Beeline GPS

[telstarbox]

Has anyone tried using a Beeline GPS? It pairs with your phone and simply shows an compass arrow pointing towards your destination rather than a full map.

Could be good for Audaxing if you just aim at the next control each time?

[fuaran]

Following a straight line can be fun, but not really that useful for on-road navigation in my experience. How often would you get stuck on dead-end roads, or roads that swing round in the opposite direction etc.

If you wanted, you can set most Garmins to just display an arrow in a straight line to the destination. You don't have to use a map or autorouting. Even something like a basic yellow Etrex would do this.

[Sea of vapours]

When I first had a hand held gps device, in 1994 or thereabouts. This used to be a game. i.e. someone puts a waypoint in and you navigate to it (driving) knowing only its distance and direction, using the big arrow and having no knowledge of final destination other than that contained within the gps device. The reason it was a good game is that road layouts, at least those in the UK, don't cooperate fully. You have to 'read' the land and assess the likelihood of a given road swinging in the right direction, how soon it might do that, consider whether it's a viable through route, etc. In other words, it's not exactly easy to interpret a direct route, but it's good fun. To be fair, it works very well where there are lots of roads and junctions; in the middle of large cities or metropolitan areas for example. Rather less efficient in rural areas, and the further north in the UK you go, broadly speaking, the more 'fun' it becomes.

[Kim]

No, but I used to own an eTrex (no '30' 'Vista' Legend' or anything else), and once had a go at trudging through fields with one of the original 1990s Garmin handhelds, back in the dark days of Selective Availability.  It's perfectly possible to navigate with a device like this, if you plot the waypoints carefully.  The hardest thing is big roundabouts with lots of exits.

As for following a bearing to a destination without a complex route, that's fun if you're geocaching or orienteering, SOP in a boat or aircraft, and a recipe for frustration if you try it on the road without the aid of a map.  It's better than being lost, though.

I'm not sure I see the appeal in a device that slaves to a mapping-capable GPS receiver (ie. a smartphone) and just gives you a  bearing display, when you can do that directly on the GPS receiver.

[MikeFromLFE]

Bumping this because this device now seems to support mapped tracks - as far as I can tell the thing will now import GPX files. There is a waypoint limit currently of 22, but (a) they claim to have a work-around coming soon, and (b) it seems to cope with 'unlimited' track points. I guessing it should work fine out of the box for routes without POIs.   https://ridebeeline.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/360020854794-Importing-a-GPX-File

Anyone using one?
Independent reviews are few & far between.

[Pharaoh]

I have a Beeline but have not used it yet. Was hoping to be able to plan a track on cycle.travel on my iPad when away. The problem I have found is that the track downloads as a text file, not GPX as on the website. This there anyway round this?
My Etrex is fine when I have preloaded tracks before I leave home but find it difficult to compose a new track using the garmin.

[Cudzoziemiec]

Are you saying that the route downloads from cycle.travel as a text file? If that's what's happening, you're probably accidentally downloading the turn by turn instructions rather than the gps with its somewhat old-skool "garmin with antenna" orange button.

[grams]

You can usually still hit the share button (rectangle + arrow) and open it in the appropriate app.

[Kim]

Are you saying that the route downloads from cycle.travel as a text file? If that's what's happening, you're probably accidentally downloading the turn by turn instructions rather than the gps with its somewhat old-skool "garmin with antenna" orange button.

Or someone's got their MIME types in a muddle.  application/gpx+xml is a bit obscure, and some systems will treat arbitrary XML as a text file rather than application/octet-stream.  Typically that means that your browser displays the contents of the GPX file as text, rather than offering to save it somewhere.

Working around this would be an iThing question, but the equivalent of right-click-save-as ought to work.

[Pharaoh]

This is only a problem on the iPad, not the online version.

If I try to share, it is only the png image that is shared but I can’t work out how to add  Beeline to the few favourite apps.

[grams]

Download the file on the iPad, open the downloaded file so it shows the XML as text and click the share button on that screen.

(I'm assuming the Beeline app supports opening files this way. I don't use it specifically)

[Pharaoh]

Thanks folks. Now done it! Not sure how!! I had to go into safari which was I was not anticipating! Now to wok out what I did.