30. Configuring System Settings

Figure 107: Configuration Main Page

At any time, you can restore the nuvi to all its original settings by tapping on "Restore" from this page. You can also restore individual settings by tapping on restore on the individual page.

Figure 108: Changing the Map Settings

Tapping on Map from the System Settings page bring up the Map settings page shown above.

Map Detail allows you to configure more or less map detail. More detail will make map redraws take longer. I found this also varied greatly on your location. For example, on a small country road, setting more or less detail made no difference. In downtown Boston, however, setting to maximum detail slowed things down a bit. I ended up leaving this on its default setting.

Map View allows you to change the perspective of the map from 3D to 2D. In 2D mode, you can also set whether you want the map to show North at the top, or "Track Up", which shows your direction at the top.

Map Outlines allows you to view supplemental maps, if you've loaded any onto the nuvi.

Map Info displays the currently installed map software version.

Figure 109: System Settings

WAAS / EGNOS - I was confused when I saw that by default WAAS ships in the Off mode. I did some research, and found out that WAAS stands for Wide Area Augmentation System. Basically WAAS is a system of satellites and ground stations that provide GPS signal corrections, giving you even better position accuracy. How much better? Try an average of up to five times better. A WAAS-capable receiver can give you a position accuracy of better than three meters (10 feet) 95 percent of the time. You don't have to purchase additional receiving equipment or pay any service fees to utilize WAAS.

WAAS consists of approximately 25 ground reference stations positioned across the United States that monitor GPS satellite data. Two master stations, located on either coast, collect data from the reference stations and create a GPS correction message. This correction accounts for GPS satellite orbit and clock drift, plus signal delays caused by the atmosphere and ionosphere. The corrected differential message is then broadcast through one of two geostationary satellites (satellites with a fixed position over the equator). The information is compatible with the basic GPS signal structure, which means any WAAS-enabled GPS receiver can read the signal.

WAAS made a lot more sense before the SiRF III chipset, when GPS receivers were much less sensitive/accurate. With SiRF III, WAAS is a waste of time since the SiRF III is much more sensitive and accurate than WAAS. You save power consumption when you don't use the WAAS feature while on battery mode, so now it makes sense why Garmin ships the unit with WAAS mode disabled. What doesn't make sense is why Garmin even includes WAAS, since the on-board SiRF receiver is better than WAAS. I guess WAAS doesn't add much cost to the unit and people are familiar with the feature, so Garmin includes it. I'm against including anything just for the sake of adding more useless features. Garmin should consider dropping the WAAS support, since it's not necessary.

At any rate, you're safe leaving WAAS disabled.

Safe Mode prevents you from operating the nuvi when the vehicle is in motion. This safety feature is designed to prevent a driver from becoming distracted by the GPS and causing an accident. I find that many times I need to use the GPS while driving, so I like to set Safe Mode to Off.

Garmin Lock was already discussed previously. This feature allows you to set a 4 digit pin code that must be entered each time the nuvi is powered on. Alternatively, if you forget the PIN code, you can drive to the specific "Safe" location (usually your home address) and the unit will unlock without the PIN code. Since I doubt most thieves are familiar with the Garmin Lock feature, I leave this feature disabled. Instead, I advise taking the nuvi out of the dash when leaving the car. Plus, if my nuvi does get stolen, the very last thing I want is crooks showing up at my home to unlock the device!

Touch Tones turns on or off the tone that plays whenever you touch the screen.

Simulator Mode allows you to have the nuvi operate in simulation mode. Useful if you want to plan a trip and want to see what route the nuvi will take you, or compare the nuvi's routing results with an online engine, like MapQuest.

Figure 110: Setting Locale Preferences

These are pretty self explanatory. You can set text and voice language, time format preference, and miles or kilometers.

Figure 111: Changing the Display Settings

Color Mode allows you to set whether the nuvi 680 should use the daytime screen colors and brightness, nighttime, or automatically switch between the two. Naturally I left this set to Auto. I noticed that day/night switching is based on time of day rather than actual ambient brightness level. I don't know how much cost it would add to have an external light sensor control the daytime/nighttime screen mode, but it would be preferable. Many times I noticed that although it was definitely dark enough outside to warrant nighttime screen brightness/colors, the nuvi continued in daytime mode until it was officially "sunset" time.

Backlight Timout might be useful if you're using the nuvi on battery instead of the 12v adapter. You can adjust how long the backlighting remains on when running on battery instead of 12v adapter. In my testing I didn't change this setting.

Touch Screen is a mechanism for recalibrating the display. If you notice that the unit thinks your pressing on a different button than you intended, you may need to re calibrate the screen. I didn't need to re calibrate, but it's nice to have the ability to do so.

Splash Screen allows you to change the image that's briefly displayed when you power on the nuvi. The nuvi can use any image saved on its internal memory or SD card.

Screenshot enabled you to capture what's being displayed on the nuvi and save it off to your computer. Although this was quite useful for this review, I'm not sure how handy this is for normal day-to-day operation (other than perhaps emailing a screenshot of your trip computer or showing your top speed of 130MPH to your roommates).