Pimp your Nuvi
Remember when I promised no more posts on the topic of Nuvi? Well, I lied. The reason for this post: to demonstrate how to customize and extend your Nuvi. Getting over it? Good!
The Garmin website has a number of vehicle models available for download to replace the dull, default arrow. Available vehicles may be found here. The process is simple. First, download the vehicles you want, or the entire pack. Be warned that the entire vehicle pack requires a fair bit of internal storage. Connect the unit, browse to the internal memory and create a folder with the name vehicle inside the folder Garmin. Copy the vehicle files into there and done.
From the menu on the GPS, go to Settings, then Map. Press the Change button for Vehicle.
Choose a chariot.
With the right vehicle selected, the next topic is that of points of interest. These are easy to create oneself. But it’s a lot easier if a ready-made collection of useful POI‘s is available for download. Thanks to a group of dedicated POI gatherers, registered users on the Garmap website may download weekly updates to traffic, toll and safety hazards. The installation is not as complex as it seems at first. If you are registered on the Garmap website, download links for the files may be found here. As instructions are included in the download, I’ll skip that part. To update the GPS unit with the new POI data, get the latest version of the POILoader from the Garmin website.
The most important: police activity – slow down!
This being ZA, what would we do without signboards indicating hijacking hot spots and GPS units informing us of dangerous locations.
and finally, toll road information. Driving ain’t free, you know.
These customizations should keep you busy for a while and will probably ensure you have your GPS on all the time.
