compass or equivalent for navigating to waypoint
Gaia on ios meets NEARLY all of my needs as a nav solution.
However, I still find myself using alternatives for one task: navigating to a waypoint.
The activities here are a) walking through the woods/desert, on and off trail, and b) sailing
The "guide me" feature of Gaia is not adequate. I need to be able to glance at the screen, and rotate the phone until it is pointing at my waypoint, as quick and easy as possible. As it is now, I have to eyeball when the "me" triangle lines up with the "guide me" line, which is an un-satisfyingly coarse accuracy.
What I'm looking for would be something equivalent to the "compass" screen on a garmin, or the "compass" screen on MotionXGPS. Basically, a compass rose with an arrow where I'm pointing, and an arrow where the waypoint is located, and in one glance I can see the relative direction of the waypoint and angle to it, then I can rotate my phone/body until I'm lined up with the waypoint, and off I go.
Not sure the best way to implement that on Gaia. There might be a nifty way to use arrows overlaid on the map somehow, in order to avoid an entirely separate compass screen. Or a bearing line that projects out of the "me" triangle on the screen, so that it can be more accurately lined up with the "guide me" line.
As it is, the compass indicator is next to useless, as it doesn't provide a numerical readout but rather a very rough estimate, and it's challenging to calculate a more accurate bearing using the unlabelled minor ticks in between labelled bearings. And doing math with a "course" towards the waypoint vs a "heading" that I'm currently pointing is clunky and slow. I don't want to constantly be doing math while bushwhacking, I just want to look down and have a visual indicator of how far off my heading is from my desired course.
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I searched for this topic specifically because I wanted to find out how I could navigate to a waypoint using Gaia, with a compass pointing me toward that waypoint - i.e., what I am used to doing with my Garmin Oregon handheld GPS unit. I am so disappointed to learn that it cannot be done. I totally agree, the "trial and error" approach in the field - absent a clear and reliable "pointer" - is frustrating. One time on a hike in confusing terrain I needed to navigate back to my car in dense fog. I had no sense of direction in the fog. The compass feature on the Garmin Oregon made the task relatively easy - I could see that my car was "that-a-way" and could keep checking as necessary as I got closer. If Gaia doesn't come up with a similar feature, I might decide the Garmin Oregon is a better system after all.
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Hi all,
I just wanted to pop in and address these concerns about navigating to a waypoint.
Thank you for your suggestions on how Gaia GPS could improve its navigation features.
At the moment, this is the best option I can suggest:- Use Guide Me
- with Course Mode
Guide Me displays the distance between you and the destination waypoint and connects the two points with a red line.
Course Mode keeps the arrow icon pointed up and rotates the map, mirroring what you see on the ground.
Using the two features together allows you to navigate easily with a quick glance at the screen.
Keep the red line pointing up to stay on course to your destination:
If anybody needs any additional assistance, please click the 'Help' button in the bottom corner. -
Another issue. As I understand it. ‘Guide me’ provides a bearing based on true north. But I want a bearing in mag north. I am kayaking and want a compass bearing that I can use for my deck compass. Don’t want to leave Gaia open and screen on, kills the battery and hard to read in direct sunlight anyway. So I just want a mag bearing then I turn Gaia back on later to check bearing. I do not want to have to do the declination calc in my head....
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Navigating to a waypoint is a very frequent need while driving offroad in the desert.
Guide me feature combined with Course mode is perfect and it was working perfectly also in Apple Carplay. Unfortunately, since some time the pointing line is not visible anymore in Carplay: any fix for this regression bug?
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