garmin Drive app installed and connected to the Zumo XT. The data-flow is always 'Explore app or Explore Web -> Drive App -> Zumo XT' and vice versa...